PALMERSTON NORTH – WHANGANUI

Section Distance = 107 km

Total Distance = 278.5 km

This section was mostly town hopping Palmerston North – Fielding – Bulls – Koitiata – Whanganui, exchanging the forest for farmlands. 

PALMERSTON NORTH – FIELDING

Road walking is hard on the feet and I wasn’t looking forward to this long road walk section but it was broken by cutting through some farmland and the occasional cemetery…

I replaced the Tararua mud with cow poo 😅

I also had plenty of curious locals along the way (the sheep would move away but the cows would follow me along the fenceline).

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FIELDING – BULLS

Fielding to Bulls was all road walking but Bulls welcomed me with an incredi-bull range of puns strewn throughout the tiny town…

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BULLS – KOITIATA

Bulls to Koitiata got me off the backroads and back on the beach! Beautiful black sand and lined with huge logs washed up along the shoreline. I saw a fur seal cruising in the breakers and got distracted by beach finds.

The hardest part of this section was that the tide was high so I had soft sand to sink into with every step (sorry legs)

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Upon reaching Koitiata I decided my feet needed a rest day and TA kaitiake Rob and George came and picked me up so I could rest up in Whanganui instead of sitting in my tent in a packed Labor weekend campground. They gave me a lovely tour of the town, taking me to see the street art, glass blowing workshop and a providing history lesson about the town and its Maori heritage. 

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KOITIATA – WHANGANUI

The Koitiata to Whanganui section I was able to slack pack (leave the big trail pack and just hike with a day pack instead) which I was very grateful for as it was another 30+km of road walking…

The weather forecast was for rain 🌧 but I ended up with my warmest day on trail so far ☀️.

This was great except I had left my sunscreen in my main pack and got so excited about a sunny day that I unzipped my hiking pants into shorts. Long story short aloe vera was added to the resupply list 🤦‍♀️ very annoyed at myself!

I treated my legs to the elevator from Durie Hill to the Whanganui City Bridge instead of taking the stairs.

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This was a challenging section for me, not so much in terms of technical difficulty (I didn’t have to climb any mountains or cross any rivers) but mentally with the long days on the hard road surface dodging cars and cattle trucks.

Still with me? 

See Te Araroa Part 4 Whanganui – National Park Village for more!