A Dangerous Business

Date: 21st November 2023

Start: Rodney Road (km 476)

End: Dome Cafe (km 497.2)

Distance Travelled: 21.9 km

Total Distance Completed: 498.2 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Alive by Kings Kaleidoscope

Pace: agonisingly slow

I’m gonna set the scene of today’s walk right off the bat: this was the most mentally taxing day I have done on this trail. There were times where I just wanted to crawl into a ball and have a little cry. For the most part I hated this section of the trail. It wasn’t fun in the slightest. I knew this going into it, I thought I was prepared, but I still severely underestimated how demanding it would be.

We’ll get to all of the details in a bit. The day started nicely, waking up to that dang chicken pecking at my tent again. Thankfully there hadn’t been any additional rain overnight, although my tent was still saturated. Oh well, I’m kinda used to it by this point. One by one we filed out of our camp and hit the trail. It started nicely, walking through a farm field. That lasted for all of about 1.5 km. Then the mud started.

I’m perfectly fine with getting dirty boots and dirty socks. What I struggle with is the lack of grip. When you combine that with constant steep slopes with no decent foodholds, you get a very stressed out Jono. Also, one side effect of this is that I didn’t take many photos of today, I was too focused on making sure I didn’t fall down a muddy hill.

I was now going very slowly, yet I was still getting passed by many a hiker going a lot faster whilst seemingly having no problems with grip at all. I couldn’t understand how they did it. Was it their shoes? Are they just more confident? Do they not care about possibly falling over? Whatever the reason, it was really demoralising seeing them not just overtake me, but then disappear ahead of me. Not a fun time in the slightest. If it was just small sections of mud, I would’ve been fine, but it was the fact that it went on for ages. I knew the signs at the start of the track warned it’d be slow going, but this felt ridiculous. I’m gonna say it, it’s worse than Puketi.

It took me 2 hours to walk 3 km when I reached a helicopter pad for the nearby weather radar. To my delight, this pad was being occupied by Tom, Jamie, and a few other hikers whose names I haven’t learnt yet.

I was adamant that I should try to stick with some of them going forward. I tried to, but they were simply too quick on the descent off the mountain. Despite that, I had a lot more confidence going through this part of the trail. It was just as bad as before, but I felt slightly more relaxed about it.

Don’t get me wrong, it still sucked, but I could bear it. What also helped was a lovely piece of trail magic right before we finished this first trail.

That’s the textbook definition of trail magic: a small gesture that boots one’s morale far more than it typically would. I didn’t know it until I got here, but a Coke was exactly what I needed at this moment. What’s more, we were out of the forest for 3 km. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I thoroughly enjoyed this brief road walk.

Thankfully, the trail at the end of the road wasn’t all that bad. A little muddy in places but I never felt unsure about my footing. Of course that didn’t last for long, only until we reached the turn-off for a bypass route. For context, the main route descends into a shallow stream before coming back up again. In Cyclone Gabrielle, a large tree fell over the track rendering it impassable and resulting in the formation of this bypass route. The main trail is somewhat clear now (although that’s relying on reports from hikers and not from DOC), but I didn’t really fell like dealing with the combination of mud, a stream and a big tree, so I took the bypass, as did Jamie who I had caught up with. From the looks of things it seemed fairly straightforward, maybe it’d be mostly dry?

I should’ve never gotten my hopes up…

It was poor. Very poor. On the slippery descents I quickly lost Jamie, leaving me alone in a forest I really didn’t want to be in. I wasn’t walking by the point. I was stepping in front of me, praying that my foot held, repeating this process ad infinitum. I was in a constant state of stress and frankly I wanted to stop and cry for a bit. Against every fibre of my being I kept pressing on, praying that it would end. It did end, after about 2 hours of abject misery, upon reaching a concrete ford in a forestry area. I needed to take a break, using the stream to wash off any big bits of mud and gather my strength. Jamie was there too, and this time we set off together with 6.5 km to go and 5 hours of sunlight left.

One steep climb up a forestry road led us to the final forest of the day. I was determined to keep up with him, so despite my lack of confidence, I threw caution to the wind and started cannonballing through the forest. There wasn’t any mud for the first 2 km, just lots of tree roots. Now with some semblance of grip, I could make good time, whizzing through this first bit in no time at all. By the time we did reach mud I was feeling a lot better. I may have slowed us down But I knew we were now going to reach camp in pretty good time. Don’t get me wrong it was still hard going, including one decent slip from me, but the end was now in sight. Or rather in sound, as the Dome Cafe is right on SH1 and the sound of all the traffic on it rang through the trees quite a way.

Tom caught up with us with 2 km to go, completing the Dome Summit as a team of three.

One final push through 500 metres of mud and mayhem led us to a lookout and a simply incredibly sight. Not whatever the lookout was pointing at, but stairs. Actual stairs on a wide grave track. The mud was over. The grip had returned.

All the pain I had slogged through vanished as I descended those steps to the cafe (which I should really mention has been closed for a while now thanks to the big C). Camp turned out to be basically a small town of over 10 tents, a mixture of people starting from Pakiri, Rodney Road, and those who had split up this section over two days. One of these hikers was also the first fellow Brisbanite I have met on trail: Tim, hailing from Enoggera. If there was one silver lining for today- barring the trail magic – it was the fact that it remained dry the whole day. If it was raining, I’d be stopping with a trail angel part way along.

But here I am now, the last major obstacle standing between me and Auckland now conquered. Tomorrow’s plan is to reach Puhoi, but with some reports of more mud that may change. One thing I’m learning quickly about being on trail is the need to be flexible with your plans. Either way, I don’t believe I’ll have to deal with such poor track conditions again until I reach the Pirongias near Hamilton.

Please don’t let those be famous last words…