I wake up with a start in the middle of the night. It’s so dark I can’t see my hands in front of my face. The constant roar of the ocean and wind I’d been hearing since I started walking the Te Araroa yesterday, has changed in pitch. Have the waves stopped? It’s not raining, but the wind makes up for it.
A light shines into the alicoop, my "tint." Not the moon, it’s Irene, coming closer, carrying her tent and sleeping bag in a huge swaddled wad against her chest. She organizes herself under the cabana, in a nook behind a wall. When I ask her if she’s ok, she tells me she was just trying save weight in her pack, and only brought two tent pigs. Of course her tent was blown down, falling on top of her in an uncontrollable, smothering blanket.
At this point, I was only about a dozen miles into a thru-hike that would take me about five months to complete. I’d walked on sand and over rocks, up cliffs and even got lost for a few moments. The start was sudden, after a seemingly endless succession of flights, then a long drive to Cape Reinga. The Te Araroa – or long pathway – dispenses with formalities, taking any hiker who dares onto an exposed start of drenching squalls, inconvenient tides and a never-ending roar of sound that begins as a curious lullaby, but in time, crescendos to a scream.
The eight of us huddle in the cabana, trying to light stoves behind the protective walls, choosing to eat the heaviest of our food for our first breakfast out. We share stories of restless sleep and tired limbs, but talk little about what’s ahead in the long stretch of sand called The Ninety Mile Beach, a stretch that will take the better part of three days to walk.
Fortunately, I’ve been warned about the beach, mostly told not to underestimate how difficult it is even though a simple point A to point B, on flat ground.
Many a walker quits after waking the beach in Northland. Charging into the start, people often walk too far and without break on deceptively hard concrete-like sand that goes on and on for over 100 kilometers. Even young and healthy hikers manage to injure themselves with painful tendonitis, shin splints or shred their tender city-feet in a mass of blisters. Total exposure to the elements of wind, rain, and sun, no water and loud monotony make this one of the most difficult starts of any thru-hike in the world. It’s a baptism by fire – or more accurately, water.
I vow to myself to not let it beat me. I’ll take my time and go gently – and maybe more importantly, I’ll see it not as an endurance test, but find its beauty too.
Clouds clear revealing a pink sky as the waves keep up their plaintive song and Irene and I go up for the last time to Scott Point. It’s here where the view opens up to the huge expanse, like an oversized sand bar, reaching far off to a horizon lost in misty sea breeze. Scrubby dunes on the left give way to crumbling cliffs of sand and finally the sea in rows of foamy waves.
Beautiful, lovingly built stairs with rubber grips take us steeply down through the bush. Little did I know this would be one of only a handful of well-built and maintained portions of the 3,000 kilometer trail. We spy a tiny island ahead, though the distance is hard to judge, though we know from our map that it’s directly across from tonight’s campsite, about 15 miles up the beach.
I find that hard to digest since I’ve never walked so far on a strip of sand. It begins to rain and we quickly descend. The sand is wet with puddles as the tide slowly comes in. A shag fishes in the surf. A half-submerged blowfish gives me skeletal smile. We walk together for a while, then split up as I begin to find my rhythm and pace. Thru-hiking is so different from backpacking or day hiking. Sure, you’ve got to get somewhere to get water, to sleep, but you can’t walk with the same urgency. You learn to develop patience in your progress, knowing you have all day to get to that island far up the sand.
Patience with progress, and patience with the terrain. This is not a shell-collecting beach. Aside from flotsam cast off far away ships, a green wine bottle covered with hitchhiking cockles, bits of net and floats, a flattened bird, legs akimbo, it’s monotonous. Nothing catches the eye but rain clouds racing across the sea and dunes like waves themselves cresting above me.
There’s a shallow, gradual slope, that causes the waves to churn like a washing machine before one might break free and send its fingers of saltiness towards me. High tide is at an extremely inconvenient 1:30 in the afternoon making walking even more difficult in the soft, mushiness.
Eventually, I scamper up on the dunes, following other awkward footsteps of Amelia and Jean-Christophe who got an early start. Irene catches me just as I decide to find a spot out of the wind for a snack and to fix a hot spot on my toe. The minute I take off my shoe, sand pours out and I realize why hikers developed blisters so bad, they could hardly walk. It’s a good thing I’m bandaging it up now.
I brush off the sand as the tide reaches its peak and recedes. I can see Irene’s tiny figure far ahead, her pace matching mine exactly like we’re attached by strings. Now I can fathom the enormous distance I have to go and settle into it, the wind fortunately at my back.
