The Terrible and Beautiful Tararuas

(Sorry- no photos for now with spotty technology and wifi…)

As we left Palmerston North, I found myself getting nervous for what was coming.  I had heard about the Tararua Range plenty in the last several weeks, and it usually wasn’t good. Heavy rains, gale-force winds, TA hikers getting air-lifted out due to broken bones, etc.
Oh, also: I know many of you are possibly envious of us enjoying a beautiful New Zealand summer, but you should know that multiple people in the last few weeks have told us that this is the worst, coldest, wettest summer that New Zealand has had in at least 30 years. Some areas have had so much rain that they have continued issues with small rock slides and fallen trees, causing damage and road closures.

We had about 2 days to hike before heading into the Tararuas, so we continued to keep an eye on the weather forecasts and got back into some muddy forest tracks – a nice change after all the road-walking. Through the forest track, we had about 28 stream crossings, some tiny where we could hop across the rocks, but some thigh-deep and fairly strong after all the rain. Good practice for the larger river crossings we’ll come across in the South Island!

The day before heading into the mountains, we arrived at an Adventure camp that was listed in the trail notes, where other hikers we know have stayed and really enjoyed. We stopped to get the latest forecast and some advice from locals, but was early in the day so we weren’t sure we planned to stay there, knowing we had to walk a little more to a town to resupply. They welcomed us as soon as we arrived and gave us the forecast, a suggestion for a re-route from the TA trail (to avoid a short but terrible section where hikers have broken bones lately!), a sandwich, and an offer to take us into town later to resupply, and it didn’t take long for us to move our stuff into the lodge. We enjoyed a beautiful afternoon that actually felt like summer, and Ben even found some mountain bike trails nearby to go for a long run.

After getting my fill of trail wisdom, I felt more confident heading into the notorious ranges. We left early the next morning to get to the trail head and started our long and steady climb (about 800 meters of elevation gain) to the Te Matawai hut.  We (Ben and I along with 5 other TA hikers) ended up staying in this hut for the whole next day while we listened to the rain and wind outside and played games.

The next day was dry, but windy. We enjoyed some amazing views as we climbed up along a ridge. As soon as we got up to the junction and went over the ridge, we felt the full force of the gale winds. We battled the strong sideways wind for the next few hours as we walked along the muddy ridge path trying to stay upright. It was insane! It was such a relief to get back to the tree line and into the sheltered forest. We found our way to Nichols Hut, the coldest hut we’ve stayed in so far. Unfortunately it was not stocked with firewood, so we were pretty happy to have 7 of us in the small 6-bunk cabin!

It was hard to get going the next morning, but Ben and I tried to get on the trail early, knowing that the sooner we got over the summit, the sooner we could descent down and warm up! We walked and climbed along a ridge for about 90 minutes before reaching the summit of Mt. Crawford, which was pretty anti-climactic in the giant cloud. We moved on quickly and finally turned and started slowly descending down, where we finally got some amazing views of the Tararuas, the coastline, and the ocean. We descended steeply (the woman at the adventure camp described the trail as “basically slipping off the mountain”) and walked along the Otaki river until we found our hut. 

The next day, we had one more 700meter climb up and down to get out of the ranges. It was amazing how easy and quick the climb felt in comparison to the previous days. It was actually the first time I really felt like maybe I am getting stronger! Getting through the notorious Tararuas in some less-than-ideal weather was a huge confidence-booster as we get closer to the remote mountains in the South Island. And we not only got through them– we loved them! The week of getting into, through, and out of the Tararuas was one of the most beautiful, challenging, and rewarding weeks we’ve had on trail, and we’re so excited for more mountains in the South!

Time for a little more trail magic: the next day, Ben and I enjoyed a long walk on the out of the town of Waikanae, along some beaches, through towns, and then over a beautiful escarpment track high above the highway and overlooking the ocean. The weather was gorgeous! First, we passed by a woman who was outside working in her garden and she invited us in for a cold drink and biscuits (cookies). 

Later, we found a little park in a small town that we planned to “slealth camp” in, meaning we’d wait until dark before setting up our tent and trying to get out before too many morning walkers came through, just in case anybody would choose to have a problem with us camping in their local park. Anyway, after sitting and reading in the park for a couple of hours, a woman walked through with her dog. She started asking us about our trip and eventually asked where we were going to stay tonight, to which we cautiously responded that we planned to pitch our tent here. While she agreed that nobody would object, she said we might as well come pitch our tent in her yard where we could also use the bathroom and shower in her home, so we agreed and followed her home. When we walked in and she told her husband that she brought home visitors (read: brought home dirty backpackers from the park), he responded “great! Welcome! You can sleep in our son’s bed, he can sleep on the couch tonight!” We insisted that we were happy to camp in the yard so we set up our tent, then they invited us in for dinner and beers. The next morning, they made us coffee and eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast before wishing us well on our journey! 

We walked one more long day into Wellington, the southernmost city of the North Island! We spent a couple of days there planning, running errands, and sending resupply boxes. Don’t worry- we also found some time to eat some good food and try some amazing New Zealand craft beer! 

Whanganui River, New Shoes, and Trail Magic!

Hello from New Zealand!! It’s been a long time since my last post – our phone got a little bit of water on the canoe trip, and by the time we got it repaired, we were on our way into the mountains. We’re in Wellington now, so I’ll see if I can catch up a bit! 🙂

On January 25th, we set off from Taumaranui to paddle down the Whanganui River. The official Te Araroa river portion is actually only a few days long, but we decided to extend it to catch the whole river, including the first 4 days out of Taumarunui which is one of New Zealand’s Great Walks.

