Te Araroa Pt. 7

Day 19

Day 19, 6 Dec 17

Stayed at Nikau Bay for another day. Tomorrow willbe a really long and painful day. I could take a ride to the start of the trail, but no, I am determined to do the rest of the journey as it was intended to be done. But I should be fine, most of tomorrow will be road walking, albeit in wet shoes from the initial stream crossings.

Grilled some chicken today. Best chicken I've ever had. Barbequed and smoked.

I had some really bad diarrhea yesterday night. I may be slightly lactose intolerant, or maybe drinking 2L of milk was retarded. Anyway I'm going to stop drinking milk now. It's a poor source of water and food and is really not meant for human consumption. No animal drinks milk like humans, it's as if we are all just big stupid babies.

Pretty uneventful day otherwise.

Day 20

Day 20, 7 Dec 17

Well everything went better than I expected. The 31km journey wasn't so hard and didn't take as long as I anticipated. My hips will still occasionally hurt though.

Pretty normal day. Lots of road. Began with road that led to a very nice forest track (can't all forests be like this?) then more road to Pataua. A very scenic little settlement. After this was a horrible walk down an estuary. I made the decision of going barefooted regretted soon after. Shells, and sharp rocks made it very very painful. The ground was sort of weirdly formed, it was made up of black jagged rocks,like a giant slab of basalt after someone smashed countless craters in it with a sledgehammer. Somewhere along the way I cut my left foot on something. Had to put on my shoes. Next was a stretch of rotten boggy mud, like the kind you would expect to find in a swamp. This had to happen because someone fenced up the beach. Over the fence was nice green grass, but it was all boggy shit on this side. If only he was kind enough to let hikers through! I also met two german guys and one of them lent me a pole to get across the estuary. Thank you to that kind man.

I'm now in a small cabin at this place called TideSong. I hope my injury would not affect me too much tomorrow. I can't afford to pause here. I've treated and bandaged it the best I could, and can only hope for the best.

Day 21

Day 21, 8 Dec 17

Should I be wishing for it to end quickly or to last longer? Well no sane person would want more pain, but if I just wished it would end right now, what's the point of the entire trip? I return to this topic over and over again, yet I cannot reach a conclusion.

Today destroyed my feet completely. The woulds healed pretty fine, they don't hurt anymore, but today created many more new ones. The first section was pretty smooth, until I tried to go over a hill because I did not want to wait for the tide to go out. I was scratched and torn at by spiteful plants with nails as leaves ¹. I'm gonna buy myself some thick leather gloves and a big knife and just slash these plants down.

After this I went up the huge hills (think it was called the Bream Head Walkway). Another day in the shoes of Sisyphus. The only problem was I was short on water so the entire journey was a struggle. I finished my water before the descent and was half dead by the time I reached the bottom.

I then hitched a ride to Whangarei because there were no boats left to ferry me across. The boat charter guy refused to take me across and wanted me to camp in the middle of town, nice! So I just decided to go off trail and see where that takes me. This English couple got me as far as Whangarei, and then a kind old man brought me in and let me stay over at his place. Sometimes the kindness of strangers amaze me.

So now I'm going to bed to rest my poor knees.-

Day 22

Day 22, 9 Dec 17

Norma² dropped me off at the Town Basin and I caught a bus to Ruakaka. Back on the trail again. I lost a couple of kilometers of road and beach ³, but I'm sure I made it up by getting lost so many times. That's just an excuse though.

Walked a bit of road so I could cross the river without getting wet. Then I went onto the most beautiful beach I've ever seen! Wide, vast expanse of sand. Islands in the distance. The sand was hard and compact, unlike Ocean Beach yesterday. It was even better in the evening when the sun was setting. The colors in the sky, and the colors reflected on the sea and the sand! Magnificent.

Decided not to sleep with the rain cover on to enjoy some of the wonderful sea breeze and to gaze at the beautiful night sky. Bad idea. Rained at about 3am. (I'm writing this on the next day.) Always put the rain cover on, because sometimes life just wants to play with you.

Thoughts

Lots of hill climbing, and some decent beach sections. I really enjoyed the second beach very much, there was no fear of getting pushed off into the dunes because of rising tides, and the sand was hard and compacted as well. Besides, I think it was the most scenic, being wide and smooth. I think the beach is called Lang's Beach, or at least a section of it goes by that name. There was also this little promontary halfway down that was a surfing hotspot because some rock formations created massive waves there. Pretty cool beach.

I am also eternally grateful to Norman who picked me up and let me stay over at his place for the night. I never expected anything like this to happen, thank you kind sir.

Also some advice to future estuary crossers: wear shoes! Do not be afraid to get your boots wet. Be sure that you wear good shoes, not jandals, because while crossing another estuary they gave up on me. The suction created by you lifting your feet out of the soft silt will rip the sole off. And as I have demonstrated above, not wearing anything will destroy your feet.

How quickly do the days go by! In an instant it has been 3 weeks. Hope you have been enjoying this so far because I enjoyed myself when I look back at it now, despite what the journal entries might suggest.