The Blissful Hiker walks the Taiharuru estuary with a Te Araroa veteran, then heads to the summit of Bream Head where meeting people at just the right moment open pathways she hadn't noticed.
In this episode:
MUSIC: Pastoral Calchaqui by Hector Gallac as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
available on iTunes
The Blissful Hiker walks the Taiharuru estuary with a Te Araroa veteran, then heads to the summit of Bream Head where meeting people at just the right moment open pathways she hadn't noticed.
In this episode:
MUSIC: Pastoral Calchaqui by Hector Gallac as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
available on iTunes
The tree house at Tidesong faces east looking out over the estuary, pink streaks reflected in the receding water, seemingly preparing just for me since my feet will cross it in a few hours. My sleep here was quiet and deep. I hate to leave, but feel prepared for what today brings, even if my ankle is more ‘cankle’ at the moment.
Just like home, it’s not easy to get up out of a warm, snuggly nest especially since I stayed up late sewing up the huge tear in my trousers – and watching Australian Ninja with Hugh.
Ros makes me a huge breakfast and there’s lots of conversation around the table comparing Northland, New Zealand ecology to my home of Minnesota. Her neighbors hate the mangroves, “They bring the mud and ruin my sand beach!”
The fact is, when the native wetland was drained for farming, the mangrove and their spreading snorkels, took the opportunity to move in and take over. So it’s more mud for my cross, but it must be the good kind because Ros takes off without any shoes – throwing Olive Oyl on her back and heading out barefoot.
It looks like it was worth the wait for the tide, because I not only have an experienced guide walking me across the Taiharuru River, but a porter too.
I am taking you on my thru-hike of the Te Araroa, New Zealand’s long pathway – and at the moment, I’m still in Northland in the North Island, now timing the tides to cross several estuaries as I work down the east coast to Auckland.
Hugh apologizes if he’s being a bit bullying, but our timing is limited before the tide will come racing back in and he sends us across, planning to meet us on the other side with his van. There are no other hikers crossing, most using the road to hitch around, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
It’s squishy, but we don’t sink much into the cockleshell-covered mud. Ros points out newly dug stingray puddles next to a few posts marking the trail with orange triangles. I take loads of pictures and Ros flashes her beautiful smile, telling me she likes my attitude. I wonder if she’d feel the same way knowing how insecure I am out here, how easily hurt I get and how long it takes me to let things go.
I tell Ros it’s hard to find a group, and she says she too loved hiking the Te Araroa alone – a feat she accomplished the previous year at the age of 66, but admits she sometimes longed for a partner to help strategize.
The last part is a stinky, slippery section and she puts her arms straight out for balance. Hugh hands me a bag of granola bars before they both hug me, wishing “God watch over you” blessings.
Immediately, I’m inland on rolling farmland, the deep azure of the Pacific to my left. When I enter the Kauri Mountain track, I think about how lucky I was to meet Ros and Hugh and stay at Tidesong. It meant for a short day yesterday, but I needed it and the ankle is already less swollen. There was also an obvious spirituality about these two, Ros essentially prolonging Hugh’s life by giving up one of her own kidneys for him and an obvious mindset of gratitude towards the blessings of their lives.
I muse on my struggle to trust and believe things will work out. Something that never comes easy for me.
I get to the top and view is wondrous. Looking back to the estuary, I see the water filling in fast now. In front of me are islands far out into the Pacific under heavy gray-accented cumulus clouds. And where I’m headed is down to a long strip of white sand leading all the way to the massive lump of Bream Head. Thundering waves reach my ears even at this height. I’m in no hurry since my plan is to stay the night at the end of the sand, so I stop for a snack on one of Hugh’s granola bar, Oaty Slices, dry and fibrous as their name.
James called last night to check on my progress. I was touched and then a bit skeptical because I found him so uber efficient to the point of being rude. Now I think he was just overloaded with details, and it surprises me he takes the time to call since sixteen Te Araroa walkers stayed with him last night.
