Mat met us at our hotel at 7:30AM, and (with his permission) we invited our new friend along: Yohan. We all hopped into his new Nissan Dualis and drove out to Mokoroa Falls for a 2.5 hour "tramp" (tracks here). The whole walk was in pretty deep forest, and much of it (time-wise) was spent doing river crossings across the stream there. The crossings varied from a suspension bridge, to tip-toeing across in our boots, to wading through with our trousers rolled up, to taking our trousers off because it was at least thigh deep. We even got to see a 1m long eel in the river (they're not harmful).
Unfortunately, I lost my good sunglasses on this walk. I guess that's not surprising as it took a lot of effort not to fall along this very challenging (and muddy) trail.
On our way back to the city, Mat took us to a brewery/restaurant for a beer/cider. Then he dropped us back at the hotel in lots of time for him to get to his meeting. Yohan and Kate/I went to our respective hotels and rested for the afternoon. We got together again at 5:30PM, out front of our hotel. Yohan was there, and when Mat and Jillian appeared, we all walked up to Food Truck Garage for dinner.
We got to know Mat and Jillian a bit better over dinner. Then we parted ways and the three of us walked another kilometre or so to Joy Ice Cream for cones. We walked a bit more, but decided to say goodbye to Yohan and call it a night.
Kate and I watched Captain Fantastic before bed. A little too Hollywood for us, but it had some good messages. I also sent out yahoo and thank you emails regarding my lost-but-now-found GoPro: the good folks at Trail Journeys emailed to say that they found my camera!
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