NZAU Day 6 Pureora & the Timber Trail

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A hearty cup of coffee, yogurt, cereal and some more lively discussions, goodbyes and thanks to Marin and John, and we were off to Pureora and the Timber Trail. A quick stop in town to get a tarp for a tent footprint, and we headed out. A little drizzle started falling just a few miles outside of Otorohanga, and soon was a steady rain.

Fortunately, it was fairly warm so no rain jackets yet. The first 20 miles were relatively flat, but the last 36 were up. And up. And up. No terrible grades or anything, just continuing up. We had a nice lunch break at Bennydale (the only English named town in the area) at a picnic area with exceptionally clean public toilets! We dined on bagged salad and Woolworth’s seafood salad. Dana pointed out to me that I mentioned Walgreens in a previous post, but it was in fact, Woolworths. I may correct that post, but probably not. 😉

The rest of the day varied from light rain to heavy downpours, with almost complete dry offs in between. We finally arrived at Pureora at 4:30 in the afternoon (we left at 9:30). Dana took a bad line on a wooden bridge and fell pretty violently. I got her up, and washed off the mud from her legs, and she raised her shorts to show a crescent shaped cut on her thigh, surrounded by a number of other cuts. I pulled out the first aid kit, washed the wounds with water and then an alcohol wipe, and put an “Advanced Healing” patch on the big one and Neosporin on the others. In true “Timex” girl fashion, she said she was OK and we picked up Large Marge and replaced the scattered panniers, checked out Marge as much as we could, and headed to the Timber Trail trail head. As the sun was waning and not cutting through the thick foliage anyway, we donned our raincoats and hit the trail.

The early parts of the Timber Trail were pretty muddy from the rain, and eventually changed to a crushed gravel. After 30 miles of climbing, we were nigh on exhausted, but we managed 8 km of the 20 we had hoped to make. We stopped at a shelter hut, not meant for camping, but we weren’t in the mood to follow rules, and there was nobody else around. As a bonus, it was also one of the very few spots where cell service was available. I checked in by text with my children, letting them know we might be incommunicado for a couple of days, and proceeded to set up “camp.” The hut had two benches on the sides and a 4′ x 6′ dirt floor in between. Since rain was expected, we each took a bench to sleep on, and put the bikes in between us. I scarfed two bolts from the hut siding (I replaced them in the morning!), and made a makeshift “door” out of our tarp. Cozy and warm-ish for us and the mosquitoes who buzzed around all night. We both used our sleeping bag liners to cover our heads and escaped the night bite free. Wasn’t a completely restful night, but we got a good rest to prepare for the rest of the trail tomorrow.