After a stressful morning of last-minute resupply, we loaded our canoes with lots of fresh food we can’t normally carry in our packs and plenty of beer. All of the boats from the company we rented from had names, so our group was made up of Dorothy (carrying Ben and me), Anastasia (with Andrew and Alexa), and Jessica (with Simon and Markus). The first day’s paddle was rainy and rapid-y; we had to navigate through rapids every 15-20 minutes or so at least throughout the afternoon. Most of the rapids were pretty gentle, but just challenging enough to have to stay focused. Ben and I got our canoe stuck once, and Simon and Markus’ canoe took on enough water to go under once. Jessica just couldn’t handle them, I guess! By the time we got to our campsite, we were all wet and cold from the river and the rain, and hungry! Because we could carry more food than usual, we did “family dinners.” Day one was fish tacos!

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Days 2, 3, and 4 turned out to be exactly what we had been excited for on the canoe trip… so easy, restful, and beautiful! We had short days planned, and the current was still going fairly steadily, so we didn’t have to work too hard to get where we needed to go. We tied Dorothy, Anastasia, and Jessica together and just floated, trusting the river god to guide the girls through the occasional rapids. On the 4th day, another big TA group of hiker-paddlers caught up to us and at one point we had about 12 canoes tied together in a massive “floatilla” formation. If you’re thinking that this probably wasn’t the brightest idea, you’re right. The outer canoes were slowly shaved off by the banks and large rocks until we chalked Floatilla up to a fun story and broke off into more manageable floating crews. Family dinners continued to be pretty epic: beef and bean burritos, pasta, and chili for dinners; eggs, breakfast tacos, and French toast for breakfasts!

The trip wasn’t all R&R. To make up for all of our lazy days, we had to paddle long and hard for the last 2 days to make it the 110 remaining kilometers to the town of Wanganui. As we got closer to the end of the river and closer to the ocean, we lost the current that had helped us along and we even had to time our final day with the tides so that we wouldn’t get caught trying to paddle down river as the tide was coming in. We paddled almost constantly for about 8 hours each of the two days and it didn’t take long for us to really miss hiking! By the time we really had to battle some waves and headwinds on the last day, my shoulders and back were SO sore! We finally got to the boat ramp that led right up to the Holiday Park around 5:30 pm on the 6th day, just about an hour before the tide would have started really working against us. We set up camp right along the river, made friends with the ducks who apparently run the place, enjoyed hot showers, and made our way into the town to stuff our faces.

The next morning was an exciting one.  We were basically like kids on Christmas morning as we walked to town to pick up our much-anticipated package at the post office, all the way from our favorite running store in Cedar Falls! New shoes, and a few more goodies! We realized a few weeks ago that we would definitely need more than the 2 pairs of shoes each we brought to get us through the whole trail, and shoes/clothes/gear are SO expensive here, so it was worth it to have some new Altra Lone Peaks sent from Iowa. We’re so thankful for the Runner’s Flat for special-ordering our shoes and sending them to the other side of the world!

The walk out of Wanganui was another 20 kilometer State Highway stretch, so we set out to hitchhike. This turned out to be the easiest hitch we’ve ever gotten: we got to the entrance ramp before we even planned to start hitching, and I heard a car coming up behind us so I decided to just throw my thumb out at the last minute without even turning around (just warming up, ya know?), and the car instantly pulled over just in front of us! We enjoyed a pleasant ride and conversation with a woman and her dog, and she even played tour guide a bit and point out some cool landmarks along the way. The woman who gave Simon, Alexa, and Andrew a ride to the campsite also invited them (and therefore, us!) to stay at her home the next day.  From the junction where she dropped us off, we had a 15 kilometer road walk to a nice little free campsite in a pleasant little beach town, where we watched one of the coolest sunsets I’ve probably ever seen.

We started the next morning by walking about 8k along a beautiful beach with black sand, then through some forestry roads, and finally some farm roads into the little town of Bulls.  What Bulls lacked in size, it made up for in puns! The town hall was called the Socia-bull, the rubbish bins encouraged us to be Responsi-bull, and we could have gotten a caffeine fix at Coffee on the Mooove! It was in Bulls that our host for the evening picked us up and took us the final 10k or so to her house. We took showers and enjoyed the luxury of fluffy towels, Raewyn and Chris continued to bring out rounds of beer, and later fed us some delicious lasagna and veggies. Then, we slept in BEDS. Comfy, cozy beds!

The next day was a rainy one, but Ben was persistent so the two of us got up early and walked the 30k or so to the city of Palmerston North.  It was hard to get moving in the morning and it wasn’t exactly a spectacular stretch of the trail, but we had a good day and felt good about getting back into the rhythm of hiking everyday. We arrived to the Holiday Park soaking wet and cold to find that all of the cabins were booked, so we set up our tent in the rain and spent much of the afternoon in the shelter of our little orange house.

 

Tongoriro National Park!

We spent the last week exploring (and hiding in) Tongoriro National Park. The Te Araroa route has us simply walking the well-known Tongoriro Crossing, featuring Mt. Tongoriro, Mt. Ngauruhoe (the volcanic mountain they used when shooting Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies), and the iconic Emerald Lakes. I took so many amazing photos, but we’re having trouble getting our GoPro to connect with the phone again, so the photos I share today are mostly from our friend Marjolein. I’ll be sure to share more photos soon, hopefully next week!

