Yes! We had our first celebration by the stream that night as we’ve
officially finished the first region of NZ! Being pretty much a total novice hiker I had no idea how I’d do or how far I’d get. I’m not really that much of an exerciser to be honest! So I’m super proud of myself for hanging in there and getting through some actually pretty tough terrain, and miles, ( 4-hours-a-mile-jungle!) even though it was a bit of shock to the system! :D
This is us enjoying my first attempt at a river-bed camp fire!
Miles Walked = 150 approx.
( a small chunk but we’re just warming up eh ;) )
Best Free Item = Offer of a house for the week by a woman literally just driving past.
Best Animals Spotted = River Eel / Shark / Stingray / Wild Pigs
Most Fun = Kayaking around the waterfall
Biggest Relief = Getting out of the jungle / Finding water / A Flush-toilet !
Best Meal = Pepper Fillet Steak at Beachcomber in Kaitaia
Most interesting character = Alan. Bus driver, tourguide, lighthouse keeper, bee keeper, environmentalist, farmer, historian and comedian. This guy needs to go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Most Interesting Facts Learned =
#1 = You can make socks out of Possums
#2 = Leaves preserved in sand can stay green for 40,000 years
#3 = Pulling a needle and thread through a blister can fix it
#4 = Don’t flip over an object on the beach (especially if its dead) unless you want a mouthful of evil bugs… Again – yawning in the jungle can rapidly lead to unwanted protein intake…
#5 = Gorse is bloody sharp!
Our first region, county, state, not sure what they call it over here, but according to the trail notes we’ve left the Far North and are now in Whangarei, yey :D This has been our warm-up section doing modest mileages each day to get in shape. I think we’re getting there and starting to pick up the pace. Certainly feel warmed up, the weather has been brilliant, if anything too hot for me! Apparently it’s unusually dry for this time of year, so we’ve been pretty lucky I think. The variety of terrain we’ve covered has been quite an eye opener, lots of beach and forest, totally different to the mountains I’m used to.
Wicked sunset tonight over the falls. And the odd firework going off in the distance. Cookie and I nailed a box of beers between us as we invited ourselves to ‘next door’s’ camp fire. We even had a bench to sit on. A bit of a luxury when you’re used to sitting on your ground mat. Excellent chilled evening :)
It was bonfire night last night and German boys camped next to us made a timely bonfire for us in the evening :) Not sure if they knew anything about bonfire night though, I think they were just pyromaniacs! The fire was fueled mainly by old kitchen cabinets, god knows where they found them..?
Welcome. How do you like the new place? ;) This is Te Matawai hut. We ended up staying here much longer than we’d anticipated actually but more on that later! We were lucky enough to have this one all to ourselves for the evening and had fun chopping up logs and building fires to dry our clothes. I’ve even hung out my bra to greet fellow travellers as they arrived. But sadly no-one came :) The reason why there was no one else up in the mountains became painfully clear later the next day!
We arrived at lunch, in retrospect we should of carried on to the next hut to make best use of the fine weather, but it was another 5 hours and we couldn’t be arsed.. Or maybe it was because we were just looking forward to having a fire for the first time in ages :)
And so, trapped in the hut for one more night, Cookie set to work with the axe, and I got stuck in with the kindling to make FIRE. Very satisfying indeed. There’s not been enough fire action on this holiday so far. It’s so much fun as well! We tucked into our instant noodles and salami dinner, and sipped our rum and lime cocktails until the sun went down. Bedtime.
After last nights diminutive branch burning session, I wanted to get some proper logs for the fire tonight. I located a dead, well not really a tree, more like a large shrubbery which had all of it’s easy to hack off branches already removed, so I set about it’s more substantial trunk. First with an axe, maybe it was blunt, most likely I’m rubbish at axe-wielding, anyhow after a few minutes I was exhausted and had hardly made a dent in it.. I went back to the hut to get the saw, which made much faster progress, but not that fast, after sawing through it I was totaly worn out. I take my hat off to lumberjacks, it’s a lot harder than it looks!
Today was a hard day. After smashing sign times all morning, we’d ended up with another 12hr day back to back. How did that happen? I was beyond exhausted when we finally got to Top Wairoa. There was just enough light to find the hut. Muscles shuddering, and my insides curled tightly in anxiety, we sank onto the bench in silence. I don’t think we’d spoken for hours save the repetitive “Thank you Cookie” on every step I was dragged up and saved. I didn’t speak, for fear of freaking out. Every ounce of mental energy had been taken to keep a lid on things and focus on our destination. Soaked to the bone, and every set of clothes wet bar a pair of pants we set to work building a fire and draping our sodden possessions from every beam.
Finally we rolled into Top Wairoa Hut at 9pm, bang on the DOC time of 4.5 hours. Just in time too, spotting those little orange triangles was starting to get tricky in the dimming light. By the time we got the fire going and collected water from the river below it was pitch black.
Not staying at the hut has it’s advantages – you can crank up a nice fire and sit round telling stories and sipping hot toddies until late into the night ( or at least til 8:30… we’re hikers after all ;) ). Here Nico does a sterling job with ‘The Wafter’ keeping the light and heating roaring at our new home. Mmmm toes released from the boots, and revived with the warmth of the fire, noodles scoffed, and rum sunk, a deep sense of snooziness prevails… It’s time to get zipped up in the thermal maggot bag as our eyes start to sink slowly into the closed position… Zzzzz A satisfying day :)
The orginal plan was to get to Siberia Hut tonight, a further one hour down the valley. But we found a massive fire ring when we popped out onto Siberia Flats so felt obliged to fill it with fire ;) Camping here was also a much better location to take in side trip up to nearby Crucible Lake tomorrow (didn’t have to walk that hour back up here again).
Tonight we clocked the empty old wardens hut, and bagged it. It’s awesome as it’s got an open fire. Quite rare these days as so many huts burn down! We got tucked up snug in our maggot bags, full of hot rum drink, and gazed over at the glowing embers… All warm, dry and sleepy. These simple things feel like ultimate luxury.
The long slog back to the hut this afternoon was quite hard work.. Even though it was technically downhill, it’s the sort of terrain that’s no quicker going up or down. It was almost dark when we returned, we had to cook our dinner by candle light.
The ‘informal campsite’ appeared just after the Forest Throne, and there were some excellent flat spots and a gushing river of fresh mountain spring water to gorge on. An old firepit was obvious and some kind person had already collected the logs. Some kindle collecting later and it was time to stoke up, get the spicy noodle soup on, grab a seat and get comfy. I tell you, there’s nothing much more satisfying than making and tending yourself a good fire. I’m surprised TV ever caught on when you had the chance to do this every night in the olden days :) Give me crackling sticks any day.
Camp time! We stopped a while back and eyed up the Top Timaru Hut from across the river. I fancied nipping down and checking out the hut book at the least. But we knew that there was some heavy weather on the way. So Cookie persuaded me to resist the call of the hut book and keep on heading downstream and knock as much off the trek for tomorrow as possible. And you never know, if we nailed it we could, in theory, be in town the next night… Very tempting!