A risky kayak portion of the Te Araroa up the Waikare Inlet in the Bay of Islands leaves the Blissful Hiker wondering if, in the words of James Agee, kindness watches for her.
In this episode:
Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
–James Agee
MUSIC: Suite by Ernst Krenek as played by Alison Young, flute and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic and Charles Johnson
available on iTunes
A risky kayak portion of the Te Araroa up the Waikare Inlet in the Bay of Islands leaves the Blissful Hiker wondering if, in the words of James Agee, kindness watches for her.
In this episode:
Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
–James Agee
MUSIC: Suite by Ernst Krenek as played by Alison Young, flute and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic and Charles Johnson
available on iTunes
I wake up with soft South Pacific breezes gently fluttering the curtain at my window. It’s a night in a soft bed after a glorious meal and I feel terribly spoiled by Kiwi hospitality. Wandering downstairs to see who might be awake, I see coffee, cereals and baked goods left out for us, our bottomless appetites already humongous and any vestige of manners, like not talking while your mouth is full, nearly eradicated from our thru-hiker selves.
I take a moment to organize the confusing coming days. Confusing, you ask. Well, the Te Araroa thru-hiker is offered their first set of trail options. Would you prefer a road walk, a ferry ride or to paddle on your own steam? If you know, me even a little, “thru-kayaking” sounds awfully adventurous and I go ahead and tic that box. Although there’s one problem – the tides are all wrong and I’d need to wait until late in the day, then have to paddle as fast as I can before the sun goes down to take advantage of the incoming rush of water and get pushed up the Waikare Inlet.
I can hardly understand a word Dan at Bay Beach Hire says on the phone in his thick accent, but I somehow make a deal to meet him after I walk to the beautiful beach town of Pahia in the Bay of Islands. Game is on!
Recently, in the Blissful Hiker hike blog, a backpacker friend of mine, who just happens to also be named Alison, wrote about a weeklong backpack trip on the Colorado Trail. She pointed out a universal truth – that day two always sucks. I am actually doing pretty well especially on one of the hardest starts of any trail I’ve walked. So it wasn’t day two that sucked, but week two.
Cam loads our washed up and well-fed selves into his SUV and drive us back to Kerikeri, where Irene hops on a flight back home to Hamilton. Vern and Bryce, Irene’s dad, pick me up for a day off in Kaeo, spending the night at their converted container atop a hill above the light turquoise bay. Before we leave Kerikeri, Bryce finds me an inexpensive T-shirt at a massive culture-shock-inducing discount box store, and Vern takes one look at my bright red right eye and insists I get it checked out before moving on.
Concerned as always about cost, I reluctantly head over to the Waipapa Clinic where a pharmacist examines my eye, asks a few questions, ensures me it was the blowing sand on Ninety Mile Beach that’s the culprit and sends me out the door within ten minutes, with drops costing less than ten bucks. Excuse me while I pause here to consider if I can move to this country, one that prioritizes affordable health care for all.
The remainder of the day is beyond relaxing. I didn’t realize I was so tired until I take an extra long snooze in their cozy guest caravan before we put on snazzy hats to head to the local pub to watch the Melbourne Open and eat green-lipped mussels and Whangaroa Bay oysters, lots of “No worries, mate!” and “Good on ya, eh’s!” all night long with friends who are all very interested in my hike.
Why is it that no amount of carousing with caring friends and lively locals rid me of this anxiety I feel now that Irene is gone. It’s as though I’ve survived this much on luck, not on my own ability to plan, make good decisions and listen to my body. I tell myself – and seem to understand intellectually – that I can manage, that I have the strength, the supplies and gear, and the sheer nerve to figure things out. But my lizard brain won’t buy it and the stress that’s followed me here all the way from Laurel Avenue in Saint Paul, Minnesota keeps repeating the refrain, “You’re way over your head.”
Vern and I chat about our families and careers as we fly along the winding rollercoaster of road back to where I left off at the Stone House in Kerikeri. I so enjoy her company, wise and caring, she’s the one who taught me how to say the trail I’m walking properly and sound, maybe just a bit, like a local. We hug and I throw Olive Oyl on my back, bang my sticks twice and begin walking by myself on a cool, sun-filled morning.
Tuis flute in the trees as my pants get soaked by dew. A few roosters announce a new day. The flowers are ridiculously fragrant. I pull out my trail notes and read over and over which way to turn, realizing I must look ridiculous carrying an overstuffed pack, walking with sticks and needing to double check every turn inside a city. I pass a cluster of Māori pou whenua or “land posts” topped by creatures with sharp beaks and paua or abalone shell eyes. Those eyes follow me as I pass. Critical birds? I don’t know. I feel so distracted by my nervousness.
I’m covered head to toe, gloves, buff, long sleeves and pants, hat, sunglasses. My eye is much better already, only dry and stingy. I hit a sidewalk and pass houses with some unusual found object art works on the lawns, one a mannequin head within a metal cage, her eyes also paua. I take a picture, then reach into my pocket to ensure I’m going the right way.
