It's been 2 weeks since I finished walking. I'm melding back into normal life, so I figure it's time for a bit of a wash-up.
I'd like to begin by thanking all those who helped me along the way, starting with all who read and posted on my blog or Facebook along the way. I kept the blog mainly for myself, so I'd have something to look back on my adventure in years to come. However it certainly helped with the motivation at the end of a long, tiring day knowing there were so many people enjoying the posts. Having started reading back over them, I apologize for the readability of many of them. I can only blame my phone, which likes to butcher nearly anything I write... and perhaps occasionally an end of day, frazzled brain.
To Geoff Chapple for having the vision and the drive to get his baby off the ground and turned from a dream into a real life thing. One of the greatest living New Zealanders.
To the Te Araroa Trust and all the hard work you do maintaining access ways and maintaining the trail infrastructure. You guys are awesome.
To Barry and Jeanette for hooking me up with a satellite phone. It was a burden off my mind to send that text at the end of each day so Karen knew I was OK. Equally the occasional call home when I was really missing home, and the odd call to get weather/river updates before exposed sections or large river crossings made my walk much, much easier. Thankyou!
To Jakob for faithfully updating my position from the sat phone to Facebook every day. You never missed a day! Great job!
Thanks to Stephen and Eli for walking the 'Caleb' section between Te Anau and Queenstown with me. Walk on with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone.
To Hamish, Janine, Saskia and Tarras for the wonderful surprise along the Greenstone Track, then putting up with us/me in your home, the pickup in Arrowtown, then the walk into Macetown. True trail angels! I hope your car is back to its former glory.
My Aunty Colleen came grabbed me from Lake Middleton, giving me a night with luxury, pizza and beer in Twizel rather than a tent and a dehydrated meal, then delivered me back to the lake next day, before a ride home to surprise Jakob for his birthday. I don't have a favourite kid, but am I allowed to have a favourite aunty?
Mum and dad were amazing, dropping me off to trail heads during the week after time off track when I was close to Canterbury, and walking parts of those first day's back on trail with me. While planning out the walk the logistics through Canterbury were rather daunting; you made them easy!
To Andrew for letting me stay in your stunning holiday home in St Arnaud. I'm almost disappointed the weather didn't pack in for longer - I could have enjoyed those views for weeks.
To the Pelorous Bridge Cafe/campground for putting me up in that cool little room so I didn't have to use my tent when the weather was so miserable. See you next summer... and probably every summer!
To all the TA walkers I met along the way. Almost to a fault you couldn't hope to meet a more interesting, jovial, alive cross section of humanity. Especially to the Kiwozzi super(skinny)man Neil. I went into this fully expecting to walk the island on my own, but I have to say I really enjoyed walking more than half of it with you, almost certainly more than if I'd been solo for weeks on end. Look me up if you're ever looking for more adventures in this part of the world.
And of course to Jakob and Elijah and especially Karen. Apart from the pickups/dropoffs, not only did you allow me to go do this hugely disruptive thing for our family, you actively encouraged and enabled me to do it. Without the buy-in from all three of you to do it I just couldn't have gone. Husbands and wives shouldn't ever owe each other anything - that's not the way to build a foundation for a stable, life long marriage. I realize that sounds a bit self serving given I've just spent the best part of 3 months away from home doing my own thing, but it's true for all that. Nevertheless at some level I will always be indebted to Karen for the way she has supported and encouraged me through this adventure.
I've fielded lots of questions about what my walking plans are for the future. In my mind this was the adventure of a life time, not to be repeated, at least not on the same scale. I will continue with my normal tramping of course. I was up Mt Thomas today, and this weekend Karen, Jakob and I are heading into Magdalen Hut on the St James Walkaway. We are also in the process of booking the Milford Track for later this year. It will be the first time I'll have been on the track with Karen, which is hard to believe given how much we both love Fiordland. <edit, it was fully booked out within a day, the Milford will have to wait until 2019>. In terms of longer walks, I have no immediate plans. I may do a longer one every year or two. The Dusky Track perhaps, walking on Stewart Island down to see Gog and Magog. Neil's got me interested in the Overland track across Tasmania. Doing the North Island, Te Araroa doesn't hold all that much appeal. It has a lot of road and farm walking. If I end up doing it, it won't be walking every step of the island like with the South Island. Instead I'd do with Karen riding shotgun in a support vehicle, using this to skip the sections I'm not interested in. Interestingly the idea has started germinating in my mind to do the South Island again, but to do it SOBO. Certainly a track always looks a lot different doing it the other way around. I guess this would hold true for an island as well. Nevertheless, as I say again I have no immediate plans to do anything quite like this again. Certainly I wouldn't feel the same sense of regret if I never accomplished any of these nascent plans that I would have had if I had never walked Te Araroa.
Lots of people have asked me since I got back what epiphanies I had along the way. I have to be honest, I haven't had much to tell them.
However, for what value it is:
God has blessed us with a beautiful country, and it's important not to take it for granted. It's not perfect, and it's incumbent on all of us to try to make it better - to at the very least do what we can to leave those parts we are passionate about in better nick than they are now. For me, I am passionate about our mountains and forests. The difference in bird life between a trapped, managed forest in this country and one that is not cannot be overstated. An unmanaged forest is uniformly near devoid of bird life. A managed forest, if not teeming, is usually at the least filled with bird song. The Predator Free 2050 initiative is a bold and visionary goal. Before I kick the bucket I would love to walk in forests filled with abundant bird life that is the rule, rather than the exception that it is now. Certainly I'll be looking at what I can do to support trapping programs close to home.
