35 people walked the new section of the Te Araroa Trail from Puhoi to Remigers Rd 5km west. The trip was originally planned for April but was cancelled due to a bad weather forecast - this time we had nice weather, praise God. We gathered at Puhoi Domain at 2:30pm, and after the intros and karakia we set off, climbing up to the Puhoi Lookout through bush and open pasture. From above the lookout we had a panoramic of Puhoi village and valley. The track continued along a ridge through pasture at first then native bush, following close to Cook Road. We had our afternoon tea stop at a stile on the track about 3:45pm. John presented devotions based on the movie War Room, which had the following lessons to learn about prayer: have a prayer strategy for all areas of your life; fight against the real enemy Satan and his demons, resist the devil and he will flee from you; victories are not accidental but seek God stand on His Word and He will do the heavy work; God is the only One who can change us, we need to stop trying to change spouses and other people and pray for them instead. John handed out copies of the devotions in English and Chinese afterwards. There was a descent, followed by a further grunt and downhill, and we came out at the Remiger Road end at 4:30pm. The drivers were ferried back to the start point to fetch their cars while the rest of us carried on walking along the road to fill in the 20 minute wait for the drivers to come back.

Some of us had coffee at the Puhoi store while others went on to the famous Puhoi drinking clinic or straight home, after enjoying a lovely afternoon’s walk. COST: travel from The Bracken $9