Taumarunui to Tongoriro National Park: on Wednesday morning, we set out with the plan to hitch hike the first 18 or so kilometers of this stretch, as it was all along State Highway 4. The state highway walks tend to be a little sketchy with the fast traffic, big trucks, and usually very little shoulder. Ben, Simon, Marjolein (our new friend from Belgium, who I call Mari because I can’t pronounce her name), and I got a ride from a guy who works for one of the local canoe rental places and got dropped off at a cafe where we had some coffee. (Side note: New Zealand does coffee so so right. It’s all espresso in the coffee shops- filter coffee is pretty rare in shops- and even the most shitty-looking little shop or restaurant somehow makes THE BEST long blacks, aka Americanos, and flat whites). Once a few more of our group gathered, we set off on a Mountain-biking path called the 42 Traverse. Besides one pretty cool waterfall, this track was pretty boring. Good company helped. The next day, we only had 15 or so kilometers to walk to Tongoriro Holiday Park, which was perfect because it rained all morning, and because we were at higher elevation it was also so cold. We were soaked and had numb fingers by the time we got to the campground shortly after noon, and the 5 of us walking that day decided to share a cabin. We cranked the heaters in our cabin, hung all of our wet clothes, and took long hot showers. The rest of the day was spent inside reading, napping, and getting ready for the next big day.

Tongoriro Crossing to Whakapapa Village.  We woke up early Friday morning to start the 7k road walk to the start of the Tongoriro Crossing. The Crossing and the Northern Circuit in the park make up one of New Zealand’s Great Walks, so we shared this walk with probably thousands of other people that day. However, our TA route has us going north to south, which is the opposite direction that the majority of people walk it. This was really helpful on our way up as we climbed the stairs and switchbacks to the top, and again on our way back down, as we had the trail mostly to ourselves at these points. At the top, however, we had to shuffle around so many people and wait our turn for good photo spots. It was clear to see why it’s such a popular walk… it was GORGEOUS! The volcanic mountain range made for some unique landscape shapes and colors, including the dome-shaped Mt. Ngauruhoe, the deep and vibrant Red Crater, and the cloudy greenish water in the Emerald Lakes. I walked with Mari most of the day, and we took our time stopping to take photos. This involved waiting for the clouds we were in to come and go to get clear shots, and for other tourists to make their way out of our frame. Ben and Simon went ahead quickly so they’d have time for one of the side trips- to hike to the summit of Mt. Tongoriro. They were totally in a cloud when they reached the summit and couldn’t see anything, but after waiting patiently for about 10 minutes for the cloud to pass, they were rewarded with some amazing views. We all hoped to do the other side trip of summiting Mt. Doom, which is less like hiking and more like scrambling through loose dirt (and on that day, snow and mud from melted snow) to the top. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time, and it was such a cold day up on the mountain (we actually walked through snow, which is not really common in the summer here!), so we thought it best to make our way down. We hiked/shuffled/ran down down down the steep switchbacks of beautifully-maintained trail, then hiked another beautiful 10km to the little Whakapapa Village, a little ski resort town. We ate burgers and pizza, drank beer, and camped at the holiday park there. 

Around the Mountain Track.  Saturday morning, we set out on one of the longer, less-traveled tracks in the park: the Round the Mountain track, which is about 70km long and goes around the highest volcanic mountain, the beautiful snow-capped Mt. Ruapehu. We knew there was a big storm coming that night and the next day, but we headed out anyway figuring we’d rather be stuck in a hut during the heavy rain and gale-force winds than in our tent at a crappy holiday park! We had a beautiful day of hiking and were amazed at the change in landscape as we got to different sides of the mountain, like each side had a totally different climate. The end of the day brought lots of steep climbs and descents, and just as we were getting tired and so ready to be done, we came to the most amazing river valley. It was a Lahar flow path, meaning that when there’s an eruption, the volcanic mud flows through the river valley. We took the cool swing Bridge over the small river canyon, where the rock was so dark and clearly carved by volcanic flow, and the river flowing from Mt. Ruapehu was the high-mineral cloudy and very blue water like we had seen on the Tongoriro Crossing. It was SO amazing and definitely lifted our spirits for the last few climbs up and down to Rangipo hut. We were so happy to get to our hut and see that the firewood was fully stocked and dry. Soon after we arrived, the wind picked up and was pretty wild by the time we went to bed. We woke up the next day to heavy wind and rain and we were content to stay inside, feeding the fire in the wood-burning stove, playing cards, reading, and napping. Ben did go outside once to try to burn off some energy, but as soon as he got out of the fairly-sheltered spot where the hut was built, he turned right back around and felt pretty good about not going anywhere that day 😂. Simon, Mari, Ben, and I were also happily stuck in the hut with our TA friend Hugo, two guys from New Zealand, and later two more guys who were crazy enough to hike a little in the storm but didn’t get far! In the evening, the storm seemed to be breaking up a little and we saw the most AMAZING rainbow. It was so clear, complete, and perisistent– I could point out every single color, and it stayed like that for at least an hour! It was like it was there just for us.

The next day, the wind had died down a lot, so we attempted to move on. We hiked for about 3 hours to the next hut where we planned to take a long lunch and dry out, but when it didn’t look like the rain would clear up anytime soon, we decided we weren’t going any farther. The next morning, it was absolutely beautiful so we hiked out to the nearest road and hitchhiked to the next little town where we had a coffee. We had to get back to Taumarunui to prepare for our canoe trip, and it took Ben and I two pretty easy hitches to get the 70 kilometers to town.