Dammit! I lost my trail notes. It’s not as though I don’t have a backup of the map on my phone, but it only serves as a reminder that I’m just not cut out for this. Well, it’s only forest walk after this sidewalk. It can’t be too hard to find.
I walk down the steep road, past views through puriri towards the bay surrounded by mountains. Here it is, the Waitangi forest. A soft “g,” I’m told, so the name sounds like describing the reason I might love a tasty morsel. "Why, tangy!" It’s just me in here this morning, on cool fern-lined track. The pines of this working forest are American imports and I hear machinery chopping away in the distance. Mountain bike trails with names like “Kiwi Flow,” “Magic Carpet,” and “Dead Possum” snake through and the birds don’t seem to mind the monoculture.
Richard says, "My wife is always smiling when she’s moving her body." Walking has served me well all my life. When I’m blue or obsessing, he usually sends me out the door. A funny story is about the last time I spent any quality time with my dad. We met in Manhattan. He was tired, so I took in a play in Soho while he napped. He made me promise not to walk back to midtown, but how could I not walk those fifty or so blocks back to our hotel on a late winter’s night. It was glorious.
Everywhere I’ve been has felt too small for my feet. Like my dad, Richard suggested I walk the Te Araroa in stages, mainly to preserve my career. But I just had to see what it feels like to do it all in one go.
Up Tu Puke road, I dodge massive dust-producing logging rigs for a short detour to a sculpture memorializing the start of the Te Araroa. I walk right past it, thinking this ‘artistic’ lump is a dead palm tree. Not exactly beautiful, but this monument made of local volcanic rock is important stuff.
Another short spur takes me up Mount Bledisloe and the view opens toward today’s destination. Water turquoise against mountains and islands, I see the bridge I’ll soon cross. I wear my new T-shirt, striped with the word “smile” on big red lips. It’s getting really hot.
The forest opens onto a road and golf course, then the treaty ground, where New Zealand’s Declaration of Independence was signed, though its proposed aim was to protect the rights of Maori and allow them keep their land, forests, and fishing grounds while at the same time, handing sovereignty to the British. I cross the bridge and a splendid cool breeze greets me. Three Maori girls share raw cockles with me, slimy as they go down the throat, but delicious.
Along the beach, signs teach me about the birds in this seabird capital of the world. Terns, herons, even gulls are protected, the latter clever buggers stamping the ground to imitate rain and lure worms to their waiting beaks.
Paihia is a total tourist town with coaches crowding the streets, American accents, an obnoxious cross signal, and every food imaginable. I set the alicoop at a backpackers’ hostel, the Pickled Parrot, with a huge shared kitchen, flat lawn for tents, , awesomely comfy couches and a huge area to just hang– ah, and Caroline from the Netherlands has offered me a glass of Pinot Grigio just now. Life is good.
The morning comes damp and chilly on the coast here in Pahia, Northland, New Zealand. Soon, our tent city at the Pickled Parrot spreads out over couches and picnic tables to dry, most everyone on their phones, others making choices about whether to move on or stay a here for few more days after nursing swollen feet, oozing blisters, and a Rorschach test of sandfly bites scratched to bleeding.
I feel amazingly fine, with only a red right eye, a souvenir of conjunctivitis coast, the last day of Ninety Mile Beach when the wind blew sand straight into my face on the final day. It’s beginning to heal and my wound up nerves are settling into this beautiful, lazy backpackers or hostel. Everyone is really lovely and we share Bluff, another 1,800 km ahead, as our goal – Dutch, Australian, French, Belgian, Polish, but no Americans besides me yet. Three of us will kayak the four hours to Waikare later today, meeting at the beach at 3:30 sharp to take advantage of the tide.
So there’s nothing to do but, shave the legs, share Burts Bees with the other girls, write postcards and strategize for coming days deciding exactly how much food to carry.
Most walkers of the Te Araroa are not thru-hikers. They’re in New Zealand to travel – and work too in some cases – so they try this trail out, backpacking maybe for the first time. The trail is – so far – not the Sierras or the Rockies, but it still requires humping a pack.
I choose the Te Araroa because somehow I thought taking off the winter would be easier at my job – and it’s far away, exotic and nothing like home. I got the second part right anyway.
I buy fresh vegetables in town at the local "veg" and put my bare feet in the South Pacific on the way. I come back and make a gigantic stirfry for Ondi and Bram with added hippie dust found in the bulk bins in Kaitaia, that tastes like cheese as it melts. Hiking resumes tomorrow, so a wee nap in a hammock before kayaking. It's absolute bliss.
But now it’s time to go and we walk to the beach to meet Dan. Two men join us, one Kiwi who’s already given himself a ‘trail name.’ I laugh since we’ve hardly walked anything like trail in the last few days. They’re cool and unfriendly, I think, though maybe it’s nerves, because once Dan hands me the emergency radio and directs us to stick together at all times, they push their tandem into the choppy surf and begin paddling as fast as they can. Bram and Ondi take a tandem too and push out at a furious pace, their stable and fast boat moving far out into the bay before I can into mine.
I guess we’re not staying together.
