We set the alarm for the first time today, at 5am so we could be off at sunrise to catch the morning fishermen! We need to hitch a ride off someone with a boat over the estuary to Marsden Point (there isn’t a ferry and it’s a hell-of-a long way round by land). I was amazed I managed to get Nicky out of bed, but wasn’t amazed with the weather we woke up to - low cloud and drizzly rain.. We decided to forego the rest of the ridge walk which Kim (who was going the other way to us) informed us was steep & slippy, so we headed down the Peach Cove Track back to Ocean Beach and continued to Whangarei Heads on the road.
Turned out to be a good choice as we made great time and found our way to Little Munro Bay by about 9am (where we were told the local fishermen might be launching their boats from). Sadly it looked like the poor weather had put them off, only 2 boats launched, neither were prepared to give us a ride, even with cash offered..
Play has been seriously rained off here in holiday town Hahei ( pronounced Hah-Hey! ). It’s absolutely whazzing it down. A gray minging day, we had hoped to get down to do some kayaking to get round and see the legendary Cathedral Cove with all that turquoise water and sandy cliff arches you see on the posters. But the wind was up and as we suspected the water looked pretty choppy! The TV room being chocka full of rampaging teenagers, we opted for the safer option… Essentially we were confined to the tent, but it did give us a chance to both polish off that bag of red wine and start the long quest to get 3 stars on every level of Angry Birds ;) So, I think we made the most of a rainy day ;)
Strangely fascinated by the teenage conversations in the TV room today, ranging from the boys convincing the girls that “if they could smell their fart, they were actually eating some of their shit molecules..” to more spiritual matters about taking your shoes off and walking around bare feet, apparently “if you’re having a bad day it’ll ground your negative energy”. My all time favourite part though, was an increasingly heated argument about noise levels (which were getting pretty high) between the original kids and a new group of boys from a different school which was instantly silenced by the simple words - “you from an all-boys school then, must be a lot of Gays there eh?”
Slippy mossy boulders are the main things to hold on to. The dim light of the overhanging forest, hot and sweaty in your waterproofs, and drizzle in your eyes, coupled with the fatigue of walking, it takes a lot of focus to scramble your way over without slipping the odd boot in the torrent ;)
We waited at to hut until about 10am hoping the weather might clear up, it didn’t so headed out anyway.. Te Rereatukahia Hut is our destination today, 7.5 hours away judging by the wall chart in the hut, these swollen stream crossings are slowing us down though..
