After staying in Warkworth for 4 days and Auckland for another 3 days, I am back in Sydney.  My shins still have a dull ache but  are no longer painful to the touch.  It will take some time to get them back into hiking shape, as putting any stress on them is still painful, and just pointing my toes creates sharp pain in my shins.  I have gotten to the point where I can (slowly) walk about a kilometre without significant pain, so a least I am mobile now.  But I will stay off of my feet as much as possible for the next couple of weeks.

The plan now is to wait until January to return to New Zealand to continue the hike.  But it will depend on how quickly my legs recover.  With this much time off of the trail it is clear that I will not be able to complete a pure thru-hike, so I will need to revise my hiking plans.  I’ve got a few weeks to think about it, but I will probably become some variation of a section hiker.  An option I’m considering is to skip ahead to hike the South Island, but as I said, I’ve got some time to think about it, so my plans are not yet set in stone.