Day 9 Saddle Road Camp - Mangamuka

Distance Walked: 28 Km (Distance is approximate due to SH1 bypass)

Date 14 Oct 2022

Hitched 14Km

Trail Covered: 160Km

Weather: Bright & sunny

Note: To day we got our introduction to Mud & a Stream Crossing. I was quite successful at avoiding both, ending up on my ass & getting my feet wet.

The Hand was making sure that there was nothing untoward going on before we departed.

Just as I thought that we had seen the last sign of life for a while we came across this Commune.

Just for a change a little up hill with a dash of mud, not so bad.

Add a little rain to make it challenging! Have a look at the back ground.

One of the many rock slides that we were to see during the day.

After 8.5km we turned left and marched into Broadwood and was treated by this fellow, there is some great history behind this, please see the next picture..

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After a quick stop and the mandatory can of “V” we were again back on trail.

The next 5 hours were spent Road Walking in the on and off Rain, this is the worst sort of weather, pack off, rain coat on and then pack on again, the rain wasn’t so bad so I decided to stick with rain gear off. A lot of the trampers stuck their thumb out for this stretch because it was dangerous, however because of the amount of rock slides and slips all of the vehicles were going at reduced speeds

Even though the weather wasn’t that great the rolling hills did make for pleasant walking

As we approached the end of the road walk, we came upon Mangamuka River which was nice to finish a long day.

Just one of those funny things that happen, Astrid (Dutch Tramper) said she thought that the purple flower coming up would look good in a picture, I said I thought that they were Bananas, if you look close you can see some Bananas just above the purple bulb (Rhizome) I guess you had to be there.

Today was quite exhausting and unfortunately that’s when I miss the best shots. This is the back off the Mangamuka Community building come Radio Station as you can see we travel in small groups and come back together in the evening and not always in the same group.

the white Cat in the picture was very persistent as you can see. What I did miss was the Mangamuka Deli who sell the best Cheese Burgers, all I could consume when I got there was a bottle of soda.

If you could imagine crawling out of bed at 0300 and walking 200 mtrs across 2 main roads just to go to the Loo. The 2 poles in the top / middle of this shot are our Long Drops.

The Hand can always be found in the Kitchen at parties

At the end of the day we were the only group to Road walk the whole way.

I have to say that I have a new found respect for those people that I followed, you will see in the days ahead why!

Safe travels everyone.

Good Night