The Blissful Hiker times the tides to kayak down the Puhoi River, rock hop then cross an estuary before walking down the North Shore to Auckland. Her young friend, Lydie, teaches her about the infinity loop and the circle inside it that represents our grounded selves.
In this episode:
MUSIC: Suite Argentina: Malambo by Horacio Salgán as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
available on iTunes
The Blissful Hiker times the tides to kayak down the Puhoi River, rock hop then cross an estuary before walking down the North Shore to Auckland. Her young friend, Lydie, teaches her about the infinity loop and the circle inside it that represents our grounded selves.
In this episode:
MUSIC: Suite Argentina: Malambo by Horacio Salgán as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
available on iTunes
The barkeep named Sean asks if I met the ghost in room 7. He tells me this ghost carries his head in his hands and has a bad case of flatulence. Whoever my ghost visitor was, he was friendly and I never heard, or smelled, a thing.
The tide won’t go out until 4:30, so I just relax on my private covered porch, resting from having walked around 300 miles on tough trails. I watch the puffy clouds drift by with my feet up, thinking I still have a bit of time until we meet the rental company to pick up kayaks and float down the river to the sea.
Just as I get ready to leave, it begins pouring rain.
So much generosity in this country. Sean the barkeep tells me not to rush and enjoy my stay. It works for them as there are no other guests in the hotel – except the ghost – but still, his kindness brings me to the point of tears. Even Judy the housekeeper who walked in on me early this morning when I took my third long soak in the big claw-footed bathtub, told me, no worries, eh, I’ll get to your room later.
A few years ago I walked the GR5, the traverse of the French Alps. One day rain was predicted for the entire day and that was my cue to take a rest day. It’s no fun to hike in rain, and you can’t see anything anyway. Camping the night before, I had no intention of waiting out the weather in my tent. There was a village, just 45 minutes walk ahead, and there was bound to be a place to stay.
I arrived at a beautiful chalet at 8:30 in the morning asking for a room. Not only did the owner set me up, but he allowed me into the room right at that moment – and like today, invited me to just relax all day on the covered porch as rain fell over the mist-shrouded mountains. I recall the dinner that night with a large group of French families included the finest cheese course I’ve had in my life.
Sure, the room wasn't occupied and it was no trouble to let me take it early, but he could have been strict with a specified check in time and he chose to be a gracious host instead. Contrast that with a gîte owner further south who threw me off his property when a guest invited me to have a bath in her room. No dinner for me even after offering to pay for the hot water I used. It was such a mean and arbitrary act, I was shaken to the core, really, for years.
Puhoi Pub in New Zealand, where I eat mussel fritters washed down with a local cider, has erased that awful moment of being told, “We don’t like your kind here.”
There’s another lesson for me. We all have options to be generous or to be stingy, to see abundance or to see scarcity. And this is not a judgment I’m making of the world; this goes for me too. Rather than dismiss the nasty French experience and celebrate the wonderful one, I chose to put my attention on figuring out the nasty one. It’s almost as though I believe kindness is a fluke and unkindness what I deserve.
Having my feelings of anger, confusion and hurt is not the problem; those are appropriate responses. The problem is in staying with those feelings and puzzling over what I could have done differently. Or worse, asking, “Why me?” It turns the blame for poor behavior on me rather than where it belongs, on the one who behaved badly.
The rain stops suddenly and it’s sunny again, just in time to leave. I pick up some of the famous Puhoi stinky, washed-rind cheese before launching. A third Dutchman named Koen joins us, Floris, Marjolein, Lydie and Stefan – all just barely in their twenties. We bump along in fat sit on top kayaks, laughing and splashing our way from muddy and narrow to wide open and turquoise, s-shaped necked herons pumping oversized wings as we approach.
I mostly paddle with Stefan who tells me he’s built his own wooden kayaks then complains that Lydie walks too slow and hitches too much. It’s late when we arrive at Wenderholm, chilled by the dropping temperature and still a walk to a camping area. It’s busy with teenagers, likely from a school throwing, kicking and whacking balls of varying shapes and sizes. Even for my twenty-something friends, it’s not exactly paradise by the sea.
And just then, the ranger drives up. Ross seems to read our minds and invites us to to camp on his lawn with a long drop and running water, free of charge. Boy did we score.
