A Dangerous Business

Date: 13th November 2023

Start: Helena Ridge (km 306.3)

End: Whananaki Holiday Park (km 322.2)

Distance Travelled: 8.4 km walked + 14.4 km hitchhiked (22.8 km total)

Total Distance Completed: 322.5 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Dust by Kings Kaleidoscope

Ability to Hand Wash Clothes: abysmal

I woke to the sound of tents being put away. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand how some people can just wake up and do things immediately. I’m barely sentient when I wake up!

But nevermind that, today was going to be a good day, starting by purchasing an egg and boiling it. Boy did it use up a lot of my stove fuel, but it was definitely worth it.

I’m not normally one to go for a boiled egg, but it was delicious and made for a nice change from the typical protein bar and coffee that normally consititues my brekkie on trail. Over the next two hours everyone started making their way back on trail, first with Tom heading south, John and Laur heading north, and ending with Melly and I leaving last. Not to matter, it was about 24 km to Whananaki and although I was planning to hitch if I could, I had plenty of time to complete the walk before mid-afternoon.

The short walk to the road took us out of the forest we camped in and past various fields filled with sheep, cows, and great ocean views.

When the road began, I went back into my usual pattern of turning on a podcast (still Tom Scott, the absolute ledge) and zoning out my surroundings, but not too much that I’d miss anything worth seeing.

That went well for just over 7 km until a lady pulled over and asked if I wanted a lift. I hadn’t been signalling for a hitch – I was planning on walking the gravel sections and hitching the paved ones – but I still took her up on her offer. It was only for 3 km or so, saving me around 45 minutes of walking. No complaints from me here.

Then the paved road started, expectedly dull. Moreover, there really wasn’t much of a shoulder to speak of, making walking quite dangerous around the blind corners and one lane bridges. To my chagrin, the traffic all seemed to be heading away from Whananaki. How selfish of them to not be going the way I was. Thankfully, I didn’t walk too far before I got picked up and driven all the way into town. Well, I use “town” quite loosely, from what I could tell there’s the holiday park, a general store, a school, and a few houses.

Here’s the one problem with getting a ride so early: it was only 11am and check in wasn’t until 2. I knew Tom and Jazz were the closest to the campsite (because I passed them), but they still had to be a couple hours away at best. The only thing I could really do was to grab an ice cream and a coffee from the general store, eat it, and wait for them to arrive. I know, poor me!

I waited for 3 hours before remembering that the track branches off from the road a couple km before town, so any walkers would be approaching from the other side of the campsite. What do you know it, as soon as I actually enter the campsite, I see three tents already put up belonging to Tom, Jazz Hands, and Jamie. Ah well, not a biggie, I set up my stuff, grabbed lunch from the store, and took it down to the river to eat, trying very hard to not get accosted by a duck who wanted my pie.

Once that was done… uh… I had nothing to do. For real, there really wasn’t any business to attend to, for now at least. Once the whole party had made it, we set about discussing where to go tomorrow. I was hoping to reach Nikau Bay campsite which is often a favourite of my many TA hikers. However, there was a spanner that had yet to be thrown into the works.

This is gonna require a lot of context. The trail leading out from Whananaki leads to another town called Ngunguru. At the bottom end of the town is a river of the same name, with Nikau Bay on the other side. After here is another river, the Horahora, which must be crossed at low tide, followed by another crossing 10 km further down at the Taiharuru estuary. On the day we were passing through, the tides were at really poor times. Like, 3:30am poor. Seeing as there wasn’t any point waiting around for the afternoon low tide, James had made the decision to not house campers on the day we’d be going through, although he’d still take us across the Ngunguru River.

So yeah, that’s quite a big spanner. To his credit, he did give us the names and numbers of trail angels where we could stay after crossing the Horahora. Matt gave one of them a call and they were more than happy to have us stay over. The downside is that we would have to reach Ngunguru by 2pm, which is 26 km away. I think you can see where this is going. The “not a morning person” is going to have to get up super early, leaving no later than 6:30. There’s no other way for it, that’s just the cards we’ve been dealt.