A Boxing Day bush walk, best friends and bruises.

On boxing day I asked my family what they would like to do, all 5 unanimously agreed they wanted to go to the beach. This is extremely common in my house hold as I live with surfers, body boarders & general beach bums! I however, felt like getting away from the crowds and into the bush (forest) and so with enough adults going to the beach to supervise my kids, I text my friend and 30 minutes later we were heading out into the hills for a bush walk, this time to Aongatete to do the long loop track with an estimated time of ~3 hours return.

The sun was out, but due to large amount of rain we’ve had lately it meant the bush track was a bit soggy in places, but the air temperature was soothingly cool. It was such a fun walk, we yakked the whole way (as you do with good friends) we fell over in the mud (both have scrapes and bruises), took lots of photos, waded through small rivers, had a picnic, walked up one river to find a waterfall, then bush bashed our way back up the hillside and back to the track (we are both experienced navigators). It was such a great day walk/adventure and we both got to walk a completely new track.