Today, we head out on canoes for about 7 days down the Whanganui River. We’re excited to carry heavier food (and some drinks!) and give our legs some rest.

Hut-hopping in Pureora Forest

1,000 kilometers done! It’s so crazy to think about how the past 6 weeks have flown by, but it also feels like we’ve been here for about forever. Our first full day of hiking along Ninety Mile beach 6 weeks ago feels simultaneously like yesterday and years ago. So, here’s a little re-cap of the past week (or more or less… I don’t even know what day it is anymore.)

From Waitomo, we walked through some surprisingly tough farm track to the little town of Te Kuiti, apparently the sheep-shearing capital of New Zealand, which explained the many quite naked-looking sheep along the route. We planned to walk the 15 kilometers to the supermarket in Te Kuiti and then continue on a few more kilometers. However, after the challenging walk (straight up and down huge hills of rough/uneven soil and prickly plants in the hot sun) took longer than planned, we gave in to the temptation of a cheap campsite in town. We had heard the next section of track was difficult, so we decided to put it off until the next day.

The first 5 km of the track the next day was, in fact, super easy and so beautiful! We walked along the river on a well-maintained trail until our lunch break, where we all talked about how surprisingly easy and pleasant the trail turned out to be!

And then the Te Araroa, who has quite the sense of humor, we’ve come to realize, laughed at our naivety and led us along the river track that became narrow and challenging. We spent the day watching our feet closely along the sometimes high ridge with long grass and steep slopes. We were rewarded with a few beautiful river spots for breaks along the way, a stretch of easy track through a forest of huge eucalyptus trees, and the most perfect campsite in a farm field with an amazing view.

The next day, we decided to go for a big road-walking day in order to make it to a campsite just outside of the next forest. As much as I hate road-walks, the weather was gorgeous, the roads were gravel and rarely-traveled, and the farm pasture views were as picturesque as they get. As Ben put it, “if we have to walk on a road for 35 kilometers, I’m glad it’s this road on this day.” The last 9 km or so, however, were along a state highway… which is less desirable. We walked a few on the highway, when I started thinking that, while I wouldn’t necessarily hitchhike, if someone were to stop and offer a ride (not uncommon in New Zealand), I definitely wouldn’t turn it down. Not long after that, a pick-up truck, already carrying a couple of our hiker friends, pulled up and asked us if we wanted a ride. Simon and I hopped into the back of the pickup without too much guilt, while Ben decided to continue walking the last 8km or so. Ben met us at the campsite and we had some dinner just before it started to rain… and it rained and rained all night.

The next day we began our 4-day trek through the Pureora Forest. The rain cleared up early and this turned out to be an easy day because most of it was on the Timber Trail, a popular 80-some km mountain-biking trail. This is a well-maintained, gently-climbing trail through a beautiful, old forest. We only deviated from the Timber trail for about 3 muddy but gorgeous kilometers through what felt like a fairy-tale forest to the Pureora summit. Here, we had amazing views of Lake Taupo and the freshly-snow-capped Mount Ruapehu. After descending from the summit and walking a few more kilometers, we stayed at the Bog Inn Hut, a small rustic hut built in the 60s. Despite a lot of wet wood and skepticism from the group, Markus got a fire going in the wood-burning stove, which was a perfect warm treat after the sun went down.

The next day we walked about 18 km to the Waihaha Hut. The weather was almost as gorgeous as the forest, and the track was easy-going except for a few bits of mud and a couple of steep climbs. We also officially passed the 1000 kilometer point on this day, marking one-third of the way done, which was cause for a lot of mixed feelings: celebration, pride, and homesickness to name a few. It’s amazing to realize how far we’ve come, but also overwhelming to realize how far we have to go! At the Waihaha hut that night, we met a few more hikers, as well as a couple of bad-ass New Zealand hunters who were just starting their overnight wild-hog hunt with nothing but their lean-mean(but actually super sweet)-hunting dogs and huge knives. They shared a few stories, words of wisdom (“don’t turn your back on a boar… if a wild boar starts running at you, you’re best to run back at it until it backs down”), and a couple beers from their backpacks before heading into the bush.

And once again, while we celebrated amongst ourselves about passing the 1000km mark and about the beautiful summer weather we had been having, the Te Araroa laughed. We woke up the next morning to fog and mist, which is not unusual. By about 2 hours into our hike, the rain was coming down pretty hard, the wind was cold, and the trail was getting more and more slick. Our plan was to hike about 18km to the edge of the forest, but we knew there was another Hut about 12 km in where we wanted to get to for a lunch break out of the rain. About a half kilometer from the hut, Ben noticed the smell of smoke in the air and we, knowing we had a couple of friends ahead of us, decided that this was a great sign. We sludged up to the hut to find Simon with a fire already going in the wood-burning stove! We traded our wet clothes for dry and warm and hunkered down. Over the next hour, our friends slowly arrived wet and cold, and it didn’t take us long to decide that we weren’t going any further that day. We spent the whole afternoon with 9 of us (the 6 of us who have been hiking together plus the 3 hikers we met the night before) crammed in the small 6-bunk hut, with all of our wet clothes hung on lines we strung from one end of the room to the other over the stove. Around 6pm, the weather cleared almost instantly and we got to enjoy an amazing view and some sunshine from the hut’s deck! The 9 of us slept mostly comfortably in the 6-bunk hut, with 2 of us (Ben and me) on the floor, and another two sharing one little bunk. We hikers aren’t too picky.

