Hakarimata

 

Hakarimata September 2023

23 September 2023

27.38km, 1192m elevation, 4:12 duration

https://www.strava.com/activities/9901613365/overview

The Day

I drove me, Barnaby and Neville out past Huntly to Hakarimata.

The day was rainy but reasonably warm.

We started running up (and up and up) from the Parker Rd carpark, and detoured past the huge Kauri.

The track here is well formed gravel with lots of stairs to climb.

We went through a lovely Kauri Grove a bit further on, and then the trail looped back to the left and we headed off into the Hakarimata Ridge track. This was pretty gnarly and rooty and quite slow going.

Nev had refused to believe my comments about the trail and estimated difficulty level, and had come in road shoes, which were rather inappropriate. However Nev's innate good balance seemed to let him overcome the lack of footing grip and he crashed along without any issues. Me and Barnaby generally trailing along behind, trying to keep up.

We stopped at the various lookouts for 'views'. But the day was drizzly and cloudy.

We finally got to the high point, the huge wooden lookout, where other people had also arrived (via the easy route!)

Nev had not come with much water. Fortunately 'Barnaby the Pizza Porter' had merely sipped a few drops of his water and had plenty to spare. It is good to clarify people's assigned roles prior to the Munter :)

From here it was a long downhill (millions of steps) to the rail trail at sea (river) level.

The 1 minute detour to the Cascades Waterfall was nice.

We ran back along the road and decided not to head back up past the other waterfall and back along the ridge as originally planned, due to excessive fatigue and a desire not to extend the run by 2+ hours!

Barnaby's knee was troubling him a bit, and it was a long slog for all of us along the never-ending road (14km) back to the car.

A good hard day out!