It's raining, it's pouring,
Our rainwear's not boring.

What a difference overnight rain can make. I had taken the photo on the left yesterday, during my afternoon exploration beyond Marauiti Hut. Today, as we followed the track as part of our actual trip, the increased flow is very evident.

View from about halfway between Marauiti Hut and Waiopaoa Hut. You might just be able to make out a different shade of grey in the centre of the photo which might be the far Panekiri Range. At this stage of the walk we were glad we weren't on the range, but were worried about how long this weather was going to last and how slippery it might make the track for the climb up to the top of the ridge.

After plodding through the rain for a few hours it was nice to reach Korokoro campsite, have a lunch stop, and relax our weary feet. Despite the rain it was still quite a mild day, so removing unpleasantly wet and muddy boots (no, Victoria is not one of the hobbits I mentioned yesterday) was a welcome and not-too-chilly respite.

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Sally in her rainwear attire, en route to Korokoro Falls (see later section).

Another view of the misty lake, this time later in the day. The rain has eased to a light drizzle, and we keep trying to convince ourselves that the clouds might be thinking about breaking up.

Wet track on arrival at Waiopaoa Hut (but the absence of raindrop ripples
suggests that it has stopped raining)

Kereru (NZ wood pigeon, about 40cm long) photographed outside Waiopaoa Hut.
(I had to crop the photo to make the bird more obvious, since my zoom lens was
nowhere near long enough to take a really good shot.)

The road less travelled, and the road not travelled at all

Although everyone else was keen to get out of the rain and continue directly to our next overnight stop, Sally and I decided that we would take a detour along a side-track that followed the Korokoroowhaitiri Stream. In theory we were going to visit Korokoro Falls, although we had our suspicions about the likely outcome of this diversion.

And our suspicions were confirmed. The cable is intended as a guide for the stream crossing, leading to the continuation of the track on the other side (you can just spot the orange track marker) and then a further ten minutes to the falls. Presumably the crossing is damp even in normal circumstances, but nobody was going to cross today.
This is a hand held 0.4 second time exposure; I leant against a tree for steadiness.

A 0.5 second hand-held exposure of the raging torrent.
("Where is your tripod?", I hear you ask. "Umm," says I, "that would still be in my
backpack which I dumped at the beginning of this diversion.")