Since we took a shorter day than planned from hut to hut, we had a longer than planned day to get to the town of Taumarunui. The 40ish kilometers weren’t exactly negotiable since we’d all almost run out of food! For the first 7km, we hiked/sludged/slid down the trail through the fresh mud (knee-deep at spots) out of the forest. We then had a 30ish km walk along roads into Taumarunui, with a day off to look forward to. The beautiful views, Hamilton the musical, and some trail magic fruit helped me through it. Once in town, we got some of the best fish-n-chips I’ve had in New Zealand and got a shuttle the rest of the way to the Holiday Park/campground where we were staying.

We spent time today doing to usual: showering, doing laundry, charging electronics, etc…  but also planning the next exciting parts of our trail. We head out tomorrow toward Tongoriro National Park where we plan to spend a couple extra days for side trips- one of which is hiking up Mt. Ngauruhoe, aka Mount Doom (from Lord of the Rings). Soon after that, the trail takes us on a canoe trip down the Whanganui River. Our legs are so excited for our arms to pick up some of the slack on this trip!

Not many photos to share today, our camera doesn’t want to talk to our phone at the moment. There will be plenty more to share in the weeks to come, so stay tuned! ☺️

Mercer to Waitomo, by way of Hobbiton!

Hello from Waitomo! The past week has flown by as we’ve gotten away from holiday rests and frequent cities and more into a daily-hiking rhythm… tent nights, wet days, and muddy tracks.

We talked our friends that we spent the new year weekend with to skip ahead to Mercer with us, an appealing option to avoid the yucky highway walks out of the city. We paired up and found a handy entrance ramp onto Highway 1 to hitch hike the 45 or so kilometers. It’s always fun to share our hitchhiking stories with each other at the end of the day; all of us were picked up by people that went way out of their way to take us where we needed to go!

Out of the little town of Mercer, the 6 of us hiked for three days mostly through farm tracks and on country roads to get to the city of Hamilton. There, we camped out in the yard of a family that Alexa, Andrew, and Simon had met up north when they knocked on a door asking for water; this family happened to be there visiting friends celebrating Christmas and freely offered their place in Hamilton if they needed a place to stay. They welcomed all of us to set up our tents in their yard, and let us shower, AND fed us breakfast. On our way to their house in Hamilton, we actually met another couple from Wellington who gave us their number and offered their home as a place to stay when we go through there as well! The people here continue to amaze us.

We took Thursday off for our Hobbiton field trip. We rented a hilarious 12-seat minibus (the only thing available that would fit us) and drove about an hour to Matamata, where the set of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie draws thousands of sucker tourists everyday for overpriced tours. Yes- we fell into the sucker tourist trap and we have no regrets. The 2-hour walking tour of the set/village could have taken about 30 minutes if it weren’t for everyone taking pictures with every hobbit hole door, but we did at least get a free hobbit-sized ale at the Green Dragon at the end!

After Hobbiton, we drove one more hour to Mount Manganui, where Simon’s friends let us stay in their house and take over the kitchen and barbecue to create another amazing meal. Ben was in heaven with the amazing grill set-up on the huge deck. Oh, and if you’re wondering- Simon drove us around in the minibus- on the right side of the car and the left side of the road! He lived in South Africa for awhile several years ago, and found out that it’s kind of like riding a bike.

We drove back to Hamilton the next morning in time to run some errands and put in about 15 km of walking. This was the start of a 4.5 day stretch of being away from towns, shops, cafes, and tourist traps. We climbed another muddy muddy forest track to our highest mountain summit yet – Pirongia at just over 950 meters above sea level – where we stayed in our first hut, which was very welcome on the really windy night. We finally found the green rolling hills of the shire and became one with a huge herd of curious cows; one even followed me up a hill and found my leg to be pretty salty and delicious. We also met one really friendly deer as we walked by a venison farm while the rest of the herd looked on, not really sure what “Gary” was doing with the humans. And all along the way we shared lots of good talks and great laughs.

More to come next week!

Through Auckland and back again!

Happy New Year from New Zealand! We’ve had a long week full of kilometers, sweat, and a few tears and were rewarded with a weekend of New Year celebration in Auckland with our favorite trail friends!

December 26th, Orewa to Auckland – our biggest day yet: 45 kilometers! The trail goes through the sprawling city of Auckland, about 75 km from the north suburbs to the south suburbs. We knew that going through the city would mean having to pay for places to stay, so we decided to try to get through the city as quickly as we could knowing that we’d be back for the weekend. The path from Orewa to Auckland was pretty easy with a lot of coastal walking paths. The most exciting part of the day was an estuary crossing! This has to be done at low tide and we were lucky enough to hit it exactly at the right time. Even at the lowest tide of the day, however, the “wade” felt more like a swim with the water coming up to my arm pits! After that, our biggest obstacles included stray cricket balls, running children, and confused looks (“why are these people carrying packs and wearing wool socks…?”) from holiday beach-goers. We caught the ferry to Auckland CBD in time to stuff our faces and claim the last two bunks in the YHA hostel.

Wet up to my neck after the estuary crossing!

Dec 27, Wandering Auckland! Our 30ish km route took us through some of the city parks and neighborhoods we’d already explored, and a few new ones. We were exhausted from our long day into Auckland, so we ended up cheating just a bit by taking an Uber to skip the bit around the airport to make sure we could see the Botanical Gardens. We finished the day with some delicious Indian food before checking into our AirBnB for the night.

View of the city and the Sky Tower.

