Days 6-11: Forest, Forest, Forest, Road

So, we've finished another 120 kms of the trail, and are now in Kerikeri, a decently sized town near the east coast of NZ. This brings us up to 220 kms total, or 7.3% of the whole trail. This stat is alternately encouraging ("We're almost up to 10% and feels like we just started!") and scary ("220 kms felt like a long way and we've barely made a dent!").
On a blogging app note, I've been testing different apps, trying to find one that will let me post pictures with captions. I thought I had found a decent one, and wrote up a long detailed post about our last section. Then I tried to publish the post, the app crashed, and it deleted the entire post. Somehow, I managed not to throw the phone across the room, and will now try to recreate the post in a different app. Also, never ever try to use an app named Blogaway.

This last section was definitely more interesting than the beach walk - sometimes good interesting and sometimes bad interesting. It couldn't have been more different though. We went through three forests: Herekino, Raetea, and Omahuta/Puketi.


The beach - flat, sunny, and free of man eating vines


The forest - steep, muddy, and doesn't want to let you in or out

After our zero day in Kaitaia, the owner of our hostel dropped us off back at the trail in Ahipara around 8am, on his way to drop off a bunch of Germans for a day of work at an orchard. We met our first hiker friends when we got out of the van! Ryan, from New Zealand, Dave, from Australia, and a German guy whose name we missed. They had just finished Ninety Mile Beach, and were heading directly through to Kerikeri without taking a day off.

We talked for a few minutes, then got on our way. We had a few kms of road walking between Ahipara and Herekino Forest. At first they were no problem, but eventually we ended up on a windy road without much of a shoulder, and just enough cars to send us scampering into the ditch on the side of the road every few minutes.


Most road walks so far have been like this - pretty farmland, no cars, and plenty of shoulder
We stopped just outside the forest for a snack with our new friends, then all headed in. They took off ahead of us, and we haven't seen them since - my guess is we won't catch up to them again unless they get stuck somewhere.


Standing with our new, but temporary friends outside of Herekino

The forest itself was a bit rough at times - steep, rooty, muddy, and dark. There was an easy section in the middle that followed a 4wd track, but a lot of the rest was slow going. Liz's foot and ankle were also bothering her, so we took it easy. On top of it all, it started to rain during the last 2 kms, which turned our steep descent out of the forest into a leafy, muddy slide.

We finally emerged around 5pm, only to discover that the next section of trail was closed due to logging activity (fairly common for parts of the trail). We had been planning to camp off of the logging road, so this threw us off a bit. Even worse, the detour was a 20 km road walk, with no apparent public land to camp on. After some debate about whether to follow the detour or just hope no logging was actually going on, we decided to follow the detour. At this point we were fairly wet and miserable, so we stopped at the first farmhouse we came across to ask if we could set up our tent on their property.

Well, we couldn't have picked a better place to stop. The farm was owned by the Tubbs family, and Hayley, the wife, mother, and overall coordinator of operations, met us on the driveway. Before we knew it, we were invited in for tea, and offered the use of showers and laundry. We met their four boys - Jake, Hawke, Zinzan, and Cash, who seemed to range in age from about 5 to 11 - and played "I Spy" in a book with them while we drank our tea.

We also met Allen, the husband, Marshall, an "uncle" (unclear if he was actually related - the kids were calling me uncle too by the time we left), and a visiting horse dentist and his son whose names we sadly can't remember. Without much warning, huge plates of vegetables, french fries, and delicious ham were placed in front of us. The boys opened a couple of beers for us, and we stayed for dinner. We had a great time getting to know the whole family over the best meal we've had so far in NZ.

The icing on the cake came after dinner, when we were informed that we were not allowed to set up our tent in the rain, and instead would be sleeping in the boys' beds. So Zinzan and Cash squashed together in a twin bed, Hawke slept on the couch, and we had a huge queen sized bottom bunk in the boys' room. We definitely felt guilty about displacing the boys, but couldn't say no. We were also told that sleeping in the same room as 3 boys would be the best contraception ever, but they were all very quiet and polite and we got a great night's sleep. Unbelievable hospitality to offer to wet, dirty, smelly strangers!


The Tubbs boys with us before we left the farm
The next morning, we had another cup of tea, took a picture with the boys, said thank you as many times as we could, and got on our way. As a bonus, Allen told us that no logging had been going on for months on our road, and that we could definitely cut through on the original trail, so we managed to avoid the 20 km road walk too.

Liz's foot was still bothering her, so we didn't reach the next forest, Raetea, until after lunch. Raetea has an intimidating reputation. We'd heard that "Herekino isn't that bad, but Raetea..." and "New Zealand special forces use it to train for extreme wilderness," so we had been steeling ourselves for a tough stretch.

