The good times from my last post couldn't last forever. During our last section, all the stars seemed to align, and everything worked out perfectly - dinghy rides when we needed them, perfect campsites at the end of our days, and friendly people helping us out. By contrast, in this most recent section, we had drinking water troubles, minor river crossing headaches, and a 20 minute detour in Auckland that will cost us an entire day. It wasn't a total disaster though - we had some more awesome "trail magic," spent some more quality time with the Brits, and most of the trail between Waipu and Auckland was very beautiful (although quite a bit of it was actually on sidewalk, rather than on an actual trail).
On Day 23, we headed out of the campground at Waipu Cove on the early side. As usual, the Brits were up before the sun and long gone by the time we left. As we walked out of the campground, we passed a dairy (the NZ equivalent of a convenience store), and a guy came running out and said "Trampers! Wait right here!" He ran back into the store and came out with a plastic waterproof map case with TA maps in it, and asked if they were ours. They weren't, but the Brits had lost it the day before, and had spent hours looking and calling all over the area trying to find it. We told the guy we knew whose they were, and stuck them in our packs as a nice surprise for later.
After a few hours on roads and over steep farmland hills, we reached the Mangawhai cliff track. This was another favorite spot of ours. The cliffs were very rocky and dramatic, and also had very picturesque trees on them. We headed down the cliffs, then hopped on a road heading by Mangawhai Heads.
One of the more interesting parts of road walking: strange mailboxes
Nice early morning view of a beach east of Waipu Cove
Sometimes I think the farmers that have tracks across their private land make the signs extra intimidating to discourage people from walking on them
The Mangawhai Cliffs
On the way, we ran into a couple who had hosted a TA tramper last year. They mentioned that they had run into the Brits earlier, and advised them (and us) to skip a long road walk through Mangawhai Heads and Mangawhai by catching a 2 minute dinghy ride across the estuary just down the road. They went on to tell us that the Brits easily caught a ride, but their boat broke down, and they were currently getting towed back to the dock they left from.
We hurried down to the dock, and cheered them up by returning their maps. A few minutes later, we all easily caught a ride across, and headed off through a bird sanctuary in the dunes (walking through was allowed, as long as you stayed out of the roped off areas). On the way, we ran into a DoC worker monitoring the birds, and it turned out that she was watching the rarest birds in NZ! She let us peek through her scope to see a fairy tern sitting near its nest in the dunes - unexpected and really neat, even for someone who isn't particularly into birds.
No pictures of the fairy tern, unfortunately, but we did pass this crazy green pool of water
After that, it was a long beach walk to our intended campsite at the mouth of Poutawa Stream. By the time we got there, we were tired and really hungry. I had been dreaming of eating our coconut curry noodle dinner concoction all day long (hopefully I will have time soon to write a post on its own about what we've been eating on the trail - it's an interesting mix). Unfortunately, the stream wasn't really flowing, and as a result it was very brackish. I tried to head upstream to get to a freshwater section, but started getting dive bombed by angry nesting birds, and couldn't see any section of the river that actually looked like it was flowing and had a hope of being fresh. We were somewhat bummed, until we checked the water left in our packs - we had about a quarter liter between the two of us, which is really only a few sips each. We had been planning to fill up in Mangawhai, but skipped the town with the dinghy ride. It didn't worry us at the time, because we knew we were camping near water... but we didn't know it would be saltwater. So we had to choose between eating dry food and going thirsty until the next day, or walking 6 kms to the next stream, which, for all we knew, had the same problem.
No water, but a great moonrise/sunset combo
We decided to just camp and deal with a bit of thirstiness. It was an unpleasant evening, and an even more unpleasant walk down the beach the next morning. It was high tide, which means we were walking in soft sand the whole way, with a few mouthfuls of water each to drink. We eventually got to the mouth of the Pakiri River at the end of the beach (also brackish at high tide), and got wet well over our waists getting across. We stopped at a campground a few minutes past the beach to fill up our water. This was after several minutes of debate over whether the "not suitable to drink" water in the bathrooms at the end of the beach was unsuitable because of bacteria that could be sterilized away, or because of weird chemicals - we decided not to chance it. We chugged a few liters of water at the campground, then made some breakfast curry noodles before heading on.
The next section took us up Mt. Tamahunga. It started with some more climbing up steep farmland slopes. This was one of the hottest days yet, and we got pretty overheated on the way up. It was worth it though - we had great views back toward the coast.
The bush trail that led to the summit was very overgrown, but still not hard to follow. The summit had a helicopter pad, although I'm not sure what it was really used for, because it was several kilometers from any road.