My little boat has a rudder operated by foot pedals, and handles precisely the opposite of my sea kayak at home. When I make try to edge, it throws me to the other side, threatening to tip.
The water is a rich turquoise, light green fields pushing up to bush-covered mountains rising high above us, white puffy clouds serene. I’m anything but serene, with no spray skirt since that would “require more training,” waves come up and over the gunwales as I try to stay upright and catch up to the two pairs like dots now far ahead.
Following waves push me forward into a whooshing rinse of white froth. I enter the tiny opening between Opua and Okiato and turn west up the inlet into the wind. The waves are confused here, and paddling takes everything out of me. I’m a strong paddler, too. What is happening?
I begin to panic. I can’t control this damn boat. I can’t keep up. No one is even looking back to see if I’m still here.
C’mon Al, you’ve paddled the Big Lake, Lake Superior, in three to four foot seas. You can do this. Do you really think you’re going to swamp? Or is it the fact that they just don’t give a damn?
I push and push into the wind, seeing the island up ahead, the midway point where Dan asked us to take a break and call him to let him know we are ok – and help him time his pickup with our backpacks. The headwind begins to subside as we get closer to land and I begin to wonder if it would have been better to just ride with those backpacks to the other side.
Don’t be ridiculous. You’re paddling in the Bay of Islands, the air is fresh, the sea birds are flying above you and you are strong and independent. I steer the kayak onto a carpet of broken shells and hop out. The sun is getting lower on the horizon and I’m only wearing shorts, a wool top with my feet bare. I’m cold. I’m lonely. I can’t bring myself to talk to anyone.
Yeah, that’s it. I would be ok if I tipped. It’s their complete lack of concern that leaves me speechless, confused a little angry, and frankly, bereft. Do they behave this way because of something I did or do they simply not give a shit?
We leave the beach in silence, the boys again pulling forward like they have to prove something. The water is the color of milk tea signaling we’ve entered the estuary. Sand bars beach us and we have to get out to push our kayaks off. But there’s no more waves; no more fear. The wind and current push us now into mangrove swamps and oyster beds and we finally land at a tiny, busted dock in sucking mud.
It’s one thing that always trips me up, this idea that if I’m kind to people, they’ll be kind to me. But life is not transactional. People do as they please regardless of our actions. The only thing that keeps me balanced is to know I act a certain way for my own integrity and it’s best to sort out who’s worth the effort and who’s not as quickly as possible.
The boys roll cigarettes and we just stand there staring out at the highway waiting for Dan to come. I tell Ondi and Bram why I’m so upset, but they don’t understand why staying together is so important. I tell them I feel disrespected like I can’t possibly know what I’m doing or have any skills since I’m a middle-aged woman. But I don’t feel better putting a name to what hurts me. It just makes me feel powerless.
The sun is down now and I’m shivering when Dan finally arrives. There’re no high fives, no celebration. We just grab our packs and go. It's a few kilometers walk through farmland. We pass horses at the gate and large trees with gnarly roots before arriving at Sheryl’s home, her mailbox welcoming TA Hikers but “no others.” We pay to camp on her lawn. There’s a long drop with a fancy toilet seat and a hose of cold water for my salty legs. She brings hot water for my soup and tries to sell me a tee tree and kawakawa leaf lotion for my sore muscles.
A couple of hikers come out of their tents and complain about how loud we are. Sheryl ignores them completely and keeps talking to us as we huddle at the lone picnic table. A Chinese water torture backbeat thrums through the fields and I finally crawl into my tent, unable to sleep. Ondi suggests I let it go until tomorrow.
I know I’m annoying. Why is it I feel so bad, react – ok, over-react – and then feel guilty for feeling anything in the first place? I’m trapped inside my emotions, unable to express myself effectively, unable to shake off how hollowed out I feel. I’ve been walking for ten days and now I’m certain I can’t do this alone. Did I make a huge mistake coming here?
The music finally stops and delightfully strange night sounds fill the air. I poke outside and see the Milky Way brighten the sky. A poem by James Agee pops into my head.
Sure on this shining nigh
Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
I wonder if I’m too trusting – or maybe it’s that I expect too much.
I’ll have to contend with all sorts of people on this trail; ones like Ondi who give me sound advice to let things sort themselves out in the morning, and ones like these boys who appear self-centered and totally uninterested in being supportive or caring.
There are really dangerous parts ahead on this trail. Will it be sink or swim then as well?
The poem goes on.
Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder
wandering far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
Truth is, I came here to do this alone. I came here to see what would happen to my mind, body and spirit if I walked a long-distance thru-hike. I risked a whole lot, to find out if I have what it takes.
It was kind of a shitty day and doing what I’ve set out to do, walk the full length of New Zealand alone, is scary. I gave away my heart out there on the bay, and left myself vulnerable to rejection and it didn’t feel good.
I don’t know if kindness must watch for me, but I do know that in this moment of twinkling diamonds on black velvet and creatures new to my ears humming and buzzing in the bush, I’m safe and, even if sad and confused, I’m fully alive. Maybe, too, as James Agee writes, on this beautiful star made high summer night, at least a little, all is healed.