20km Day :  20km Total
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I caught the tour bus to Cape Reinga (approximately pronounced re-inga) at 8:30 a.m.  It took us up 90 Mile Beach in the pouring rain, which thankfully stopped before we reached the end of the beach.  At Te Paki stream it turned upstream and followed it between the dunes stopping at the largest dune to allow anyone who wished, to go sand surfing.  I declined because I didn’t want to get covered in wet sand and risk injury only 30min before I officially started the hike.
I had the obligatory photo of myself taken at the lighthouse and then went down to the start of the trail.   It was almost exactly noon when I started.  After 5km I met Tony and Chris who had stopped for lunch and are also thru hiking Te Araroa.  This was right after the first stream crossing which was swollen from the morning rains.  So we managed to soak our feet only one hour into the hike. 
Soon after stopping for a brief chat with Tony and Chris I ran into a section that required care to avoid losing the trail.  At this point I was glad that this morning I read Kirstine’s blog post for the first 3days of her hike.  In this section she recommended looking for and finding the next marker before leaving the one you are at.  They are not always in the direction you expect.  Kirstine started the hike 6 days before me and she is keeping a great blog. 
I arrived at Twilight Camp at 3pm and decided to push on because I was feeling good and it was turning out to be a beautiful afternoon for hiking.  So after topping off my water, a change of socks, an OSM bar, and two bites of a Snickers bar I was off again.  I’m camping in the dunes just south of Te Paki stream for the night.

Cape Reinga