Dec 28-29, Hunua Regional Park. We started our Wednesday morning with a really miserable busy-road walk. Once we got to the road going out of town, we easily got a hitch to get past one of the more notoriously bad road walks and were happy to get dropped off a little closer to the start of our track than we expected. We spent a couple of days hiking into and through the Hunua Ranges. This regional park was beautiful, with a cool waterfall, great views, and really well-maintained tracks. Wednesday was mentally a tough day for me, so we ended up camping a little sooner than planned and enjoying a little more rest and reading that evening. I woke up refreshed on Thursday, ready to take in the scenery and to hike hard. We had heard terrible things about the last 7km or so of track that we planned to hike that day, that it was in rough shape and slow-going. This turned out to be pretty humorous in the end, because most of the track was quite lovely compared to the some of the trails we had experienced in the Northland forests! The entire descent was made of beautiful switchbacks (something we don’t see here often) that we could practically skip all the way down! We found a cozy campsite by a river with a small herd of cows watching over us.

Kauri grove

We crossed the 700 km marker!

 

Dec 30- back to Auckland! This was the only day so far on trail that we’ve set an alarm. We woke up at 5am and were hiking by 5:30. You know what they say- the early bird catches their bus, or something like that.  Anyway, we had to hike 19km into Mercer by 10:00 or so to catch a bus back to Auckland. Not only did we make it in time for our bus, we made it with enough time to eat way too much McDonald’s breakfast. We were only a little bit ashamed of being the Americans going to McDonalds in a foreign country…

New Year weekend off! We were excited to meet up with some trail friends we hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks to celebrate the New Year. We shared an AirBnB near a beach with Alexa and Andrew from New York, Simon from Holland, and Marcus from Germany. We spent the weekend eating, drinking, getting sunburnt on the beach, and airing out all of our smelly hiker gear. Ben even got creative and grilled a leg of lamb on New Year’s Eve and a duck on New Year’s Day. Both were amazing! We got to be among the first in the world to ring in the New Year (19 hours earlier than Iowa!), and we did so in style with champagne on the beach!

Cheers!

Tomorrow, we’ll head back to Mercer and pick up the trail where we left off. In a few days we’re planning a little Hobbiton (the movie set!) excursion with the crew, then maybe we’ll eventually get back to serious hiking ;).

Wishing everyone so much love, happiness, and adventure in the New Year!

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”  — Bilbo Baggins 

A lot of days and a lot of kilometers: Kerikeri to Orewa (Merry Christmas!)

It’s been over a week and I’ve lost track of the days and the kilometers, so I’m officially giving up on the day-by-day breakdown, at least for this post. I hope you understand!

All I know is that today is Christmas Day, and we passed the 500 km point a couple of days ago! One-sixth of the way done! There have been a couple of days where I’ve felt like this hike is going to take FOREVER… but now I realize how quickly it will fly by.

So, let’s back up a few days. After our rest day in Kerikeri, we hiked one long (30km) day into Paihia. I had a couple of troublesome blisters before Kerikeri and hoped that a day off would help, but by the end of the hike into Paihia, the pain came back full-force and I could barely walk. Rather than walking the extra 3km to the beachside campground we planned, we stopped at the YHA hostel in Paihia for the night. We then made the tough decision to split up for a few days. I would stay at the YHA in Paihia for the weekend while Ben continued on with the next section of the trail.

Ben’s days 13-15: wake up, hike a shit ton of kilometers, throw food in his face when convenient, sleep, repeat. Ben went with just the basics, leaving behind the camp stove and the tent with the plan to eat the tortillas, Nutella, and trail mix that we had, supplemented by takeaway meals he could find in little towns along the way, and to sleep in the sleeping bag under the stars (aka “cowboy camp”). There was no rain in the forecast, so he just brought the rain fly of our tent to use as a tarp just in case, saving about 2.5lbs of weight and bulk by leaving the tent behind. The first day started with a pleasant water taxi ride across the bay, and then he hiked somewhere between 40 and 60 kilometers each of the days. Highlights include walking through a waist-deep estuary, winning a midnight standoff with possum, and almost getting mauled by a angry pitbull owned by the only Donald Trump supporter we’ve found on the whole island.

Laura’s days 13-15…. mostly stuff like this:

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The big highlight was going on a full day dolphin/sailing cruise​​​. We set out on a catamaran at 9am in search of dolphins in the bay- even dolphins that we could hopefully swim with. After only about an hour, we were able to see a big pod of dolphins – the captain estimated about 20-30 of them in the pod – swimming, fighting, playing, rubbing up on our boat, etc. It was so cool!  We were not able to swim with this pod of dolphins because there were a couple of baby dolphins. The Department of Conservation has pretty strict guidelines when it comes to interacting with and swimming with the wild dolphins, so if the dolphins are resting, traveling fast, or have babies with them, swimming with them is not allowed.  After watching the dolphins for about a half hour, we took a break on one of the little islands in the Bay of Island, where we could explore a bit and do a little snorkeling in the lagoon. We ate a barbecue lunch before spending a couple more hours sailing. The rest of the time in Paihia was spent relaxing and reading on the beach, slowly wandering around the shops and craft market, chatting with my hostel roommates (who were mostly from Germany), and sleeping an unreasonable number of hours every night in my little hostel bunk.

