Day 13
Sep 13 day 13 free camp on Morepork Trail to Ngunguru Village 35 km 7:00-4:30 A day of big vistas. The morning hike out the Morepork trail was uneventful, but full of twists and turns, quick changing environment and had to concentrate hard on following path and finding the orange plastic triangles that serve as […]
Day 12
Sep 12 day 12 free camp near Waikare to free camp on Morepork Trail 32 km 6:30-4:30 Although I thought I pitched my tent past the last house, there was one more just across the stream and, as it was Friday night, they had a small party, with cars coming and going until after midnight. […]
Day 11
Sep 11 day 11 Opua to Waikare 16 km (12 by boat) 5:00 pm-6:15 Today was the first true rest day. Slept in at the Opua Motel, a really wonderful place, read, wrote, relaxed, and rested some strained knees. Resupplied at the Opua Store, a classic place which also had […]
Solitude
Solitude On the second day out from Cape Reinga, the trail led up from Twilight Beach over Scott Point and down to Ninety Mile Beach, named not because it is ninety miles long (more like eighty couple kilometers), but because Captain Cook, on his circumnavigation of the island named it the Ninety Mile Desert. Hiking […]
Day 10
Sep 10 day 10 KeriKeri to Opua 27 km 7:30-1:30 Wandered up the streets of KeriKeri before 7:00 and found a bake shop open, so started the morning with a sausage roll. It would be hard to be a vegetarian on this trail, as the quick, cheap, convenient food nearly always includes some sort of […]
Day 9
Sep 9 day 9 Puketi Camp to KeriKeri 25 km 7:15-1:00 Hiked hard and fast, but was short, fairly easy day. The highlight was crossing a large set of pastures toward the end of lambing season. Most of the ewes had already lambed (most with twins) though some were about to. A lot of afterbirth […]
Day 8
Sep 8 day 8 Apple Dam Camp to Puketi Camp 25 km 7:30 – 3:00 Finally a really beautiful day. Early part on a forest track past many Kauri Trees, and by mid-morning descended down an old atv track through the high rushes to the Mangapukuhukuhu Stream which I then hiked straight down the middle […]
Day 7
Sep 7 day 7 free camp on ridge to Apple Dam Camp 25 km 7:30-3:00 Woke to rain and cold, packed up quickly, put on wet clothes and headed out fast. The trail down to valley (5km) was ridiculous– standing water, looked like ponds in the middle of the trail. Soon I was completely soaked […]
Day 6
Sep 6 day 6 Digger Valley Road to free camp on ridge 24 km 7:30-5:30 The second worst trail I have ever hiked.
Day 5
Sep 5 day 5 Ahipara to Digger Valley Road 24 km 7:30-4:30 Started out beautiful, barely a cloud in the sky as the rains had come on hard all night but dissipated by morning. Made coffee in kitchen before leaving, then strolled through town, stopping to get a juice before striking out of town. The […]