Live from Wellington

Hello everybody!
I'm live from Wellington right now.  Walked into the city yesterday afternoon, and have six more miles to walk until I've "officially" finished the north island section of Te Araroa.  Exciting stuff.  Since Palmerston North, I've walked with Arne and Philipp.  Philipp is 6'7" and came to New Zealand with absolutely no intentions of anything.  He realized that Germans have basically invaded the country on working holidays and decided to do something totally different from the rest of his country's tourists when he found out about the Te Araroa.  He's quite skinny and after the Tararuas, the three of us stayed with a trail angel, the first Kiwi to hike the entire Appalachain Trail, and we had the chance to weight ourselves.

I was down to 174 pounds after a giant meal.
Philipp lost 16 pounds and was quite distraught.
Arne somehow gained 5 pounds.

Since then I've decided to add enough room to my budget as to be able to eat as much as possible in an effort to put on a few pounds of fat to better survive the much more isolated and rugged South Island section of this trail.  There will be a lot less towns.

Here is a food list that I came up with for myself for the upcoming 7-10 day section on the famed 'Richmond Range,' theoretically the most isolated and tough section of the Te Araroa.

Peanut Butter: 875 grams
Choc/Nutella Spread: 400g
Cheese: 700-900g
Salami x2: 600g
Tuna/Sardines/Mackeralx5: 500g
Wholegrain Rice: 1500g
Chocolate Bars x4: 1000g
Muesli (granola) Bars: 420 g
Muesli Cereal: 1200g
Dried Nuts: 250 g
Dried Fruit: 250g
Onionsx3: 350g
Bread Product :800g
Hot sauce/Soy Sauce: 100g

This comes out to 18 to 20 pounds of food I intend to carry.  There won't be any towns for supplemental food and I really don't want to be super hungry.  Appetite is quite large at this point, but I think I'm getting back up near 180lb after the last few days of eating heaps and heaps of food.

The Tararua Range was actually closer to 10,000ft of elevation gain/loss a day.  We didn't even traverse the largest section of the range and it was the most up/downs I've ever done in such a short distance.  50km  or so in 3 days from Levin to Otaki Forks and we had 2 hot and blue sky days and one extremely windy/cloudy day.  The third day started with 3.5 miles of alpine walking up and over 4,500 ft. Mt. Crawford in wind conditions that required my ski mittens and all of us being relatively large male humans (this ensured we didn't get blown off the ridge into the abyss/gorges below).  After that, the next 14km of the day were also quite tiring because after lunch we were all out of food and the going was tough!I'm going to go to McDonalds next door to post pictures of the section.  Easily my favorite hiking of the Te Araroa so far.  We were out of food when we got to Otaki Forks, so I called Beni, the former AT thru-hiker, because his name and number are in my 'track notes,' and he came and picked us up and we camped out in his yard and got a huge dinner and breakfast and he showed us his photos of he and his brother Luigi's 1981 AT hike.
You could hear in his voice that the adventure was one of the prides of his life.  He was more than happy to be an amazing trail angel and drove us to the store and then back to the trail late the next morning.  Philipp's knee is bothering him, so he took the train straight to Wellington in order to rest and try to gain some weight back for the South Island.  Arne and I walked together the last four days which included a day in the woods, some road walking, some beach walking, some coastal path walking and then a cool windy ridgewalk just before entering the city yesterday from Colonial Knob to Mt. Kaukau and then into the city.  Wellington is full of some of the steepest streets I can imagine, much like San Francisco apparently.
Spent last night having a couple excellent Belgian beers (Arne insisted and who were Philipp and I not to oblige?) and then a few more beers in the harbour in the later evening + some cheeseburgers.  Feels good to have completed this crazy hike on the North Island (I'm going to officially finish it this afternoon/evening). I now need to make sure I can extend my Visa, I should be able to figure this out, and then it's on to the South Island! Hope all is well with everyone reading this, and thanks for following me, it's awesome to be supported from back home. Nick