Day 12: Mangamuka- Omahuta Puketi forest track.

We woke up in Lizzy's back yard, and all 5 of us departed together. Many times today I found myself regarding with wonder the group we have found. An old Australin Air force vet, a Danish floor sweeper, a German physical therapist, a Kiwi Math student, and an American wilderness guide all hiking together in Nz, most of us incredibly far from home, and all from different backgrounds in different places in our lives getting along and working together through great challenges to achieve the same goal, and we'd found each other all within a week. It's really something wonderful that I think we all realize. I have found things in each of these people that5 I really admire, and i think and hope that they have found some things in me as well. I hope that I can continue to learn from them, and I am grateful for their company for more than just someone to talk to on the trail.

Today was my favourite hiking day yet by far. After a long but fast 18k through roads in farmland where w were briefly joined by a lost dog, we were dumped off the road into the Mangapukahukahuka stream. We walked through the stream for 3km, and high, steep jungle mountains framed the crystal clear water for its entirety. The stream itself had swimming pool after swimming pool, some up to 10 ft deep, and all of which you could see clear through to the bottom. Some even had their own small beaches lined with palm trees and ferns on the banks. The Mangapukahukahuka met with the much less fun sounding and slightly more murky and larger Wairare river which we followed up for 3k to our freedom campsite next to a nice pool. Sadly by the time we got to camp, the rain had began so we didn't use the pool that was available to us. We spread out our tents taking up the whole freedom camp, shared some dinners and headed to bed looking forward to the forest track in the morning. Sorry for the lack of photos today, the wading through rivers all day made me hide my phone deep in my pack in plastic, you'll just have to fly out to NZ and see the stream for yourself!