The rocky island gets bigger and bigger, a speck from Scott Point, it’s a mammoth island inhabited by birds. Directly across is the manicured lawn of Maunganui Bluff beautiful appointed with a cooking shelter and a long drop. Amelia and Jean-Christoph are here, Irene already set up, and it seems I’ve arrived at cocktail hour as a local arrives in his beat up truck, dog barking in the back and a cold beer put in my hands. Only a stone’s throw away, wild horses, only a stone’s throw away, look upon us in this perfect paradise next to the sea.
I may have had a gorgeous sunset, soft grass for my tired feet and a cold beer for my weary self – after only two days of hiking, but payback came in the form of all night rain. OK, that’s not accurate. Rain, then wind, then rain and wind.
It looks like it was my turn for my tent – the alicoop – to crash down on me. It’s no one’s fault, really, certainly not the gear, just that I set behind a wind screen that only protected me for the half of the night before the wind changed directions.
But I must say, the Te Araroa goddess smiled – ok, she snickered a little when my side peg ripped out and the one of the Leki poles fell down on my face. Not enogh to injure, but I knew I had to get it set back up. In her benevolence, the TA goddess stopped the rain at that moment and cleared the sky so I could reorient the alicoop under a shining array of southern stars.
The wild horses snort and whinny, watching my struggle. I settle back into the tiny chrysalis of my tent, warm under down, my mattress crinkly but no match for the wind and waves.
The miles ratchet up as I continue down the Ninety Mile Beach, 30 kilometers to Utea today, about 18 miles. To survive today’s, I make a plan to divide it into thirds. I’ll use each 10k section to consider some ‘deep thoughts.’
1. What causes a person to make the decision to walk for five months?
2. Why does said person need a plan to get through a particularly long, hard day?
3. What must it feel like to be free like one of these wild horses?
And off I go, over a bit of dune and back on the flat expanse of beach, a small shower giving way to a rainbow as the sun begins to peak over the dunes, my long legged shadow coming off then meeting the ground in an andante beat.
At 10 kilometers, I reach spot somewhat out of the wind, against a 25-foot dune casting a sliver of shadow. I see evidence of tide reaching all the way up here and I know this stop needs to be brief.
I find some cashews at the top of my pack and ponder question number one, why walk for five months? Years ago, I took a shot at walking up Aconcagua, the Western Hemisphere’s highest peak. I was fit enough for the mountaineering, but not for the altitude, and I developed a life-threatening condition called High Altitude Pulmonary Edema or HAPE. There’s only one thing to do in a situation like that: go down, as fast as possible. I was stuck in a snowstorm overnight, doing my best to stay awake and alive before the morning broke clear and I could was evacuated, the helicopter I eventually met at base camp, flying so close to the summit I could practically touch it.
I was sick for weeks afterward with bronchitis and broken hearted I had to come down. Nonetheless, we visited my family, who showed little interest in what happened. It just magnified my grief and anger. As I complained about the lack of care, Richard gave me some of the best advice of my life. “If you do this so other people notice, you deserve to fail.”
Whoa. I deserve to fail? That was harsh. But he had a point. The truth is, all of the things I do, like mountaineering or thru-hiking, need to be my own gig. While I love to share, the desire to strive for something difficult needs to come from somewhere deep inside. Sure, it helps to have support, and I don’t want to be met with indifference. No one does. But outside validation only goes so far and expecting or needing it isn’t going to get me down this long, endless, unvaried stretch of sand.
I’m back up, packing up my backpack, Olve Oyl, and slinging her on my shoulder. I always bang my sticks together twice before taking off as a little good luck charm and it’s back out onto the super highway of sand.
That’s actually a funny thing. The Ninety Mile Beach is in fact a designated roadway. I likely won’t see anyone today because ahead I’ll cross a knee-deep estuary, but soon I’ll encounter tour busses and dune buggies with single-minded drivers not expecting a lone figure to emerge from the sea spray directly in their path.
At 20 k, I pause for a snack of dehydrated honey crisp apples I made before leaving Minnesota. I pause on a massive log, half submerged in sandand and ponder the next question:
How do we balance planning and control with taking things as they come and allowing for serendipity?
I always used to hike with little safety net. That meant four weeks in the French Alps with Richard awaiting my finding wifi. Pardon, est-ce que vous avez wee-fee? Non!
For a while there he received lots of messages from total strangers with loads of errors because they were typed out on a French keyboard, but clearly indicating I was ok. This time around, he’s tracking my every move via a two-way GPS.