I enjoy the quiet solitude I have now, fully expecting a swarm of hikers later. But I have to laugh, since truly it’s this balance I struggle with to protect my solo hiking but also desperately desiring friends. At least a group will help in two days time, when I’ll need to hire a boat to cross Whangerei Bay to Marsden Point. And it ain’t cheap.
Back on the beach I marvel at the unimaginably brilliant turquoise water. A sign informs me that the bar-tailed godwits fly non-stop from Alaska to this beach in eight days, a relatively short legged wader, with an upturned bill and oversized wings. I guess that the only way they can work out those sorts of distances. The waves crash over my ankles exchanging salty sand for mud. A flock of shorebirds, stilted legs on backwards knees, take off as one in zigzag flight.
The beach is totally deserted but oyster catchers two-by-two with long curved orange beaks against midnight black, sending me furtive glances as I lumber past.
I forego the high tide reroute and climb up and over grippy volcanic rock to a private horseshoe shaped beach and finally see people. I find a bench overlooking young surfers heading out and take it all in.
A woman from Winnipeg living here 30 years comes by to say hello, her children curious about my backpack and camp food. She urges them to give me a granola bar and I take a picture of them dressed in wetsuits with boogie boards. At that moment, I change my mind about camping here and push on, straight up the head. I have no plan whatsoever, but the day is delicious and I want more of it.
A gaggle of school kids take over the picnic table about half way up at the WWII radar station. A sign tells me those who worked here found the stunning view boring .I tiptoe from exposed root to exposed root through the thick bush, out of breathe in the steep climb, made more manageable later with beautiful steps.
At 430 meters above the beach, I stop for a selfie looking back to Ocean Beach and my little friends somewhere in the water below. Just then three young people arrive. They’re all from Europe and living here for the year to work and travel. Talk about timing. I completely missed seeing the little scramble to the top of the head and they coax me up it to an even better view. 360 degrees along the ridge of the head to Mt. Lion and Urquats Bay beyond as well as out to sea where huge ships ply the waves, working their way towards Auckland.
We chat, then fall silent in this perch above the bush above the beach. They race on and I plod along, up and down, the beautiful stairs disappearing and root filled tramping track taking over.
It’s eight hundred and nine steps down to Peach Cove hut. I think I might go down there and give camping a shot. But it 809 steps – and I have no idea who’s down there or if it’s even feasible to camp. If I go down and it doesn’t work out, I’ll have to come right back up.
Oh, hell, I’ll have to come back up them anyway, let’s check it out. They’re beautifully built stairs, wooden with a handrail as I go down and down into the bush. I see a bay below, but the stairs take a sharp left and go around it. Down and down, and then, I’m there. A brown corrugated metal hut with yellow trim is completely deserted. I set up the alicoop in a clearing under trees, clean some gear in collected rain water at the tank, and take over the massive deck. The beach is rocky, and I collect a few shells to add to the hut collection.
Suddenly I hear voices. Well, I guess I’ll be sharing tonight. Wait, it’s the trio of hikers from Bream Head! They’ve been swimming in the ocean at the real beach, another side trail I appear to have missed. They have no intention of staying and head back up the stairs, leaving me this perfect horseshoe of sand to myself. The sun is still warming a small bit of my private cove, coaxing me under the gentle waves, huge scallop shells within reach.
I stay out on my private beach until the shadows get long then disappear altogether, roosting cormorants like midnight black vases hunker in the trees, their heads tucked all the way under their wings.
This paradise is all mine and I can’t imagine how I missed the turn. It makes no sense to put a hut at rocky shore. Even the map indicates sand. I simply didn’t follow through, like somehow not thinking through all that’s possible – and probable.
But I’m happy to have pulled away momentarily from the crowd, it would seem, and for me, anyway, the expected.
My Peach Cove sleep all alone may have been the best yet, kiwis whistle-hooting in the dark, lots of spatter-pats of ‘avian fecal matter’ all night on the alicoop. I sleep late luxuriating in my private bay, and of course, swim again.
I’m sufficiently cooled down before the ascent of 76 flights as mist gathers around the Mt. Lion, where I’m headed.
