The Farm

The plan was actually to kayak south through the bay off Paihia. However, all kayaks were already fully booked. Unfortunately we didn’t want to wait for two days. Therefore we took the ferry to Russel and walked from there. Once again we could look forward to a few kilometers of road. I tried it, but couldn’t find anyone who wanted to give me a ride. Therefore I walked the complete distance. After two hours I finally reached the forest, where we continued on a gravel road. A curiosity on the side of the road was a not very well parked car.

Our destination today is a small farm that makes its backyard available for tents for a fee of $25. It’s a nice cozy place to relax in the sun for a while, read a book, play with the dogs, or just take a casual walk and explore the surrounding area.

After our zero day, new people mingle again as companions on the way. A few from our starting group have fallen by the wayside. I am curious how long it will take until all my companions have been replaced. Of course, everyone has a different schedule that they follow, but every few days the same people arrive again at different places, depending on who takes how many break days and when.

Makeshift Campground near Helena Bay

The Farm has turned out to be a cozy little spot of peace. Some strangers find work there in exchange for room and board. Young people looking for the cheap adventure.

What we found there is a place of peace and relaxation. The facility offered a homemade gym with swings adjacent to it, which contributed greatly to my and Connor’s amusement

Looking for a little off-trail adventure, Connor and I found it on the hills behind the farm. We both did some quick prepping on the hammock and then headed out. It was up several hills inhabited by cows, which provided overviews of the whole farm.

Driven by our will to explore, we walked further and further out into the hinterland, from hill to hill, past a meadow with domesticated horses that courted our favor to be petted. Some even let us feed them from our hands

Back from our excursion, I explored the in-house library with Giancarlo. Hundreds of books were waiting to be considered by us. Besides many contemporary books, there were also a lot of antique hams. One book, called “Book of Lists” caught my attention in particular. As the title promised, it was a book full of lists of all sorts of curiosities. I began reading from the lists of words that had found their way into English from other languages.

After another day along a road, a path was leading up a steep slope into the mountains. A narrow path creeps up to the top in a short time and takes my breath away. On the one hand by the effort, which demands everything from me, on the other hand by the view, which presents itself to me over the coast. The ascent restrains my otherwise brisk steps very much. So I manage the few kilometers in two hours and arrive as the first at the campsite arranged for us. Today I am much more tired than usual after a similar route.

It is interesting to talk to the people who cross our way here. The young ones are often here for “work and travel” and don’t know it yet to have had a job that you could leave behind, like me. Most of the “older ones”, at my age, have quit their jobs and, like me, don’t really know yet what they (want to) return to after this trip. What we all have in common is that at the present moment we give little thought to what the future might hold for us. Some have a rough direction. Sabrina and Sebastian want to set off for Australia after the hike and find a new footing there.

Yesterday I was approached by an 18 year old girl who heard that I left my job and apartment behind in Germany and that I don’t have a plan for the future yet. At her young age she asked for advice on what exactly to do with her life. She has no idea what she should learn or study. The only advice I could really give her was that she is right in her decision to come to New Zealand for a year and that she will find an interest. After all, I don’t have any more plans than that.

Something I read recently said that we generally have much less influence on our lives with our decisions than our mind tells us. When I look back at my past, many other factors have influenced my way of life, but certainly not my decision-making. Of course, I wrote a lot of applications at that time, but being accepted by BASF was more a coincidence than anything else, because it meant that I didn’t end up in a small company, but in a globally operating company, with all the opportunities that this opened up for me. I don’t even want to imagine how different my life would have been if I hadn’t moved out into the big world. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if…

Sandy Bay

What exactly drove me, I can’t say. I followed my morning ritual and packed everything up neatly at my campsite. Unfortunately, I was not only at the campground that day, but also at the farm porch. There I had fixed up one of my toes and where I had breakfast.

I noticed it only one day later that one of my bags is missing. A short phone call confirms that my journey will go in the opposite direction for the time being.

In this way one can also make kilometers. It took me two hours to get out of the bush again. Down below I luckily quickly found someone who took me the rest of the way back to the farm. It was a guy with his aggressive dog that almost bit me. He kept me amused the whole way with his stories. He didn’t really bring me up. Apparently he has 19 siblings and the actual owner of the dog was recently stabbed.

To catch back up with the trail I hitchhiked around the entire day’s ride, which was largely just sections along the road, until I spotted Connor on the side of the road and joined him.

Hitchhiking hasn’t worked out as well as it did that day before. I’m sure I rode 80 km around the trail with 4 different riders and barely waited longer than 15 minutes together. I guess you can count that as a success too.

