Leg 7 Aratiatia Station to Tauhara Station

Distance 14.3km
Height Gained 240m, Height Lost -180m

This leg was all done at night in the wee small hours of Sunday morning. While Gaewyn & myself had done this leg during the Training weekend back in February, and knew what lay ahead of us we had not counted on being so tired. We left Checkpoint 6 at 2.00am crossing over Byfords pumice quarry to Broadlands Road. A short 50m road section and then back on farmland towards the Power Lines where we would start to climb upwards. There was a long line of green glowsticks ahead of us from other teams slowly plodding their way onwards through the night. At one stage I turned to check on the other 3 team members to find hundreds of blue eyes looking at me - sheep in the paddock next door. It seems sheep don't sleep at night - they stand and watch Trailwalkers!

At the Powerlines it was a 1.5km climb towards the saddle that would take us to the highest point of this leg. At the top it was quite amazing to turn around and look back and see all the glowsticks from the other teams slowly moving along. At the top over the fence and around the corner for a downhill run on the gravel Te Pari Rd. (These 2 pictures were taken on the training walk)
First obstacle was a large hole which had been dug right across the road to prevent vehicles on this road. As we progressed slowly downhill there were two more obstacles in the form of fallen pinetrees to cross through. Next year I must remember to bring the chainsaw. They really could do with clearing these trees as I felt they were quite dangerous to crossover - especially in the middle of the night. I nearly ended up in a blackberry bush while I struggled over these trees at some ridiculous hour of the morning. At the bottom of the hill was a Aid Station with water & a ambulance. We rested here while we had a drink and a bite to eat. I found a 1 day old Peanut Butter sandwich in the bottom of my pack - at 3:30am in the morning it was really quite yummy.

At this point we turned onto Tucks Track - we were now heading back to Taupo. But towards the end of Tucks Track, one of our team, Alanna, began to feel very unwell. At first it was a visit to the pinetrees with diarrhoea, but within another 100m she started vomiting. Now, this was a big problem for us. This whole area was outside cellphone coverage - we were on our own. We had two options open to us, turn back towards the ambulance (1.5km away) but there was no support crew access and there was already another trailwalker in the ambulance. If we did this we knew we would be leaving her on her own until dawn at least before they could get her out. The other option was to continue onwards as at the top of the hill I knew we could get cellphone coverage and get our support crew to pick her up on the side of the Napier Road (2.5km away). Alanna made the decision for us - get her to our support crew, as there was husband Mark and Alan's wife, Lynn, who is nurse who could look after her. I took her backpack & walking poles. Gaewyn put her arm around her for support and on she continued. We called our support crew as we emerged onto farmland and asked them to meet us "at the first driveway on the Left approx 1km past Mountain Rd". (Try finding that at 4am in the morning). To make it even more difficult where the farmhouse driveway joined the road there was no cellphone coverage, but they saw our headlamps and drove up to meet us. We bundled Alanna in the 4x4 - knowing she was in loving, capable hands.

Gaewyn & I jumped back over the fence and rejoined the trail. At this point it was a DOC track alongside the Napier Road. When we had done the training walk in February it was quite overgrown. It was nice to see that they had been in with a slasher and cleared the trail. Points should be awarded to the person who arranged this. Crossing over Mountain Rd, it was back onto farmland before dropping down into a gully. A clamber up the embankment to find Alan waiting to greet us, through the underpass to Checkpoint 7 at Landcorp, Tauhara Station arriving around 6:00am on Sunday morning.

At the support truck, Alanna was fast asleep on the couch. The support crew told us she was already feeling much better. She had been checked out by the St. John Ambulance - all she had managed to do was spike her Blood Sugar level. Myself I was suffering with diarrhoea and I was also feeling quite nauseous. Breakfast for me consisted of a slice of dry bread and a Banana. For the next leg I asked the crew to fill my camelpack with water rather than powerade. Louise massaged the feet for the very last time. Bruce was running around asking if he could get us anything for the final leg - so I asked for a cup of tea. And it was a great cuppa too.