Day 16: reunion in Whangarei!  (Note: for the most part, the town names are pronounced phonetically, EXCEPT- the WH together are pronounced like F. So Whangarei is pronounced sort of like “Fang-ga-ray”).  Anyway, I took a bus from Paihia to Whangarei on Monday morning, while Ben hiked to Whangarei Heads then hitchhiked the short ride to Whangarei. We also met up with our friend Mike here, and we all got to the bus stop about the same time. We found the local ‘Backpackers’ (hostel) called the Cell Block, which actually used to be a jail. We spent the day eating a lot, drinking a few beers, planning our next few days, and then we saw Rogue One (so good!) in the movie theater there. Ben and I then spent a couple hours having a beer and great conversation with some German backpackers (working-holiday/traveling/hostel-staying backpackers, as opposed to hiking backpackers) – about politics, media, and life in our countries, and about the importance of just being good people and finding common ground with people as humans – before getting some good sleep in our little remodeled jail cell.

Days 17-20: back on trail, and my feet feel pretty good!! 🙂 Whangarei is a bit off-trail, so we hitchhiked to get to the closest point we could after Ben left the trail to meet me. We had a short ride with a nice German guy (seriously, there are so many Germans in New Zealand, we’re not sure there’s anyone left in Germany) on his way to Auckland in his sweet camper van. We walked a short stretch on a beach before walking through a blur of other landscapes and terrains over the next 4 days. We beach-walked, we highway-walked, and we four-wheel-drive-track-walked; we walked through forests, farm fields, and towns. On one particularly long day, just after a forest where we had hoped to free camp but couldn’t find any decent spots and just before it started to rain, we saw a sign in a driveway saying “TA welcome – camping, beer, coffee” – a dream come true!  We talked to the babysitter who was there at the time, who gave us each a beer and showed us where to set up our tent on the lawn and where to find the bathroom and shower. After showering, Ben and I experienced our first real rainy-camp experience of the trip, cooking under our tent’s rainfly and eating our mac-n-cheese dinner in our tent. The next morning, the people who own the place, Matt and Jasmine, made us delicious coffee and a big amazing breakfast of eggs, sausage, and roasted tomatoes. It was such a fun morning eating and talking with them, and they were so welcoming and hospitable that Matt literally gave us the shirt off his back. (It was a NZ rugby shirt that we commented on, so he gave it to us as a souvenir to bring home!). Over and over, we are so blown away by the people who live here!

Rainy day dinner

About noon on Christmas Eve, we hiked into the town of Puhoi, where the official route has us taking a kayak trip down the Puhoi river and then walking about 9km along beaches and around bluffs. Sounds easy enough, except everything is so dependent on the tides here: the kayak has to happen at high tide, because the river is only full at high tide, and the beach walk has to happen at low tide because there’s nowhere to walk in some places at high tide. With the tides and the holidays, it just didn’t work out to do this section. We popped in to the kayak rental place to just see if it would be possible to do the section on Monday after Christmas, but the woman there said that after the holidays they were booked up for a few days. She asked us how we planned to get to Orewa where we said we were spending Christmas, and she said she had a daughter heading there just momentarily and we could probably get a ride with her. The alternate walking route is highway-walking, and we had heard these highways were particularly busy and dangerous and we had planned to hitchhike, so it was perfect. We rode the 10 or so km to Orewa and met up with our friend Mike again at the holiday park.

Christmas Day!!: We’ve been having a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit, with it being summer on the beach and all, and we definitely are feeling a little homesick today, so we’ve tried to do as many traditions from home as we can. We called our families, we watched as much of It’s a Wonderful Life as our free 100MB of free wifi from this holiday park would allow (about 25 minutes), and roasted a chicken. Eggnog apparently isn’t a thing here, so we even made eggnog which (to my surprise) turned out to be really delicious. And mostly, we rested.

Eggnog by the beach? Cheers!

The carving of the chicken… before we all just dug in with our hands like the hiker trash we are. 😂

Tomorrow, we hike again. We plan to hike for 5 days into and through Auckland before taking 2 days off in Auckland, where we’re renting an AirBnB house with some of our hiker friends.

Sending lots of love, sunshine, and sand (please, just take some of the sand!) from New Zealand!

Merry Christmas!!!​​​

Days 6-11: The Northland Forests

Guys, hiking here is hard. This is nothing like the well-maintained hiking trails we’ve done in the United States, and they don’t seem to believe in switchbacks here. The northland forests threw everything at us all at once; they were a proper initiation into the Te Araroa trampers club.

Day 6- Herekino Forest. We left our cozy cabin in Ahipara early and began walking the 7km along roads to the trailhead. We had heard Herekino was muddy, and it lived up to its reputation fully within the first kilometer. It was beautiful, though, with the lush, green trees and the interesting bird songs. We climbed up and up for a couple of kilometers, and we both found the tough track to be really fun once we decided to embrace the mud – much more interesting than the beach!  Then came the downhill… the long, muddy, slippery descent. I (Laura) took about 3 solid yet graceful falls, 2 almost falls that ended in some variation of malasana (yoga squat), and one semi-controlled slide that resulted in a sizable hole in the butt of my shorts. We found ourselves on the other side of the forest around 4pm to find a hut we had heard about, the Tramp Inn. The hut’s sign as we exited the forest boasted New Zealand’s best toilet, and it did not disappoint. At the hut, we caught up with a couple of hikers we met along the beach, Hugo from France and Michael from the Czech Republic. Later, we saw a pickup driving up toward the hut through the farm field, and it turned out to be the farmer who had recently built the hut to give hikers a place to get cleaned up and sleep after getting through the tough forest. He, his wife, and his four boys aged 8-13, all came out to spend the night in the new hut, and they brought with them supplies for a nice fire and a bucket of KFC chicken. We enjoyed getting to know them, and they took Ben out for some good fun of possum-shooting! Possums are a big problem here, destroying much of the natural vegetation. They’re not native and have no natural predators, so the population is out of control. 

