Day 9. Raetea forest.

I was very spoiled on my mid section walk between Herokino and Raetea. I was planning on taking a full day of road walking to reach Raetea from the finish of the Herokino, but Peter and his family were kind enough to drop me off at the trail start after spending the night with them.

After being dropped off it was another hours walking through roads that haven't been driven on for some time before I would reach the Raetea forest trail start. As I walked these roads I came to a property that was covered in Tibetan prayer flags. A glimpse from my time in Nepal's Upper Mustang region came rushing back to my memory. I remember asking Tulsi - my Himilayan guide - what the colours of the flags meant. He told me "the white represents the clouds and water, the blue represents space, the red represents sun and its energy, the green represents wind, and the yellow represents the earth. Without one of these, none can continue to exist."

I am not here to get away, but instead to bring together. I believe I can make a difference for somebody else who I know needs it. I have the privilege and opportunity to be able to help, and that is more than reason enough to help. This walk is for The Juniper Fund, and to bring support and awareness to those living in Nepal's Himalayas. Please check out my fundraising page is you have not yet www.gogetfunding.com/erics-walk-across-new-zealand/

I was told to expect steed climbs and steep decents on the Raetea. The summit clocked in at 756 metres, one of the highest points in the north island. After that there was a decent to another 550 metre high point as well as a 650 metre high point. I was told that it was 11 hours before I would reach the other side of the forest. I guess I better get going.

The track started with a hard climb for 2 and and a half hours. My steps were slow and my breath was heavy. I missed my violent walking stick that caused me so much damage the day before. The track was indeed much harder than the Herokino. The track was pretty hard to follow as you can see in the pictures I took. Since Raetea was elevated so high up it was constantly pulling in storms from the Pacific and the tasman sea, which were both visable from its peak. This meant that the rain caused an incredible amount of overgrowth that hid the trail, Including fallen over trees defeated by the storm. On several instances I was crawling through shattered tree trunks, and in some cases having to pull my pack off completely to fit it though the small spaces. I would walk with my head down looking for the faint tracks in the mud, and when I would briefly look up it would be to scout where the next trail marker was (the orange triangles). At times I felt as though I wasn't following a path, but tracking down someone's steps looking for disturbed bush or turned mud. Oh yea, the mud. Raetea was much more muddy than the Herokino. The jungle had frequent quick mud, areas that looked hard but would sucks your boots into a muddy abyss. By the time I had reached the 756 metre summit I was rewarded with a spectacular view of the entire northland. I could see everything. A euphoric reward.

The day continued in this fashion. I was originally planning on camping somewhere in the forest, but I couldn't find a place to put my tent for the life of me. One thing to note about Raetea is that since you're so high up there is no running streams, meaning no place to resupply your water. I had to ration my 2 litres of water, worried I wouldn't be able to find a water source by the time the sun set.

Eventually I made it to the end of the Raetea forest where I followed a 4WD track to a farmers property where the TA continued. Cows and pigs ran at the sight of me. I eventually found a running stream and some even ground. The floor was a bit muddy but nothing too bad. I quickly set up camp and gathered water before the sun set. I was in my tent reading my book by 7:00 pm, and by 7:30 pm it was raining. The rain continued until the next morning.

At one point in the night I awoke to a horse eating the long grass located closely beside my tent. I considered trying to scare the animal away, but realized that he was no harm. After all it was nice to have some company.