-35.187583, 173.26456
20 km Day : 121 km Total
This morning I saw Chris and Tony at Ahipara before I left.  I had last seen them on Day 1. They were taking a day off from hiking today, but I’m sure I’ll see them down the track again at some point.
Today started with walking 8km on roads to get to the start of the forest track. The Herekino Forest track was very muddy with steep hills.  The first 5km of this track took me 3.5 hours to complete.  It is very slippery clay, so on the downhill sections I needed to be very careful not to end up sliding down the hill as if I was skiing it.  The trekking poles came in very handy for keeping balance when one of my feet would slide.  I’m sure you can imagine how difficult it makes uphill slopes as well.  There were many close calls for falling full on into the mud, but I managed to keep on my feet somehow.  A low mileage day due to the conditions.
I’m camping on top of Mount Taumatamahoe.  Just East of the summit there is a small, flat, dry clearing, enough for about 3 small tents.  This is a jewel of a spot because there are very few places in Herekino that are dry, flat or clear.  To find all of these qualities in the same place felt almost miraculous as I approached exhaustion after slogging through mud, up and down hills all day.
An hour after I settled in, a German hiker named Fabi stopped to camp as well.  We commiserated for a while about the difficulty of this track, when Fabi commented on how much more difficult it would be if it were raining too. (nearly impassible).