It mostly lived up to the hype, in my opinion. It was comparable to the worst parts of Herekino, except more steep, and for most of the forest rather than short stretches. We couldn't seem to go more than 2 kms/hour, and often went even slower. Luckily the trail was very well marked, so we just had to worry about keeping our feet underneath us and spotting the next marker.

It started raining late in the afternoon again, so we found a flat spot half on the trail to camp for the night. It rained overnight as well, so we woke up to soggy everything. We also somehow managed to sleep on the nozzle for one of our water bladders, and ended up with a big puddle inside the tent, centered on Liz's pants. This was doubly problematic because we didn't pass any real water sources in the forest.


No drinking water, but plenty of mud!
The best candidate water source was a "puddle" close to end of the forest that seemed to be made up entirely of putrified cow. It was spanned the entire trail, was thick, green & brown, and had a bunch of bones laying in it. Unfortunately our camera was damp and not working at the time, but really the defining characteristic of the puddle was the smell. Edging around it in the steep slopes next to the trail was one of the more... exciting parts of the day.

We finally emerged from Raetea around 5pm. Tired and completely out of water, we found a nice camping spot about 1 km off the road after the forest.


Cooking dinner, or steaming dirt off of my face?

Tasty rice noodles and dehydrated veggies with coconut curry sauce
The next day was fairly uneventful - we road walked over to Omahuta forest, and hiked in on 4wd roads. We reached a section of trail that walks directly up a river for 5 km, but it was too late in the day to start it, so we camped in the only flat spot we could find - directly on the trail.


Remember kids, camping in the middle of the trail isn't a great thing to do

Liz is always cold, and the hiker beard starts to appear
The next morning we tackled the river walk. It was slow going, and definitely cold first thing in the morning, but it was very pretty, and overall one of our favorite sections so far. For the most part, the water was ankle or shin deep, with a couple of thigh deep sections. It wasn't remotely dangerous though - luckily the river was fairly low, and very slow moving in the deeper sections.


Walking through the river

Hiking 5 kms through a river is better than a washing machine!
Later that day we ran into two more TA hikers: Geoff, from NZ, who is section hiking the trail, and has completed about 1000 km so far; and James, from the UK, who is hiking the whole trail with his fiancee, Michelle. Unfortunately Michelle was off the trail for a few days recovering from bad blisters she got on Ninety Mile Beach. This sounds like a common problem, and I'm really happy we got through that section with only a few manageable blisters!

Later that night we camped at a DoC campsite, and ran into Geoff, his wife Judy, James, and Michelle. Judy picks Geoff up at the end of each section, and they stay in B&Bs nearby afterward. I'm not sure why Liz and I don't do the trail this way. He also told us that Ninety Mile Beach and this stretch of forests was "about as hard as it gets" for the sections he's done so far, which was really encouraging - we can do it!

Apparently Geoff and Judy ran into James and Michelle just before Herekino Forest. Michelle was about to turn back because of her blisters, and Judy offered to take her to a hospital. After that, she took Michelle and all their gear with her while Geoff and James hiked the trail together - more amazing kiwi hospitality! They offered us some wine, and we hung out for a while before Geoff and Judy took off. Later, we spent several hours getting to know James and Michelle over dinner. They're great people, and we hope we run into them again on the trail!

We headed out early the next morning for a long, but pretty road walk to Kerikeri. The day was fairly uneventful, except for Liz mildly zapping herself on an electrified cow fence. At the time, she was not amused, but is laughing about it now.


The orange trail markers that are leading us through NZ

Boars are considered pests here - they eat or trample lots of plants

Crazy flower!
By the time we got into town around 4pm, Liz was limping fairly badly - her foot/ankle hadn't really improved. Dr. Google tells us that she probably has tibialis anterior tendonitis, or an inflammation of one of the tendons that connects to the shin bone. We've decided to take a few days off here to let it heal up a bit. We got a bag of frozen mixed vegetables to use as an ice pack - anyone remember the bag of frozen cranberries from our John Muir Trail trip? We're both itching to get back on the trail at this point, but it doesn't sound like the kind of thing that will get better if you just keep walking on it. As frustrating as it is to have to pause this early in the trip, we're hoping a little time off now will avoid more serious problems later.

So we're doing laundry, taking showers, airing out gear, and eating lots of food that is not cooked by just adding boiling water. The next section of trail is another 120 kms, and will take us to Ngunguru, which is one of my favorite NZ town names. It's a slightly more populated stretch, so we'll be going through a few small villages, and skirting the coastline near the Bay of Islands, which is apparently very scenic (and touristy). The rough forests were interesting and a good challenge, but I think we're happy to have a slightly easier stretch in front of us. Only 380 kms until we are back to Auckland!

Also, remember you can see a map of our progress here. You will need to change the time range dropdown in the left to at least 2 weeks to see all of our check-ins.