I’m glad the day changed like this in our beach paradise. In the bag were all my important, but little used things, like my passport, the powerbank, my emergency signal and many other little things that can save your neck sometimes, but hopefully never have to.

Pataua

Actually we planned a short day to give our feet a little rest. Therefore, we quickly walked to the next place on the beach to do some overpriced shopping for the next day and then let us cross the water by boat.

James, the owner of the boat and a place to stay on the other side, surprised us with a pretty impressive presentation that explained in detail how to time the upcoming crossings with the low tide.

From this, we ended up going on the same day after all, so that we could do both of our upcoming crossings on foot. If we had left the next morning, we would have had to make a long circuit around the bay.

None of us really expected what a mud fight the two crossings, where we had to wade through mangroves, would be. Twenty centimeters deep our bare feet got stuck in the not completely pleasant smelling mud. Unexpected as it was yet for us, where funny it was also to go through this stage together.

Angus, who we had actually left a few days behind, still made his appearance at the campground late in the evening (8pm). He has knocked a few really long days, some wanted, some forced by lack of water sources. Nevertheless, it is nice to have the cheerful Australian back with us.

Nutrition

New Zealand does not make it easy to eat healthy. The food you get in cafes and restaurants here is delicious, but somehow not really nutritious. Everything is either packed in burgers or deep fried. A salad is often not even on the menu or must be explicitly requested. Vegetables seem to be a foreign word to the Kiwis. Food is really expensive in the supermarket. Often it is cheaper to go somewhere to eat. Unfortunately, you can see that in the population.

I try to provide myself with fresh vegetables as much as possible, if they are available. Often there is only one Dairy (corner store) in small villages. However, there are fresh vegetables in the rarest cases.

For weight reasons I can only carry a limited amount of fresh food. Everything that contains water is heavy. And I always have to carry enough water with me. I always run with about 3 liters of water. Most of the time they are empty when I arrive in the evening.

In the meantime I have the feeling to be more exhausted and to be able to concentrate worse than a few days ago. Of course, this can also be due to the actual effort. I just never had that before. My hiking colleagues almost all take multivitamin tablets. At the next opportunity I will also buy some. Let’s see if that makes a difference. In general, I am of the opinion that I do not need to take suplements, since I should have access to all important minerals and vitamins through my balanced diet, I do not need to supplement artificially. With the nutrition here on the trail, however, it would not surprise me that some things come up short.

Whangarei Heads

The same mess as the day before was in store for us again. This time we had to get up extra early to arrive in time before high tide on the other side of the bay.

Unpleasant weather was ahead of us. We quickly tried to get to the next place with a roof over our heads. After the mud, we continued across a pasture with cows eerily interested in us, past the fence of an angry farmer who probably doesn’t like the fact that strangers roam around here, up a mountain, which led us only with a green descent to a long awaited beach.

Sometimes I have to make up for my stubbornness by taking a few extra steps. On the beach you would have had to fight your way through a stream. The reluctance to take off my shoes gave me the idea to walk up the cove to avoid it. Result, return with extra miles, shoes off, huge gap to the others. Annoyed I have actually only a while about myself. I actually enjoy the crossings, I was just lazy.

At the end of the beach, after about 20 km, I had caught up with the others again. In general, I don’t plan my route very much. I have two apps (The Trail App, Far Out) that give me direction with markers. There are also comments in them that give you some guidance. Additionally, there are trail notes that give you a very detailed description of all the turnoffs, shelters, and detours. I generally rely a little on others to read the notes and then inform me of what is most important.

On this day I had relied on Angus. He said that there were only about 10 km to go. That would have been a comfortable two hours, had it not been for the altitude difference of more than 500m. The weather was very bad and so we walked the whole time through a thick haze that denied us any visibility. It was a tough climb up and at least as tough a descent. Every time we thought it couldn’t go any higher, a few more steps or another muddy climb would appear. At times it was so slippery that we just slithered through the area. In the end we needed almost four and a half hours for the crossing.

Ruakaka River Camp Site

The day we had planned as a short one to recover a bit from the previous day’s exertions turned into a 20 km march. Here we return to the subject of unread trail notes. Neither Conner nor I had any idea how we were going to get through the next bay. On the map it looked like an easy traverse or loop. Unfortunately, it turned out that the crossing was only possible at low tide. We had tried the circumnavigation, but unfortunately had to fight in the densely overgrown shore, deep water and swamp overgrown with mangroves only to find out that it is a river mouth to be circumnavigated. Soaked from above by the stormy rain and drenched with salt water from below, we had to take a detour of about 10 kilometers.

Already far before our arrival in the camp it was clear to us our stay will not be limited to only one night.