A Dangerous Business

Date: 2nd November 2023

Start: Ngapae Holiday Park (km 87.2)

End: Beachcomber Lodge, Kaitaia (km 115.6)

Distance Walked: 15.2 km + 13.2 km hitchhike (28.4 km total)

Total Distance Completed: 102.2 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Conditions Of A Punk by half alive

Calories Ingested in Ahipara: a glorious amount

At some point I really need to get better at getting up on time. I’ve always been a slow riser on and off track, which I can see becoming a bit of an issue once I hit some of my longer planned legs further south. I wanted to get going by 8:30 at the latest, but I didn’t hit the beach until 9:20. It didn’t matter today as I only had to get to Ahipara, but it’s not a routine I want to fall into.

On a more positive note, my feet and legs were feeling a lot better. It’s always a nice feeling when you make a decision that turns out to be a good one down the track (pun intended). The blisters hadn’t gone away, but I was almost at the stage where I could walk without worrying about them. Like yesterday, I just stuffed my socks with hikers wool and prayed for the best.

Once on the beach, I settled into my regular routing of listening to a podcast to pass the time. Currently, I’ve been enjoying Lateral with Tom Scott, which is based around a series of questions involving lateral thinking discussed by a panel of internet personalities. I probably won’t listen to anything in the more interesting sections, but when you’ve been seeing practically the same landscape for 4 days straight, you definitely need some sort of distraction to keep you going.

Well, that’s not entirely true, the beach was slightly different today; it had a distinct curve to the right. And at the end of the curve was a town. A town called Ahipara. It seemed so close but I knew it’d still be a few hours away. So, I kept plodding away, pain free for the most part. It’s funny how in just 4 days of walking my mindset on how I want to tackle this trail has completely changed. Before I left, I was very much in the EFI camp (Every F****** Inch); it’s a 3000 km hiking trail, so I must hike 3000 km. Then I got started and quickly realised that that wouldn’t be any fun at all. So when the rest of our party mentioned they were planning to hitchhike the road section from Ahipara to Kaitaia, I agreed to join them. Some purists may complain, but I don’t really care. It’s the best decision for my body. Besides, it’s a very common practice for TA through-hikers and almost none of them claim that doing so disrupts what it means to complete a through-hike of this trail. The mantra of this trail is to Hike Your Own Hike.

That decision to hitch was further confirmed over the last 5 km of beach. I withered away very quickly. Shoulders began protesting quite loudly at being forced to carry all my stuff for 4 days straight, as did my neck for some reason. All the time, Ahipara inched closer at an incredibly slow pace. The sand had also become a lot softer just to add to my woes, saturated with 4WD tracks where people had driven onto the beach for a spot of fishing. But I pressed on, pushing towards my goal of a good feed at a takeaway joint in town.

That joint was depressingly another 1.5 km from the ramp onto the beach. I was free from the sand, but now had to endure hard pavement for another 15 minutes. It was exhausting, but at long last I collapsed onto the benches at the takeaway and let myself take stock of what I had just done. In just 4 days, I had walked 88 km. I had definitely earned this meal.

Yet again, I had completed this leg aggressively faster than the rest of my party. Mirjam and Sonja joined me a little over an hour after I had, closely followed by Vadem and Marlon. I did make me question if getting here so early was worth it, because I wasn’t any better shape than the rest of them. At the same time, I felt comfortable walking at the pace I did for most of today, so perhaps I’m just a faster hiker. I don’t think that’s inherently a bad thing, it’s only if I feel like I’m rushing when it can get a bit dangerous.

After everyone had eaten, we set about hitching a ride back to Kaitaia. Obviously, that would be impossible for a group of 5 to do, so we split into 2 groups and got to it. The girls seemed to get a ride fairly quickly, but us boys struggled for about 10-15 minutes before someone picked us up. Hitchhiking in Australia is highly discouraged after a series of murders in the late 80s, but it seems to be quite a bit safer over here. Granted we were 3 adult men on a busy road, but the local around these parts appear to be used to hikers asking for lifts to Kaitaia from here.

Now, I did something a bit silly and didn’t book a bed at the backpackers before arriving. When I came up last week, a bunch of the people who arrived with me didn’t have bookings and got in just fine. I assumed it’d be the same this time around. I was wrong. Turns out tomorrow was close to fully booked, but thankfully the staff were able to move some people around and I could book a bed. The surprises kept coming when I entered the hostel – although this one was nicer – and saw that Vicki and Melly were also here! They’d left on the Saturday and walked from The Bluff to Hukatere through Sunday’s storm and predictably had a miserable time. Like the rest of us, the beach had battered their feet so they were taking a couple zero days in Kaitaia before continuing. The rest of the afternoon had a really nice atmosphere, chatting with everyone about the beach and what our plans were going forward. The consensus among us was to rest tomorrow and start the Northland forests tomorrow, both to recover and because the weather tomorrow morning was looking a bit wet. I get that it’s New Zealand and rain is par for the course, but I don’t exactly want to be in those forests when it’s raining. I’ve heard many a bad tale about the trails we’re about to go on.

Speaking of bad things, I’ve definitely got the makings of a cold. My cough is worsening, so I’ll have to pick something up at the pharmacy tomorrow for it.