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On day 59 of hiking the Te Araroa, the Blissful Hiker gets in touch with her inner brave spirit and gets more comfortable hiking her own hike.


In this episode:

1. Blissful leaves the Tasman Sea on concrete-hard black sand of Koitiata Beach and meets a Kiwi section-hiker who tells her the uneven and difficult trail standard is part of the challenge. 
2. It's road walk from Mount Lees Reserve to Palmerston North and Blissful carries the title of "purist" with pride as she walks every step. 
3. Her friend and fellow tramper Robb invites her to share Christmas with his family and "slackpack" to Kahuterawa rather than camp in the rain. 
4. The trail is muddy and steep and Blissful negotiates crossing a swollen river and avoids getting swept away by a landslip.
5. The owners at Makahika Outdoor Pursuits feed her dinner and Blissful realizes she has managed some tough spots on her own. 

MUSIC: Impresiones de la Puna by  Alberto Ginastera as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker completes the "thru-canoe" section of the Te Araroa on the Whanganui River, and meets "Guardian" Trail Angels before she returns to the Tasman Sea.


In this episode:

1. Blissful and her paddle partner Andrew leave Hipango Park for one final day on the winding chocolate-colored Whanganui River toward the Holiday Park and a short walk to town.
2. On her own, Blissful heads to meet a trail angel named George who offers a room for the night. His partner Rob shares a whakatau, a Maori greeting. 
3. After a big Kiwi-style English braeakfast, George starts the trail with Blissful. It's road-walk all the way to Koitiata and there's no such thing as "share the road" in New Zealand.  
4. She picks up a lolly cake at Turakina Antiques and is invited by a trail angel for a snack and conversation before meeting the Tasman Sea again after 50 days of walking. 
5. The sunset is glorious and Blissful has it all to herself, but knows she is not entirely alone because people are looking out for her. 

MUSIC: Impresiones de la Puna by  Alberto Ginastera as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker continues the section of the Te Araroa on the Whanganui River, learning that aiming your canoe – and life – straight into the V of rapids can give you a renewed sense of power and agency.


In this episode:

1. Blissful heads into the rapids on the Whanganui and her partner Andrew teaches her to ignore her intuition and head straight into the bubbling caldron – and never stop paddling. 
2. They lean in, knees against the gunwales, thwacking and bumping through as the water drenches them in a kind of baptism. 
3. Andrew empties 26 gallons of water, then another 15 in the next set, but they never tip. 
4. They stay all alone at the the quirky Flying Fox Retreat with some loud birds. 
5. There's no more rapids and it's a long, soggy day to Hipango Park where they camp high up on a bluff. 
6. Blissful realizes she may never see Andrew again after this shared journey, but thinks if this lovely partner can show up out of nowhere, so can others. 

MUSIC: Impresiones de la Puna by  Alberto Ginastera as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker begins the section of the Te Araroa on the Whanganui River, a body of water precious and deeply spiritual to the Maori.


In this episode:

1. Blissful begins paddling the Whanganui with her partner Andrew as captain, a young American exactly thirty years younger, who takes charge of steering.
2. After a quick lesson, they're off mostly on placid water reflecting the clouds and cliffs dotted with waterfalls. 
3. At the John Coull Hut, she camps outside and watches rare pekapeka, short-tailed bats, the only endemic mammals to New Zealand.
4. They take a break from paddling to visit the Bridge to Nowhere, built with high hopes o bring prosperity to the region, though no roads were ever built to it. 
5. The seven-year-old daughter, Maddy, welcomes them to Tieke Kainga, as the kaikaranga or caller in a powhiri to the Maori community, then gives her a pakohe , a healping stone, which Blissful carries on every hike thereafter. 

MUSIC: Impresiones de la Puna by  Alberto Ginastera as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker learns how to be brave and keep the faith from a novice hiker friend who jumped on the Te Araroa before she was totally ready.


In this episode:

1. Blissful leaves the Tongariro National Park on the Tupapakurua Falls Track, a "balcony walk" with views out to Mount Taranaki rising above the horizon like Shangri-La on a brilliantly clear day. 
2. She camps with her friends at the Katieke War Monument to those who died in World War I and they enjoy a spectacular sunset. 
3. She learns that even though the day started off badly, a thru-hike allows you to literally walk away to something better.
4. It's a road walk to Whakahoro, but lovely next to the Retaruke River.
5. At the camp spot, Eline arrives – a Dutch woman backpacking for the very first time – and teaches Blissful to trust herself. 

MUSIC: Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker is gifted with good weather while walking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing on the Te Araroa, but it takes a fellow hiker to slow her down and help her enjoy the spectacular surroundings.


