Day 4. Rain. Rest.

I awoke to some extremely stiff legs and of course more rain. I'm lucky I didn't spend the night in my tent. The winds from the tasman sea are so strong that I'm quite positive it would have blown my shelter away.

I made breakfast, finished drying my gear and decided I would make the walk to Ninety Mile beach holiday park, 17km south. While packing my bag to leave I noticed a faint blackness coming in from the sea. I watched it grow closer, and darker until I realised that its probably safer to take a rest day here in the shelter and push tomorrow. Gabriel checked the for cast for me and it looks like sun and clouds for the next few days, but after that it said rain and thunderstorms. That means that my next section(6-8 days) through the four forests would be heavy rain and thunder. Gabriel gave me Peter Griffiths number, a lodge owner who arranges pickups after the Herokino forest section, and I got to ask him about the track. He told me after all this rain the track will be extremely muddy, probably knee to thigh high muddy, so prepare for a messy hike.

I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Gabriel move some large pieces of wood and chasing wild horses off her property. I didn't feel too good about the second one, but she said they were bad.

I'll give Peter another call once I reach Ahipara. With all this rain the forest sections will be extremely dangerous. The thought has crossed my mind to skip the tracks and find and alterative route to Kerikeri.