Days 6-9 | km 197-250 | Spiritual Home Time (& a cheeky Ultra)

I woke the following morning at my friends Mel & Jerome’s and hobbled into their kitchen with what can only be described as a GIANT kankle! It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t red or bruised nor had I grown a 6th toe, it was just BIG! The oooonly thing I could put it down too was a very minor slip going down Raetea in the mud that was the kind of twinge you don’t even wince at nor care to even look down. Maybe it was that followed by another 20km of running with a 10Kg pack on, who knows but it was a big momma! My day mainly involved mulling over Mel & Jerome’s epic tea draw. At least I could entertain myself with thoughts of Mel charging into Puketi forest to help save me from what she thought must of been me attempting to describe a stalker ‘male, black & White, skinny yet well behaved’ - My first text stating that I had found a dog hadn’t gone though at this point…I did wonder afterwards what stalker is described by the stalkee as ‘well-behaved’?! I think Mel missed that bit too in her panic to get to me hehehe.

Friends to the rescue, by the end of the day I’d tubigriped it, taken some meds and had a trip to the black Sulphur hot springs of Ngawha. Here you feel like you’ve walked onto the set of the Flintstones, with its caveman looks but its absolutely the best experience. Each pool is named & with different temperatures, as you’ll see below, with some raising to such high temperatures - namely ‘The Doctor’ at 48*C - they have to close for the night!

A Cheeky sports massage from the fab Paul at Bodyworks and a shift over to Jess and Chris’ (funny- if I had needed to press the SOS button on my Garmin due to the ‘stalker’ it would be these guys coming to my rescue with the rest of the LandSAR team) I feel set to take on the next leg of the TA. Puketi - Waitangi, seeing as I could now actually put my shoe on again and my ankle wasn’t painful I pulled of a swift 53Km day - which included too much girl talk with other female TAer’s resulting in 2 wrong turns and a stop by my ‘spiritual home’ and fav trail running track of Rainbow Falls….

I ground to a slow halt in the last 5Km through Waitangi Forest with the return of the KANKLE! - Ok so now I’m thinking overuse and i need to chill my beans for a few days. The weather looked terrible to attempt a Paihia - Waikare Kayak with winds gusting 40 knots so another enforced rest day.

Today I connected the trail dots with an easy walk from Mt Bledisloe to Waitangi Treaty Grounds for a generous dose of New Zealand history & culture with a guided tour. I had wonderful views across to the ‘Hell hole of the Pacific’ - now more commonly known as Russel and anything but a hell hole!