Days 30-35: A Marathon and a Forest Crawl

Another 5 days down, another 120 km behind us. We're up to kilometer 720, and are approaching the one quarter mark on the trail.


On day 30, we walked a marathon. We left most of our gear at the hostel, brought a day pack, and chalked up our longest day of walking ever - 41 km on the trail, 44 km total.

We spent the morning doing the Coast to Coast walk in Auckland, which is a walking trail that stretches across the city. It was a nice route, with the highlight for me being a 360 degree view of the city from the top of Mt. Eden, an extinct volcano smack dab in the middle of the city. It still has a large, grass covered crater at the top, which is apparently a sacred Maori site.


Not every kilometer of the trail is beautiful


The view from Mt. Eden

The afternoon was spent winding our way along the coast south of the city, and then walking by the airport. We walked right by the end of the runway, and saw some very large planes landing up close. Neat, but also loud and smelly.


Truly back to where we started


Ever see a huge moon, take a picture of it, and find that the moon looks way smaller in the picture? Taking pictures of planes landing has the same problem - they looked much bigger in real life

We continued on the road, then had a short walk through some pasture and along a river. We had cow encounter in the pasture - a dozen or so cows were sitting in front of the gate we had to go through. They weren't too thrilled that we made them get up and move, and I think they also thought we might be bringing them food. A few followed us, but went away when we shooed them. Liz was not happy about this, as it was another signal, in a growing body of evidence, that cows want to eat her.

We came out in an industrial park, then walked over to the train station after being confused by the presence of a new highway that wasn't on our maps. The train was free, and the signs claimed it was due to the "Santa Parade." This must have been a typo though, because it was over 80 degrees, and I don't think Santa works in that kind of heat.


A tree that blooms with lots of red flowers for Christmas. Still not used to these reversed seasons.

We got back to the city, and went on a hunt for Chinese dumplings. Lots of Chinese dumplings. We struck out at our first stop, No. 1 Dumpling, and had to settle for what we can only assume were the second best dumplings from another place. They were good enough for us though.

By the time we ate it was almost 8 pm, and the thought of getting up at 6, sorting out our resupply box, hopping on the train, then walking 30 km just didn't sound great to us. We never really felt rested after our day off, and then walked 44 km, which meant we felt even less rested. So we decided to take another rest day on day 31, and booked an AirBnB close to a train station on the way back to the trail. The next morning we picked up our box, restocked, mailed it about 450 km down the trail, and headed on to a real house, with a bedroom for us (with windows!) to stay for the night.

It was our first less than great AirBnB experience - the house was nice, the husband was nice, the daughter was nice, but the wife was a little crazy. She came home from work to find us cooking up a simple dinner for ourselves in the kitchen (we were told we could use anything in the kitchen and directed to the grocery store earlier), gave us a strange look, then dragged the husband off somewhere for a while. Later, we were hanging out in the kitchen while she was making some food, and she started making all sorts of comments about how she kept telling her husband not to let guests cook in the kitchen, because "I don't want this to turn into a hostel or something." She also, at various points, passively-aggressively accused us of stealing bananas, her tea towel, and leaving a pan dirty (I scrubbed it with steel wool and left it cleaner than I found it). Long story short - she didn't want us (or any other guests) in her house. Awkward. We quickly escaped into our room and didn't come back out until just before we left, early the next morning. The bed was super comfortable, and a shower with a real towel was great, so it really wasn't that bad in the end, just surprising after the friendly people we had met at our other AirBnB stays.

Day 32 was mostly road walking, with a bit of forest towards the end. The road walking was no fun - tons of trucks on the road. We kept saying "ok, it's only a few kms on this road, when we turn onto the next one, the trucks will probably be gone." But the trucks kept turning with us. Finally we realized that the trail was headed toward a quarry, and that all the trucks were coming from there. We counted 35 trucks in one 40 minute stretch, which is a lot when they are blowing by you on a road with no shoulder.


Is this the right place...


For one truck every forty seconds?


We agree... save Brookby and roadside hikers


Also: Alfriston Purrfurred Cattery. For all your (Ryan's) cattery needs

We reunited with the Brits for a bit in the middle of the day, then ended up stopping early at a camp/park just after the forest. On the way, we had the joy of watching a really dark, ominous cloud come towards us, and then miss us by half a kilometer.


It's coming right for us!