After that we had our scariest road walk yet - down another busy 100 km/hr road, with a bonus of many large mining trucks shuttling back and forth from a nearby operation. We arrived in Matakana no worse for the wear, but unhappy and behind schedule for the day. We did some shopping at the 4 Square (a common small grocery store found in smaller towns), and ran into the Brits for a few minutes, who we thought were hours ahead of us. After that we had another road walk, this one less busy but much more narrow, steep, and windy.
The worst part about all the road walking from this day is that it will soon be unnecessary. There is a 3 km trail from the summit of Mt. Tamahunga to the end of the road walk, instead of 11 kms of crappy road, but there are some legal land access issues with one end of it, still being worked out by the TA trust. Apparently this sort of thing is common, especially as private land which the trail crosses changes owners. If the new owners are not keen about the idea of smelly people tramping across their property, the trail has to be rerouted.
We finally arrived at Music Mountain, a music venue that has offered to let TA hikers camp on their property. It was an extremely convenient place to camp - there doesn't seem to be any flat, public land for tens of kms on either side of the trail. The owners ask for a small "koha" (Maori for voluntary donation) to cover costs. They also offered showers and even dinner, but we were tired and wanted to get to bed, so we passed on both.
The next day we had a lot of forest ahead of us - about 28 kms until what we hoped would be a decent place to camp near a stream. The first forest, heading over Dome peak (another creative name), was a little rough. However, the Dome Cafe at the bottom had more "iced coffee," which seems to cure all ills. We were thrown off a bit though when we walked in and the owner/manager asked us how dirty our shoes were. Granted, they looked fairly dirty from the top, but he runs a cafe at the bottom of a hiking trail... dirty shoes have to be the norm. Luckily our shoes passed inspection and we got our iced coffee, and had a chat with a woman who had met the Brits (man, they know everyone) back up in Whananaki.
Sometimes I think Liz is only here for the cafe stops
I guess this leaf was terrified that we were going to step on it
From there we continued on, mostly on logging and farm roads. Along the way, we were supposed to cut up someone's driveway and across their pasture. We didn't see any markers, but used our gps to find the route through. On the other side, we ran into someone who said the property had been sold recently, and the new owner was unhappy about trampers cutting through, and had taken down all the markers. Another example of the headaches that the TA trust must have to deal with in a constant basis.
We continued on, and as we approached Moir Hill, we expected to find streams and some flat spots to camp on, but we ended up on a ridge that was dry as a bone. I broke out the gps and did some bushwhacking downhill to find one of the stream beds filled with dry leaves - maybe these streams used to exist, and maybe they will again in wet weather, but for now there was no water to be found. As a bonus, my sunglasses were knocked off of my hat at some untraceable point in the woods. So again we were dry camping without enough water to cook, but in better shape than last time with closer to a liter of water between us. To add insult to injury, the only flat spot we could find was an old logging site that had to be cleared of glass, wood, and rusty metal bits before we could set up our tent. The state that the logging company has left this area in is quite a shame.
Our tiny cleared off spot in the middle of old logging leftovers
Great sunset that night though
Day 26 started with us finishing the forest, and heading onto the poorly marked Dunn's Ridge Track. Again, we were supposed to cut across someone's property, but there was a bunch of new construction in the area that confused things. We met the Brits scratching their heads at the supposed beginning of this track. They mentioned finding a pair of sunglasses on the side of the trail that morning, and they turned out to be mine! Payback for the map case, I guess.
We ended up following what our gps thought was the track, which led us up a driveway, and down steep pasture, only to join up with the actual track at the bottom, coming from who knows where. So it turns out we just let ourselves onto a random person's property and tramped across it. Hopefully they don't mind. We still have no idea where we were supposed to go, but the trail markers and notes need an update here. At least this sort of thing has been surprisingly rare, especially for a trail maintained almost entirely on a volunteer basis.
From there we headed down the road to Puhoi, where we traded our packs for kayaks at Puhoi Kayaking, and paddled our way down the Puhoi River for 7 or 8 kms. It was a nice change of pace, but also a good workout with 40 km/hr headwinds toward the end.
For once, making progress without using our legs
On the way, a fish jumped into our kayak. I wanted to keep it and eat it, but Liz was a Debbie Downer and threw it overboard
At the end of kayaking, we met 3! more TA hikers - Isobel & Moi from NZ, and Phil from Florida. All three seemed nice, and we chatted for a bit before having lunch and heading on. After a long, interesting, and kind of stressful rock hop around some beachside cliffs, we ended up in Orewa, a somewhat larger town than we've seen on the trail so far. We went to town at the grocery store (aside from hiking food, Liz bought a quart of milk, a bottle of wine, 10 kiwis, and 2 tomatoes to eat and drink by the next morning), and headed to a nearby campground with the Brits for the night.
The cliffs along the rock hop were really interesting
Science can probably explain these very regular patterns in the rocks, but I can't
The next morning we spent a few hours trying to fix our tent zipper, which just stopped wanting to zip properly. We tried many things, including a bath for the tent, but the best solution ended up being liberal application of chapstick to the zipper teeth. We'll see how long that lasts.
