A symphony of birdsong awakens me in the Raetea Forest, a cushion of grass my matress and just enough water left for breakfast. We spent the night below the summit of Umaumokaroo, not able to make it out of the forest before dark. The views were few and far between, closed in by the lush, overgrown bush. Before I went to bed, I used nearly every wet wipes in my possession to get the mud off my body before crawling into my sleeping bag for what turned out to be a chilly night. But my shoes and socks are caked with the stuff and I’m putting off placing my feet in them for as long as possible.
Ultralighters turn their noses up at any luxury, but there’s no way I’d skimp on camp shoes. Mine are a pair of fake crocs I found at Goodwill. I think there was actually a lawsuit surrounding this brand of gardening clog, as if rubber slip-ons can be trademarked.
They’re slightly too small, and I had the bright idea I could stretch them just by wearing them around the house. What I found out was 1. That doesn’t work and 2. You actually can stretch them by putting them in the dryer for three minutes and then putting them on, boiling hot, after you’ve put on two pairs of thick socks. It worked like a dream, and I have these Frankenstein stretched out clogs on now as I eat breakfast and pack up Olive Oyl, my drab-colored backpack.
I did one other smart thing I realize on this glorious, sunny morning. I quit drinking coffee before the trip. I’m one of those people who’s easily addicted to caffeine and will suffer headaches should I miss my morning joe. Without the addiction, there’s no need to fuss with a cooked breakfast and I can simply grab a few bars and be on my way.
But yes, I’m stalling. I just can’t face my shoes and socks. Sure, I could put on my spare socks, but then I’d have two sodden pair and it’s kind of nice to have a fresh pair to sleep in.
The Nike ad runs through my head, ‘Just do it!’ Irene pokes out of her tent, surprised I’m up so early, reminding me we still have a few hours to walk with a whole lot more mud ahead.
Ha! And you thought I was having a nice walk in the forest?
She also reminds me that when we come out, a burger awaits, at the Dairy – or convenient store – but it’s only open until noon, so we gotta get going. Food, the greatest motivator of this Blissful Hiker and perhaps any long distance hiker and the socks go on, cold and clammy and then the shoes, only five days, but they’re already getting broken in.
And I’m off, slowly working my way towards farmland. It’s no less muddy here – and slow going – but fences appear, a stile, four abalone shells nailed to a tree and a giant, random, cast iron kettle hanging on a nail.
Irene is right, there’s still mud, and it’s worse this morning. A halfway-up-calves soul-destroying indignity of ooze. Then, I fall down flat on my bum with a loud “Noooooo!” Mud and wet oozes into my panties. Will this forest ever end?
Invasive gorse lines the trail reaching out to scratch me. I’m proud of choosing to hike in long sleeves and long pants, even though wet and muddy. And then, all of a sudden, the forest ends. Opening to fields and hills beyond. A trail of dried cow-pies welcome me to a gentle slope, their recent owners returning my “moo!” A horse lets me stroke her soft, redolent face.
Soon a farm track appears, and the heavy caked mud falls off my feet with every step. About a dozen dogs begin barking when I’m still 10 minutes up the hill. It’s long strides now to the sweet camping area I’d hoped to reach last night, asking only for koha, or donations. I work my way down the riverbank and step gingerly into the gentle current. The mud is as thick as gumbo, so I sit down, fully clothed to scrape it off.
Out of the forest, through a farm, then onto road. This is one of the major complaints about the Te Araroa. There’s not too much that can be done about it in some areas, as it’s the only way through. The trouble is the roads have very little verge, leaving little margin for error. And it also seems the drivers either have no idea what we’re doing here – or don’t care.
Really? You needed to pass that guy right there only centimeters from flattening me? Nice. Thank a lot! OK, calm down. Only a few more k to a hamburger, and don’t forget to face traffic. Walk on the right.
It’s really not that bad as the road slowly climbs up, the Mangamuka Dairy right at the top of this hill. I make it just in time. Richard and Jane who also crowded into the grassy area last night along with Rowan and Rebecca and Irene all catching up, our phones charging on top of a freezer of frozen pizzas
The owners are not crazy about us visiting even though we all eat extra large burgers and “thick shakes” – something we might call milk shakes in the U.S. When I ask to fill my water bottle, I’m told to use a hose out back and I decide instead to push on ahead and find a stream.
Irene and I walk together up lovely Omuhatu Road towards more forest. We clambor down under a bridge to fill our bottles and take a swim in the deep pool. A farmer comes to the gate with a dog perched on back of his 4x4. He tells me she’s called Penelope. When I say her name, she leaps off to come for a hello, until he whistles her back to work, bringing in the cows for milking. Another fellow comes by in a motorbike; muddy boots, long gators and shorts. He’s a Milk Sharer, owns the cattle but borrows the land. Woofers, he explains, would be those working the land for a room and board.
Soon we turn back into the forest. Signs everywhere tell us to stay on the track to avoid spreading Kauri Dieback. Irene talks to me about her relationships with family members, some controlling, some impossible. She says she has broad shoulders. Some see her cool and aloof, but she doesn’t feel that. She’s just too busy with own life to get drawn into drama. I wish I had some of Irene in me.
Up and up we go through magnificent Kauri, but on this forest track we can walk and talk and see our next foot placement. This peaceful forest at 4:00 is quite the contrast from last night’s panic to find a suitable grassy bit as the sun went down.
A sign points to “the giant stump” which is a bit of a let down. I can’t tell if what I see is blocking the true giant stump, but one look past into the muddy darkness brings on a kind of muddy forest PTSD and sends me back to the track and towards tonight’s camp spot.