In this episode:

1. Blissful leaves Te Porere Redoubt for the Tongariro crossing with four hiker friends in the middle of the night and is heartened when she sees stars, a good omen for decent weather ahead. 
2. Tussocky hillsides dotted with mountain daisies take her up to steaming calderas spewing sulfuric smells, ancient craters crumbling into malevolent jaws and lakes of a wondrous chalky green. 
3.  As if like magic, her friend Tom meets her and slows her down to savor the entire day before they camp together below the Devils Staircase in the Mangatepopo Valley.
4. On her birthday, the day opens clear with a glorious view of Ruapehu all the way to Whakipapa where the trail goes from good to awful just as the promised storms follow her all the way to National Park.  

MUSIC: Impresiones de la Puna by Carlos Gaustavino as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker struggles with being a beginner at thru-hiking as she walks New Zealand's Te Araroa, but realizes that every step she takes brings her one step closer to being an expert. 


In this episode: 

1. Blissful leaves Ongarue in the North Island of New Zealand and walks toward Taumarunui, where she'll plan her canoe trip down the Whanganui River.
2. She meets a Maori who shares sweet coffee and his philosophy, a mixture of matriarchal wisdom and Christianity and it tells her to "ask the mother for help." 
3. In town, the trail provides when she meets up with four hikers she likes who invite her to join them for the canoe trip after four days walking. 
4. It's an easy hike on country roads to the Whakapapa River where she spies two rare whio – or blue ducks – in the rapids, a good omen. 
5. The hike is along a mountain bike trail called the 42 Traverse, a sanctuary for kiwi and rare carnivorous plants.
6. The trail cuts off for the Waione/Cokers Track, a muddy, deeply rutted trail where she meets a trapper who takes her on the ride of her life through bush on a 4X4.

MUSIC: The music in this episode is Argentine composer Angel Lasala’s Poema del Pastor Coya and Carlos Guastavino's Allegro as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker learns that hiking all alone on the Te Araroa and managing her nervousness about what's to come is worth it, since she enjoys her own company the most. 


In this episode: 

1. Blissful walks the Timber Trail in the spectacular Pureora Forest in the North Island of New Zealand, native bush saved by "tree sitters" and easy walking on old logging tramways. 
2. Crossing spectacular swing bridges over deep gorges and walking through deep canyons cut deeply in the hills take her to Piropiro Flats, where a trail angel gives her two cheap beers for brunch. 
3. At Waione Stream, she spies bikers wading in the rapids below, joining them for one of the best swims of her hike, cold but refreshing. 
4. Camping is at No. 10 Camp, though Chloe can't stand Blissful's blissful singing, so she sets her tent at a distance. 
5. Along the way, Blissful passes the 1,000 kilometer mark, 1/3 of the hike completed. 
6. The final day takes Blissful across the Mangakotukutuku Bridge and meets the engineering marvel of the Ongarue Spiral, two trestles above a tunnel. 
7. Finally, she's finishes at a campsite shared with dozens of hikers who she can't connect with so decides being alone, is just fine. 

MUSIC: The music in this episode is Argentine composer Angel Lasala’s Poema del Pastor Coya as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker learns that she actually misses the muddy, barely-there trail of New Zealand's "advanced tramping" and longs for the allure of the unknown. 

In this episode: 

1. Blissful walks from Marianne and Allan's farm toward the Pureora Forest, all on road but happy to walk every step of the Te Araroa.
2. She walks in on-again-off-again rain through farmland in a karst landscape of limestone outcroppings and cone-shaped hills. Kind Kiwis make the walk a pleasure.
3. She meets other thru-hikers at the Ngaherenga campsite, all having skipped the last sections and call Blissful a "purist." 
4. Blissful enters the Pureora Forest on the Timber Trail, a wide shared mountain biking trail, but longs for the side side trails back into the bush to the Bog Inn and Pureora's summit, where she spies volcanic Mount Ruapehu.
5. She crosses two enormous suspension bridges and camps by a Harrisons Creek, where a hunter shows up with a deer, sharing the tenderest morsels.

MUSIC: The music in this episode is Argentine composer Angel Lasala’s Poema del Pastor Coya as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Blissful Hiker "sidles" the steep sides of a riverbank in the Mangaokewa Reserve and learns how "un-lonely being lonely can be." 

In this episode: 

1. Blissful leaves Waitomo for Te Kuiti through slippery farmland, getting lost in fields of sheep poo and confusing orange triangle-shaped trail signs.
2. The reserve begins as a Hobbit Forest in a sun shower, but soon becomes greasy sidling along the Mangaokewa Stream.
3. All alone at the "cool campsite," she muses on when she first started thru-hiking, she was too afraid to even close her eyes. 
4. It's more sidling on the way back to farmland, where trail angels rescue her for an afternoon on a working farm. 

MUSIC: Soliloquy by Bernard Rogers and Night Music by Antal Dorati as played by Alison Young, flute.
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