Nothing quite as satisfying as watching the next field over get poured on while you stay dry

We met Ben, from Germany, at the camp, and ate dinner with him while we waited for everyone to clear out so we could set up our tent. Turns out he is also a software guy who got fed up with sitting in front of a monitor all day long. Also, he's close to 7 feet tall and has a very heavy pack. He kept referring to our packs as "handbags."

The next morning the Brits caught up with us, and we set off as a group of 5, our largest party yet. We headed into the longest forest section yet (29 km), and had a nice day walking with everyone. It rained in the afternoon, but not as hard or for as long as we were expecting.


Five TA hikers in a row


Some of the trails here have really fancy stairs. When is the last time you saw elegantly curved stairs in the woods?


Weekly picture caption contest: winner gets a signed (unwashed) sock actually used by us on the trail

We reached a real campsite and found a relatively dry spot under a big tree where we set up our tents and had dinner before heading to bed. Ben made hot chocolate for everyone, which was great at the end of a long, wet day. He is going at a more relaxed pace than we are, so we may not see him again, which is too bad. We really enjoyed hiking with him for the day.

It rained most of the night, and we made the mistake of leaving our rain gear hanging on a tree to dry overnight. We woke up to find them in the ground, sitting in puddles. Lesson learned.


Pretty good spot for a rainy day

Day 34 was a long one. We were worried about a river crossing in the morning, because we knew the rivers were high from all the rain, but were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find a bridge had been built! One of the few instances where out of date trail notes work in your favor.


Easiest river ford yet

The last "6" km - I swear the map shorted us - of the forest were the worst, and took us almost 5 hours. It was a long, up and down, leafy, rooty trail, and all the rain made it one big slip n' slide. We were happy to finally make it out. At the end, we ran into some Boy Scouts (or whatever the NZ equivalent is) heading to camp at the edge of the forest. They were 20 minutes from their stop, and seemed a little amazed that we had been hiking for 34 days so far. Hopefully we inspired them, rather than scaring them with our smell and the slightly crazy look in our eyes.


Clever girl...


This was the second tiny, photogenic snail we saw that day. The first had an accident during filming and did not recover.


Love those NZ suspension bridges

After that we road walked for a bit, then walked along a huge tract of farmland that used to be swamp. We had another cow encounter along here - a bunch of cows ran up onto the track when they saw us, and we had to go down a hill and around them. This time there was a bull guarding all his ladies, so we were a little hesitant to just walk through and shoo them out of the way.

After this section, we had planned to go another 5 km or so, but it was getting late, and Liz' s foot (not ankle) was bothering her, so we stopped at a house to ask if there was anywhere to camp. The guy who lived there pointed us directly across the street to Fish & Game land, complete with an old shipping container with attached wooden veranda. We were also offered water and a beer, which we took him up on after setting up our tent and making dinner. Another awesome, friendly kiwi!


For backpackers, this is the definition of luxury


Beer... boy do I miss beer

Day 35, today, was a bummer. Liz's foot was not better in the morning - if anything a bit worse. We decided to head into the next "town," Mercer, and find somewhere to stay. Mercer is right off of a highway, and, from the bits we've seen, is about 90% highway rest stop. There's a McDonald's, gas station, expensive crappy restaurant, and seedy motel. We got a discounted room at the motel ($60 instead of $100) after the guy asked if we "had all our own gear." I should have picked up on it, but this meant we literally just got the room. No sheets. No towels. No microwave (we were in a room with a microwave for 5 minutes before they moved us to one without). We did get couple of fine daddy long leg spider specimens though.

Now we're trying to decide what our next move is. The next real town with a supermarket seems to be Huntly, about 40 km away. We can stay here until Liz's foot is feeling better, then get there in a day and a half or so. We're not fond of the idea of staying at the rest stop for multiple days though. Liz could also skip that 40 km on a bus while I walk it with a day pack, but neither of us really want her to have to miss part of the trail. We're hoping for plan C - wake up tomorrow with a magically healed foot!

We're both a bit down and out right now. It's Thanksgiving back home, and we miss everyone (and are salivating over thoughts of turkey, mashed potatoes, and escarole soup), but we did have a McDonald's apple pie to celebrate. We also got lots of Turkey Day emails from friends and family, which really cheered us up. We're both hoping the foot heals up quickly again and we can be back on our way. Depending on how the next few days go, we may stick to our original plan and take a rest day in Hamilton, a relatively large city in about 80 km. After that, there's a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks - more wilderness, our first real DoC huts, and the 5ish day canoe trip down the Whanganui River in about 500 km. We'll get there, just maybe not as fast as we thought!