He even has a picnic table where we share cheese and beer and laughs before it starts raining again and we all take cover in our tents.
It’s a cold night, and damp. The sandflies are active, a nuisance that is rarely discussed in the “Pure New Zealand” ad campaign. There are actually nineteen sandfly species found in New Zealand, but only three bite humans. The one I’m dealing with is a black fly that are prolific in areas near water and humid bush, including beaches, lakes, rivers and swamps, essentially everywhere I’m walking.
The good news is they don’t appear to carry any diseases, and, unlike our mosquito, they don’t bite while you’re moving. So away I go, up the headlands to extraordinary views of chalky turquoise sea, squalls traveling down the coast. This spot was a private estate at one time. A sign informs me that water collection was a challenge, and the family that settled here needed a lot for their tennis courts, lawns and gardens. They would place eels and crayfish in the tanks to eat mosquito larvae and keep the water fresh. A quote reads, “All water has perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”
Do you know who wrote that?
Toni Morrison. I smile with pride.
Epiphytes called kowharawhara perch in trees’ arm pits. Trippers-of-the-forest called kareao, snake up the ground to all the way into the canopy where the rain dances but I stay dry below.
The high point is a pa, a fortress from the 16th century when iwis fought one another for territory. They cleared forest and used trenches as traps, all must feeling justified politically or religiously for their land grab. I come down to Waiwera Road where I meet the others who skipped the last section. A little store sells L&P soda (lemon and paeora) I ask the clerk what is paeroa and she says that's just where it’s made. Not bad, refreshing as we’re told to expect thunderstorms as two more hikers show up from Sweden.
And then, it’s a rock hop at low tide, a playground of shifted ancient molten layers, tide pools, seaweed and oysters clinging tightly. The rain stops and the sun gleams on the wind-rippled water. Tiny purple snails huddle in cracks and depressions like plump berries. My feet love the clingy feel of the drying rock. The sand is course, crushed shells, jagged edges, slabs of rock spitting out in long tongues, whimsically eroded like sliced bread here, a dinosaur’s backbone there.
The trail provides as the rain returns right as I reach Otanarua Hatsfield beach, the town of Orewa in view. A leafy promenade called Marine Parade takes me along the beach. Unusual homes look out to sea.
I come to a sign explaining the significance of te ara tahina estuary, a safe anchorage for canoes and abundant with food, a place deeply revered.
I’m carrying a wet tent and my clothes are dirty, but I am dry and this breeze is cool. I feel wonderful, everything on my back and in my pockets. But now, I’m in a town, cows next to the roundabout, Christmas decorations up.
A nice Kiwi with bright red hair and an out of place Roatan t-shirt helps me find the poorly signed underpass for a crowded four lane highway, offers me a ride but I tell her I’d rather walk.
I really wish I’d accepted. There's no verge and crazy fast driving. Really, at the very least the TA Association should create sidewalks on the road sections. It’s dangerous not to mention ugly. Maybe this whole ‘long walk’ idea is a joke and the expectation is that we’ll hitch.
Once I’m off the main road, it’s quiet and scenic; I don’t mind it at all. Oh no, I took a wrong turn! I was supposed to stay in that awful busy road. Damn it! Right now, I’m not liking New Zealand at all.
A whole string of bad words come out of my mouth as a lovely Kiwi pulls up to tell me I’m going the wrong way. No kidding, dude. I’m just about to cry as he piles me and Olive Oyl in his car for the half k back to the main road. He tells me he’s complained to the council that the trail really shouldn’t be on busy roads. All the steam comes out of me with his words and I burst out laughing when we pull up to the intersection and there’s Koen limping along with a giant walking stick he found.
We share the rest of the walk to beautiful Stillwater where the others await, and just as I expected, hitched. Another lovely Kiwi welcomes us to the caravan park, hands us tokens for a five minute shower and gives us the run of the game room, no charge. Lydie has the Animals cranked, Koen sings off key at the top of his lungs, Stefan is getting beer and we’re all relaxed in overstuffed chairs, the alicoop and my clean underwear drying in the sun.
And that’s just it with this trail; the most irritating, hair-pulling-out, f-bomb-dropping road walking contrasted with the most lovely and generous people you’ll ever meet.
I wouldn’t miss it for the world, well ok, maybe the road walking bit….