The trail heads straight up now, hand over hand to a perch where it looks a lot like Northern England’s Lake District, but a particularly R2D2-esque Tui definitely not from the motherland.
Then it’s a thousand steps down to Smugglers Bay and another private beach, a larger one with crashing waves. I make brunch. My hair is still wet and briny from the dip at Peach Cove and it feels a bit too cold now for a swim as the wind picks up and I put on my jacket.
Just then, an older gentlemen in trunks up over his navel arrives and dives right into the surf. Oh man, I feel like a wimp not going into that turquoise, but I’ll have to go in my underpants and bra now that I have an audience.
He plays in the waves for a few moments letting them knock him around. And then, he leaves.
With the beach deserted, I decide to keep my clothes dry and skinny dip into the bracing chop, sun in and out of cloud. The salt tastes sweet on my lips.
Wet and sandy, I quickly dress and head towards a spur track to Busby Point. I come across some kids, hiphop cranked, testing out attitude on me. Kids are universal. But it’s a good thing I was clothed.
I pass more breath taking views and then the gun battery, built in 1942. It was made to look like a farmhouse and only shot three test rounds, one – accidentally – traveling twelve miles. I enter the charming village of Urquharts Bay, cloud-shrouded mountains surround but the view is of industry.
So here’s a total New Zealand Te Araroa switcheroo, right-place-at-the-right-time kinda thing – I have to hire a boat to get across to Marsden Head, or walk and hitchhike a long way around. I’ve been assuming since yesterday that there are so many walkers coming along, I’ll join up with them – somewhere, sometime.
A man named Blair is listed in the trail notes with his phone number. He charges $100 per ride, not per person, so it’s better to have a group. But it’s deserted here at this lovely little shady spot at the picnic table. Maybe he’ll consider a discount.
I dial Blair’s number and he picks up on the first ring. I introduce myself and tell him I’d like a ride, but I’m all alone. He interrupts me to ask if I’m near the jetty. Jetty? To your left. I wheel around and sure, enough, there’s a jetty to my left.
“I’ll get you now” he says. “For $20.”
How about that! It turns out the family’s just coming back from snorkeling and it’s only a small detour to pick me up. I throw my sticks over, hand Olive Oyl to Kim and like that, the Ocean Diversity is off, one hand on the camera, the other holding tight as we tilt up for a bumpy ride, splashing and laughing all the way to a refinery set on few gorgeous kilometers of beach looking back to the Mt. Lion and my private bay.
My feet search out concrete-quality sand as the tide comes in. I go well for a bit then sink in, drastically slowing down. Pizza and beer are at the next community, but that’s too far off away. I pop up off the beach to Ruakaka and wander down a sidewalk in a neighborhood of houses. A woman with two lovely school age daughters tells me there’s no restaurants really, but I might try the supermarket.
Perfect! I fit Olive Oyl into a cart and balance my sticks, wandering the aisles. I pause for a moment to study the bar offering when a gray-haired woman asks me if I’m enjoying my walk. “Why yes!” She tells me she often invites hikers to camp on her lawn, would I like to join her for dinner. “Why yes!”
I accept a ride, giving up a few kilometers of the Te Araroa for a home cooked meal at her modest home looking right back to beautiful Bream Head.
Betty is religious and has a glowing spirituality and gratitude for all the gifts in her life. Around her, I can’t help but feel blessed. A woman named Natasha joins us who just happens to be best friends with Peta, my high school friend Rachel’s friend who introduced me to Peter and Ange way back on the Ninety Mile Beach. The coincidence is mind boggling.
I set in the alicoop next to Betty’s caravan on the lawn and cuddle in thinking about on how all the different pieces pulled together these past two days, how trust and letting go of outcomes allowed for all this synchronicity. I like to plan and prepare and I’ve always been a firm believer in that old adage – good fortune comes to those who are prepared or something like that.
But I tend to dwell too much on the negative and, in trying to control everything and avoid more bad things happening, I hold on tightly and miss out on what’s possible. Maybe a rephrasing of that wise advice might be something like, good fortune comes to those who are open to it and let it happen.
All I know now is my belly is full – and so is my heart.