On a more personal level, the only real epiphany I had was in the first week, and was more a profound realization than anything particularly revolutionary.
While I was away I didn't miss where I lived, or my house, or Rangiora, or my garden, or any of that. I missed my family, most especially Karen, Jakob and Elijah. I've always been a bit of a stick in the mud, a true believer of "home is where the heart is". I've always equated that home with where I live. For that reason I hate moving, and to watch the family home and neighbourhood where I grew up get pulled down after the earthquakes was a real gut punch. It felt as if a not insignificant part of my identity had been ripped away. Normally when I'm tramping I get a real hankering for food, to the point where on the last day I can hardly wait to get off trail so I can get a decent feed. I had a similar hankering on this trail, but it was for cellphone coverage so I could call Karen and just have a chat with her and hear her voice. Often on those days you could find me walking along with my phone in my hand, waiting for it to finally go to 0 bars, then (oh glory!), 1 bar where I might be able to connect a call or at the least send a text.
You see, I'm still an absolute proponent of that saying. I still believe that home is indeed where the heart is. It's just that I now realise that my home is wherever my family is - not necessarily the house I happen to live in.
After my posh room last night, I was too Scottish/Dutch to lay down another $25 for a continental breakfast, so used my balcony to cook up some porridge.
There was a fair amount of up and down today, on a clay trail that was often extremely slippery. With my boots now pretty trashed - to say the least, there are numerous large holes in the stitching and very little tread remaining - I must have often looked more like an ice skater than a tramper.
After a long day walking I made it to the head of Endeavour Inlet, famous as the place where Captain Cook stopped numerous times to rest up and replenish water.
Past here the track became marginally more difficult, with some small climbs. Where the terrain was steep extensive switchbacks were always provided to make things easy though. 
That was the highlight of the day really. Apart from the first 15 minutes through the beautiful rimu clad forest of Pelorous Scenic Reserve, the rest of the day was either farm or road walking and not very exciting. I knew this going into the day - again I had walked this section shortly before starting the trail, as a warm up day.
The track was mostly very easy going, with a few quite difficult bits thrown in. At one point I found myself pushing my pack ahead of me through a fallen tree that blocked the path. Generally though I made progress without requiring any concious thought over route or foot placement. Walking, as it were subconsciously, for much of the day I really noticed when I came to a more difficult section to negotiate. I could feel my subconscious cut out and throw control over to my conscious mind to make a decision on route or footing. It was most curious. Usually it would result in no noticeable change to my gait, but for the more difficult sections there would sometimes be a slight check in the step to arrange footing, and for the hardest sections a dead stop while options were contemplated. I have noticed a couple of times when two equally uncertain routes presented themselves of having a state of mental lock, unable to choose between either. When this happens I'll stand there like a statue for 5 or 6 seconds until taking a mental flip of the coin to decide which way to go.
Towards the end of the Pelorous Track the route went up away from the river. I was disappointed to lose my beautiful river views, but pleased to reach the road end. From here I just had 14km of road walking ahead of me. From having walked the road as one of my last Te Araroa warm-ups late last year I knew it would take a little under 3 hours. Given it was already after lunch time it was touch and go if I was to get to the cafe in time! After a week on trail I can't emphasize enough how important it was to me to get to the cafe before closing - important enough that I eschewed at least a couple of easily accessible swimming holes! I Pulled into Pelorous Cafe at 3:30pm, half an hour before closing. Plenty of time to liberally order and chow down on just about one of everything! 
This evening I've been put up on the floor of an old, disused TV room. I'm pleased to avoid having to use the tent tonight because the rain has started pouring harder than at any other point on track so far. Never mind - I'm having a zero day here tomorrow to rest, recuperate, shower, swim (hopefully, the Pelorous is known for prodigiously flooding rather easily) and eat! 
After a rainy night I awoke in my tent to a bitterly cold morning with a biting wind. So it was on with all my cold weather gear and on with the walking early.
So the sight of Rocks Hut mid afternoon was a sight for sore eyes. I was intending to get closer to the road by going an hour downhill to Middy Hut, but couldn't turn down what I've termed the Hamilton Hut of the north. I can give a hut no higher praise. It even trumps the Hilton in one respect; it has the almost unbelievable luxury of flush toilets! With this likely to be my last hut on trail I stopped to take advantage.
It was also a chance to dry out all my damp gear from the night before. 
In practice I found it difficult and don't recall any undue exposure at all. Within an hour of leaving the hut I was at the summit. The views were probably the best on trail, with 360 degree views of mountains ranges - too many peaks to count. Queue lots of photos, although it was cold and windy, so I didn't hang around too long. 
Then up and down along a ridge until reaching my third peak for the day, Old Man, followed by more ridge climbing, over an unnamed peak, then skirting just under the top of Slaty Peak for lunch and a longish rest at Slaty Hut.
Then started a hard climb up a long ridgeline to Tarn Hut. The hut itself was 100 vertical meters down off the track. I'd heard the tarn was good for swimming in so I dumped pack on the track and headed down to the hut. However the tarn, being in the bush, was very tanniny and I wasn't tempted - I prefer to see what I'm swimming in! Still after a fair few hours on a water-less ridge I needed my water bottles replenished, so that was something.
By this time I was pretty done in, and looking forward to the hut. The hut is immediately underneath the very steep and exposed massif of Mt Rintoul, which I'll be climbing tomorrow, something I'm a bit nervous about. 
It was a bit of a long climb, although not very steep - a haul rather than a grunt. Near the top, excitement! Tasman Bay, seemingly just down a couple of ridge lines - my first view of the sea for over a thousand kilometers, and a tangible pointer that the end is nearing.