Another day, another tide-timing estuary to cross, this time at 12:36. Even so the Okura River will come up above our hips so we have to be prompt
In the lull, I ponder the juxtaposition of Lydie and me. She tells me she is the old soul and me the young one. So true, that. At 25, she knows herself well and is happy with who she is, taking life as it comes.
She encourages me to think about all the superb luck so far – like just now staying for free in a quiet, friendly caravan park and having the run of this huge game room rather than sit it out in the elements. I feel gratitude for all that’s come my way and yet – is it just human nature? – I dwell on past hurts.
When I took the wrong road yesterday I thought of my dad, whom I haven’t spoken to in years. I feel like such a jerk saying that. My only explanation is years and years – nearly a lifetime – of his making me feel not enough. And not in a direct way like demanding better grades or more success out of life, but in subtle ways like ignoring and dismissing me.
It takes my breath away as we pack to leave in the pouring rain how desperately I wanted his attention, just to tell me I’m ok as I am. I don’t know if he knows I’m in New Zealand right now.
We start just as the rain stops and the sun comes out. Off go the rain pants and rain skirts, but the pack protectors stay on, bouncing along the Orewa nature reserve.
This estuary is different, much larger with a huge expanse of wave-carved sand. The rock is more slippery with piles of shells pressed into every nook. At the river, we organize packs and walking sticks and whether to take off our clothes or not. Tiny crabs in beautiful shell-homes crawl on the dry ridges, kite-shaped holes tell me stingrays were here.
The others carry their packs on their heads and strip to their underwear. I dispense with formalities and just plunge right in with shoes, pants, backpack. Yes, I’m soaked, but it’s easier, doable, and I laugh the entire way as the water comes over the lady bits to my belly button, then one more short and deeper section before the end. It’s over in no time as the wind picks up, drying my legs into a salty white ring.
The coastal walk takes me up on the cliffs with expansive fields of grasses rippling in the breeze. Light raindrops tap my hat, the water a milky blue.
After the beach comes a quiet residential enclave reminding me of La Jolla, trail marker on the street signs. I’m ready for some take-away.
I forgot to mention when walking into Puhoi how much the Te Araroa reminds me of hiking in France, the wilder tramp giving way to farm track then spilling directly into town. I love that feeling I have again today as a small sidewalk cuts through backyards to the beach – and the hope of lunch.
Two older Kiwis ask how long I’ve been walking. “Well, I walk too,” one says. “But not that far!” They direct me to a commercial street with shops and burgers and thick shakes.
The trail meanders on public cliff walks and through bays and villages. A woman pops out of her house to tell me her son did the TA two years ago and how someone quit after six days, “But he was in his fifties!”
As am I, I tell her. But I don’t think she hears me.
It starts pouring rain as I walk around the cliffs, but the sun peaks out on Milford beach, a whole flotilla of sailboats, colorful spinnakers filled, lead me down the sand, the tide pressing in.
Next it’s crazy Black Rock. I think this is a public through-way, but it disappears into a slippery jumble. People come my way, so I guess I can get around, so happy that Olive Oyl is light now with no food.
The sun comes out again and conjures a rainbow against the slate sky, my sailboats still bobbing in the chalky-green sea.
I go over and around North Head and catch my first full-on glimpse of Auckland as the sun sets. Devonport is filled with Victorian homes, a long tree lined promenade for me to walk as I pass shops.
Like in the movies, the ferry arrives just as I arrive and it’s a short ride across Shoal Bay to the twinkling lights of New Zealand’s largest city, the sky tower reaching to a peach sky turning lapis.
On the ride I think about what Lydie showed me this morning in Stillwater. She has a tattoo on her finger of the infinity symbol with a circle in the center. It represents the decisions that keep coming back time and again, no matter if the circumstances change.
Unless we change, we will continue to travel the same figure-eight track over and over. But when we come into our own, we are the circle in the center, able to stop traveling that well-grooved path and become grounded and whole.
I have the crazy idea I can walk tonight all the way to Susie’s house, the daughter of my mother-in-law’s neighbor who married a Kiwi, but I go about 1 kilometer before I call her to come and pick me up and bring me to her warm home. She promises me a few zero days, Auckland exploration and Kiwi-style, Thanksgiving dinner.