Day 27 brought us truly into the Auckland suburbs, after waiting for 2 hours to bum yet another boat ride from a generous boater across the Weiti River. The walk down the coast over the past week or so has been interesting and pretty, but as we head more inland from Auckland, I won't miss having to time tides or hoping to catch a lift on a departing boat to be able to make progress on the trail. We spent part of the day hiking with Phil, who has done quite a bit of hiking and adventuring, is quite an interesting guy. Hopefully we run into him again, sounds like he has lots of good stories to tell.
I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I can't remember exactly whew this picture is from, but I think this was a view along the Weiti River
Houses and civilization doesn't mean there aren't beautiful views
Later in the day, we diverged slightly from the trail and replaced a deep crossing of the Okura Estuary with a long scary road walk to Val and Clive's house in North Shore City, an Auckland suburb. The Brits met Val and Clive, a retired couple, on a cruise in Paihia, and were invited to stop by and stay at their house when they passed by on the trail. As friends of the Brits we ended up being invited too! We arrived hot and tired and, once again, we were taken in, fed, showered, and given a bed by complete strangers. We had some of Clive's tasty homebrew, our first L&P (a lemony NZ soda), a roast chicken, lots and lots of vegetables, and a delicious meringue cake dessert with ice cream AND cream poured in top of it. It was much needed after James jumped on the scale and found he had lost 25 pounds already in the trail. We heard many stories about Val and Clive's world travels and family, and in general had a great time getting to know them. We wish them all the best!
Day 28 was spent walking down the coast of Auckland suburbs. We got quite a few strange looks from sunbathers, with our trail runners and packs, on all the small beaches we traversed. We also got a great view of downtown Auckland from North Head, a large hill just before the ferry across to downtown.
Someone parasailing over North Head. He just went back and forth, riding a current in a small area for as long as he wanted
Auckland! Back where we started...
We took the ferry across, bought our DoC hut passes (the first huts are coming up soon, and we're looking forward to them!) then tried to find a hostel to stay in. We had been holding out for a cheap AirBnB, but never got a response from the owner. Also, Justin Bieber is apparently in town this weekend as well, so all the hostels were more full and expensive than usual. We eventually found one, got 2 beds in a 4 bed dorm, walked into the unventilated room, took a whiff of dirty laundry and other gross things, and immediately sprung to upgrade to a private double room. Kind of silly expensive for a pretty crappy hostel (there isn't even hand soap in the bathrooms), but we didn't really have any other good options.
On the ferry
Planning in our closet... I mean windowless double... at the hostel
Right after dropping our bags off, we hurried to the post office to pick up our resupply box before it closed. We got the post offices mixed up, walked right by the correct one and on to a different one, and then back to the correct one. We walked in at 5:02 pm. Luckily they were open until 5:30. We walked up to the counter, and were redirected around the corner to the package counter... which closed at 5. And is closed on Saturdays. And Sundays. So now we are stuck in Auckland until 7 am Monday morning, so that we can get a few things out of the box and forward it to the next post office, about 400 kms down the trail. There may have been some moderate to heavy obscenities uttered when we read the sign with the package counter's hours on it.
Instead of spending an entire extra day off, we've decided to leave our packs at the hostel on Sunday, hike out on the trail to the airport, take a cheap train back to Auckland, get the package Monday morning, then take the train back out to pick up the trail again. This is a pain, but works out ok as there aren't any cheap and convenient places to camp near the airport. And it at least saves us from wasting an entire day in a big city that we aren't really crazy about (except for all the cheap Indian food and Chinese dumplings).
We did our food shopping today, and are trying to catch up on emails. Zero days definitely are not days off. We spend all day trying to plan the next sections and keep in touch with everyone back home. If we haven't answered an email from you, it's not because we forgot! We're working through them as fast as we can without sending form letter responses. We really enjoy getting emails and comments - it definitely brightens our days when we get into towns, and cuts down on the loneliness that is hard to avoid feeling occasionally when traveling in a foreign country.
From here we have a good bit of road walking to get back out of the Auckland suburbs, but then it looks like we get some decent wilderness stretches. Sorry for the monster post... I think from now on I'm going to try to write more, shorter posts as we go, and upload them all at once when I have the bandwidth to add pictures.
Another fabulous episode of the Tramping Delfinos!
ReplyDeleteLong or short, I love reading your posts, Joebie!! The "beautiful day for a walk down the coast" picture is stunning. Liz's smiling face on the left of the picture is perfect.
ReplyDeleteWhat an adventure! LOVE that picture of Liz with the iced coffee (you look fantastic, btw!).
ReplyDeleteYou missed your chance:
ReplyDeleteYou checked in at 4 square!