My brother plans his work life to the a letter, and when he hike, he likes to allow the day to unfold. That got us nearly benighted on a section of the Pacific Crest Trail in San Diego county, where we got back to his truck moments before a blizzard hit dumping a few feet of snow. I too have walked and walked and walked until I went so far it was too dangerous to retrace my steps and all I could do was keep going forward.
Right now, I’m free to do exactly as I please. Although it occurs to me that unless I want to camp in the blowing sand next to a seasonal seep, I better get a move on. Chopping it up, of course, gets me there, and focuses the mind. But it also tests my legs. My gps tells me precisely where I’ve walked, no cheating, and it allows how I feel to determine when I’ll take a break. I also discover that a brisk pace on packed sand for 10k is just about my limit. That’s nothing to feel proud or ashamed of, only facts that help me to slowly conquer the whole of this walk.
Finally I see the green flag, shredded from the breeze and marking the entrance to Utea Park. Tanya sells me a fresh fruit shake and I wash off as much of the sand that’s found its way into every crevice in a communal shower, that, lucky for me, is all mine for the moment.
I’m sore, tired, and pop one nasty blister, but overall, ok. So the final question, to be free. Hmmm. Don’t we all long to be unencumbered and enjoy anything we like at any moment?
But then we wouldn’t have family, friends, our vocation, our community. It’s all a balance, right? And maybe I wouldn’t feel this philosophical right now, except that I don’t think I’m fitting in. I know it’s only day three, but I feel old and weird like I'm not such good company.
I love to hike and I’m going to walk this thing one way or another, but all of a sudden those words I said earlier about being inner-directed and not depending on others all the time aren’t working for me. Lonely is not when you’re alone. Rather it’s when you’re surrounded by people and can’t connect.
Maybe it just takes time and look her, everyone is hanging out in the kitchen area and inviting me to come over and hang out.
We all have to hike our own hike and I’ll be doing that. Scratch that. I am doing that.
Tomorrow is even further than today and a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend has invited me to spend the night at the end of the beach, in Ahipara.
In the morning, pink touches heavy clouds and pack quickly to get in a few k’s before the sun is up. A few stray drops hit me then morph into a heavy downpour, but it’s far too late to put on rain pants and I’m sodden waist to toes.
In no time, the wind picks up to dry me off. But this time, it’s straight in my face, picking up speed as I march along. I tie my silly Kavu fisherman’s hat over the bill of my raincoat and press on to the 100 kilometer mark.
At Waipapakauri Ramp, I turn up a street to visit a friend thrice removed who offers me breakfast chased by a beer at 11:00 in the morning. I ask her if people swim in this torrent and she assures me they do, but mostly people venture no further than water up to their waist due to the strong “rips” and undertow.
The sun is hot, but the air is chilly, so I have no intention of going in even up to my toes. The waves crash at me, frothy foam bubbling up before releasing tiny dirty white balls to tumble across the sand. Ribbons of sand fly at ankle-level, screaming past as I try to keep my mouth covered with my balaklava.
A tour bus drives fast towards me and parks in such a way people can disembark out of the wind. Only two people get off the bus, one looking at me wide-eyed wondering where I came from. When I tell her I walked here from the Cape, she offers me some chocolate and gets back on the bus. Maybe she should have offered me a ride.
The terrain begins to change, opening out toward estuaries visited by inky black Oystercatchers, orange billed and furtive. Three-wheeled sail cars called “blow carts” fly past me one after another, tipping up on one side as they turn around a post. Ahipara is tucked into a curve at the end of the beach, houses perched on a cliff. I check my phone for signal and see that Irene plowed ahead and was so done in by the beach, she hitched a ride to a friend in the next town and will meet me for the bush walk tomorrow.
I too am running on empty and know from two days ago that distances can be deceptive. But of course, I reach the strip of pavement that takes me into the village.
Peter is a retired transplant surgeon who recently lost his wife of forty-six years. He treats me like his own daughter, looking at me with concern when he remarks that I have sand on my cheeks and in the corners of my eyes.
He gathers fresh thyme from his garden for a home-cooked meal as I place my showered self in the soft grass. Joining me for a glass of wine he wonders if it would be considered cheating to skip the long, dangerous road walk to Kaitaia and allow him to drive me to the next section.
I look up from my eyes now free of sand and tell him not if I don’t tell anyone!
Until next week when we’ll head into the New Zealand bush and hear a Tui for the first time, happy trails!