Apple Dam Camp is another wide grassy spot in the bush. Belgium Bram and Aussie Ondi are camping here already and I set close by before heading to the perfect little washing stream, cool on my tired feet as I scrub out the last of the thick pasty mud in my socks. It’s just after 5:00 and still light, but I’m so tired, I’m out like a light.
The morning at Apple Dam was not a good one. My gear worked splendidly, keeping me dry and warm, but it rained all night long. Waking up in rain is absolutely depleting. Ask any thru-hiker and they will likely tell you that it’s not the rain itself that’s the problem – it’s packing in rain.
It’s an intricate dance of putting on rain gear and trying to keep everything dry as I slowly pack it up, my sleeping quilt and clothes in water proof bags and myself in water proof rain gear. But honestly, it’s more the getting up that’s the problem, that initial sitting up and committing to moving ahead with my day.
What works for me is to first let the air out of the mattress. It sends a signal to my subconscious that there’s no going back. And the next steps become inevitable – rolling up and stuffing the mattress with my tiny blowup pillow, stuffing the quilt and placing every small item I’ve taken out of bags through the night back into their compartments. I really take so little with me on a thru-hike, it’s not hard to keep track. That being said, a thru-hiker needs to be cognizant of the whereabouts of all things, since each item serves a purpose and is hardly extraneous. To lose something could be mildly catastrophic.
I crawl out of the tent backwards, rump first, my head last trying to keep my hands dry. Once I’m up, it’s not so hard to keep the momentum going. I feel ok since the distance is only about 13 miles today. But then Irene spills out of her tent and says we got that wrong, it’s actually over 20.
Buck up buttercup, the bush walk is closed and the whole day is on a forest track. This will not be hard walking.
And it’s not. It’s more like a long walk up Summit Avenue in Saint Paul where I live. One foot in front of the other, forward motion from point A to point B. Wait, didn’t I say that about the Ninety Mile Beach?
Of course, when it’s just a walk without much challenge, my mind wanders and I begin ruminating about home and work and the life I’ve left behind. I wanted and needed so much to see what would happen to my mind, body and spirit if I gave a long distance thru-hike a try. Was it worth it? I feel sort of silly traveling to the other side of the earth just to skirt the bush by walking a road, even if it’s nearly completely void of traffic.
I pass pastel colored bee boxes in uneven stacks, buzzing workers swarming the white flowered manuka nearby. A slow moving vehicle crawls closer and two hunters lean out to ensure I take the right turn at the next fork. Even though it’s midday, I pose my standard question, “Do you have a beer you could sell me?” They hunt around in the backseat and offer me a wild turkey. I grimace, fearing a hunk of meat will be handed to me. Instead it’s a bottled cocktail of real Kentucky bourbon and soda. I thank my trail angel friends and wave as they depart in a cloud of dust.
So now with a drink in hand, I look for a place to have lunch, sending out to the universe three wishes for shade, a backrest and a view. Within ten minutes, a perfect spot appears under palms looking out across rolling green mountains dotted with forest. I drink my Wild Turkey with a lunch of salami and cheese just as Irene rounds the corner singing ‘Funky Town’ at the top of her lungs.
The four of us leapfrog all afternoon towards the Puketi Forest and good camping. Slowly descending the ridge, the shadows get longer, and tuis, drunk on fermented berries, chortle from the Kauris.
Only moments to the end, I break off from the rest and take a detour to Manginangina. It’s one of the only remaining subtropical rainforests in Taitokerau or Northland. Since the time of the colonists, only 3% of this vast forest remains, a place that kiwi, bats and kauri snails call home.
Keeping the trees safe, I have a boardwalk, a blessed boardwalk above the mud and roots, allowing me to take it all in. The cool and fresh pungency overwhelm me as I come upon a giant Kauri, hundreds of years old. A fat trunk in soft gray holds huge arms aloft creating a kind of crown. It would take 12 blissful hikers arms outstretched to hug this beast.
She grew solo, her family just below in a circular cluster, living, as they are wont to do, right in the heart of a swamp. Vines creep up their leathery, moss-covered bark with protruding Dr. Seussian heads.
Nearby a sign explains how hard foresters work to eradicate invasives - rats, stoats and – as cute as they might be – possums. I’ve heard and seen their prey – tui, kereru – a type of pigeon, tirairaka – the fantail and miromiro or tomtit.
An ecosystem of 200 species, one of the most diverse in the world. Kauri are conifers so no wonder it feels like Jurassic Park in here. They came of age with dinosaurs. This moment here, right now is magic, holy, like walking into a cathedral. Muir Woods of Austral-Asia.
It’s hard to say goodbye, but the coolness and birdsong as well as my own sense of wonder follow me the final kilometer to camp.
The alicoop is up fast, right before a brief downpour moves in, then quickly dries up in brilliant sunshine.
I know I promised last week that I’d take you as far as the Bay of Islands. But I didn’t quite make it. The trail, if you can even call it a trail, was easy mostly on mud-free farm track and I really should have just gotten ahead. But what surprised me was that even when moving seemed effortless, the nourishing work of my soul still happened – and actually caused me to savor this section, a lot. I saw beautiful things. And mostly, except for the final forest, on a more subtle level. Aside from needing to find water and places to camp, the “getting there” aspect was pretty much absent. My walking became an act for its own sake. The continuous, rhythmic perambulation, and my own company and observations, brought me to the present moment of my feet very simply walking on this earth.
And you know what? That’s precisely why I came here.