Day 33: Mt William to Mercer (21km, 6 hours)

There's always time for education. For instance, I learnt two things in my tent last night:

1. How to reply to blog comments. Apparently if you are a mobile user using Safari, you have to go to Settings, Safari app, turn 'prevent cross-site tracking' to OFF. If you've also been having problems adding a comment, try that.

2. Why it’s not a good idea to pitch a tent on exposed stony ground. At 2am this morning the wind really picked up, and it rained steadily for several hours. The wind pulled up several tent pegs, so the tent's rain cover didn't maintain an air gap with the inner tent, allowing the driving rain to start soaking through. I managed to shift things around to avoid getting too damp - but, lesson learned!

After that.I did manage to get some sleep - but was woken just before 6am by a farmer in a ute who had driven up the other side of the hill, where there was a steep gravel road. He just waved, didn’t seem to have a problem with me being there. 

After packing up my damp tent, I was off at 6.30am

It was misty and threatening to drizzle for the first hour. I walked over farmland to the highest point of the Mt William walk - after that the route descended another hour down lots of stairs through bush on the other side. 

The trig point at the top of Mt William. Time for breakfast. Note the level horizon - great camera work.

Going down, through bush. One of the rare parts that wasn’t steps.

I'd been conserving water because of the stopover last night, and was running low. I passed a small fertiliser warehouse and asked if they could fill my water bottle - a friendly guy took me to their smoko room and gave me the good stuff (ie. cold and filtered). Much appreciated!

Next was verge hopping along SH2 for 6km, dodging the streams of traffic heading to the Coromandel. 

A quiet moment on SH2. Mostly it was never-ending streams of holiday traffic.

Maybe I could just go to Tauranga and visit Helen instead…

OK, I think this is telling me I need to climb the fence and go back underneath the highway.

Finally I turned off SH2, back onto farmland. The next section followed the Mangatawhiri stream for a couple of hours. 

10am pic: following the orange triangles along a ridge. Farmland on the left, stream on the right.

The Mangatawhiri stream. A couple of swans were  paddling along keeping me company.

Eventually the farm and stream ended, and the last section was a gravel road leading into Mercer. Or so I thought. Approaching the highway into Mercer, there was an orange triangle pointing into a bush trail, which followed directly alongside the highway for the last couple of kilometres into Mercer.

Nice - but where is it going?

Where? Oh, under the highway again.

Yes, this is actually a track. I couldn’t see it either. Very overgrown.

The locals had put up a sign to welcome me.

…and another. Oh please, you shouldn’t have!

I arrived at my destination early, at about 12:30. Mercer Motel has seen better days. It’s very run down, more a trailer park with a few deserted motel rooms and a couple of cabins. There are no staff on site, so it took me 30 minutes of phoning to get the right passcode to access my key from the security box.

Mercer Motel - my cabin is far left.

Actually my cabin is rather cute. A fridge, kettle, microwave, and a very comfy bed. Beats camping!

Time for a beer while waiting for them to sort out my cabin key. I’m sharing the pub with a dozen well-behaved Headhunters.

After a shower, shave, laundry, and a late lunch (a quarter-pounder combo from nearby McDonalds), I was feeling human again!

My first view of the Waikato River, opposite the motel.

The motel is right next to the Mercer service centre - petrol station, Irish pub and restaurant, McDonalds, cafe and mini mart - so there is enough there for me to find food and stock up for tomorrow. 

But, I’m eyeing up the bed already. It’ll be an early night for me!

Today’s route.