 

Toilet with a view!:

Day 7 – Raetea Forest. Also known as F***ing Raetea. We had heard that Herekino was the hardest, muddiest forest, but the locals we hung out with at the hut cleared that up real quick. (“No, Raetea is harder. And just as muddy.”)  A friend of the farmer’s family at the hut shared these words of wisdom: “Be gentle with Raetea, and she will be gentle with you.” So, we left early on the rainy day after a good indoor sleep to conquer the 11km road walk leading up to the trailhead, then walked into Raetea not knowing what to expect. From the start of the muddy trail, the fastest pace we could muster was about 1 km/hr. We climbed and climbed, thankful for every root and rock that offered some sort of a foothold. There were some stretches that looked like they were overdue for a machete trim, and areas where the mud came up to mid-shin. We were wet from all sides: mud in our shoes and socks, wet bush and trees from all sides, and rain from above. I was so thankful for the orange triangular trail markers to keep assuring us that we were indeed on the right path, especially when it didn’t seem like a path at all. Unlike the one summit in Herekino forest, the Raetea track covered three summits, so we climbed up and up and up, and then tried not to slide down and down, over and over again. We were wet and cold so we just had to keep walking, and hoped that we could find the end of the forest before the end of the day. By about 7:00 pm, after nearly 12 hours of straight hiking, we found a little campsite to call home for the night. We knew we’d have a little more descending out of the forest to do in the morning, but our dry clothes and ramen noodles were calling our names. It had stopped raining so we cooked dinner, hung up our wet and caked-in-mud clothes, crawled into bed, and put this day in the books as our toughest hiking day ever.

Video below is just a taste of the mud, though probably one of the tamest bits as Ben needed to hold the camera AND stay on his feet.

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Day 8- Raetea Forest to Apple Dam campground. We woke up early and packed up our stuff so we could get the hell out of that forest as soon as we could. We had about an hour and a half more of mud and steep, slippery descent before walking out to the most beautiful site I could imagine: and big open farm field full of sunshine!  We walked down through the fields until we found a gravel road, which took us to a river. We took a few minutes to wash out all of our muddy socks and shoes in the river, which felt absolutely amazing. We walked several kilometers along the highway to the next town where we found an amazing Dairy (little general store) with takeaways. We ate egg and bacon sandwiches, potato wedges, ice cream, and donuts, and then met a couple of other hikers who had gotten through Raetea yesterday. It was so nice to know that everyone struggled through! We hiked with Mike and Simon the rest of the way along gravel roads and set up camp at Apple Dam campground. There, we had quite the group of hikers and bikers from all over. One thing I’ve loved about this trail is meeting people from around the world- we’ve hiked and camped with people from Germany, France, Holland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Canada, South Korea, and different areas of the US. 

Day 9 – Puketi Forest. This was my favorite morning yet on this trip. The first part of this track was through a river canyon, just literally walking down the stream along the rocks and through the water. Absolutely beautiful! Just when I thought we’d have an easy day, however, the track took us up to trail that followed the river (once it got too deep to wade through), and the trail was again tough. Pretty muddy, slick, and slow-going along the thin trail that was basically on a 45 degree slant most of the way. Then we climbed up and up on a very well-maintained trail, and it would have been a really lovely forest if it wasn’t for the dead possums in traps along the way. Remember the nuisance possums? Well, apparently they took a lot of measures in this forest control the population, including dropping poison and setting traps in the trees. The traps were pretty much right along the path on either side, and you could smell the dead trapped possums even before seeing their bodies hanging from the trees. We did find a nice, possum-free spot for our tuna and tortilla lunch at the top of the climb, before walking the final 9km on gravel road to the Puketi Forest Recreation Area campsite.

Day 10- to Kerikeri! This would have been an easy day of walking, if it weren’t for my sore feet and blisters! We walked several kilometers on gravel roads and through farm pastures, where I encountered probably the most scary thing I’ve encountered on the trail: walking through/around a herd of very curious and evidentially playful cows! They reminded me of the ghosts in the Nintendo Mario Brothers – if you stopped and stared, they’d stare right back at you, but once you looked away, they’d ALL start moving closer. The Te Araroa track goes though quite a bit of private land, and is actually really supported by the landowners. There are posts with the orange trail marker throughout and when the route comes to a fence, there is almost always a little step up and over into the next field. And the trail notes even have words for caution and advice when walking  through a grazing pasture where cows or sheep are enclosed. One of the farmers (I assume) even left a bag of fresh fruit for trampers to enjoy. And for those of you who know Ben well, you’ll know that this treat came at just the right time because Ben ATE AN ORANGE and didn’t hate it! Ha! So Anyway, we then walked on a beautiful walking path past a waterfall and along a river into Kerikeri, where we found and great place (with outdoor seating, because we really didn’t smell good) to have a few beers and dinner with a few of our fellow hikers to celebrate making it out of the Northland forests in one piece!

Day 11- Kerikeri zero day! So here we are, at a lovely campsite, enjoying a day off. Ben and I got some delicious breakfast and ran some necessary errands this morning – resupplying our food and supplies, doing laundry, etc. We’ve been catching up with other hikers who are also resting here, and we are looking forward to finally making our huge salad full of veggies and avocados for dinner tonight. 

We have some easier tramping and pleasant weather expected in the days ahead, which is a welcome change of pace. But, we’re pretty sure after the past week, we can handle just about anything the trail throws at us. 🙂 

Sending love from New Zealand!!