A Dangerous Business

Date: 23rd November 2023

Start: Stu’s Woolshed (km 513.5)

End: Orewa Beach Holiday Park (km 542.4)

Distance Travelled: 19.6 km walked & kayaked + 8.3 km on bus (27.9 km total)

Total Distance Completed: 542.4 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Ian McKellan acting as Gandalf saying, “Hobbits really are amazing creatures.”

Buses Missed: 1

Ugh, I really don’t want to leave this place. Stu, you’ve really outdone yourself with this woolshed, it’s incredibly cosy. On the plus side, I didn’t need to rush at all today. We only had about 11 km to walk to reach Puhoi and our kayak booking wasn’t until 4pm. In summary, easy walk, nice lunch, easy kayak, finally easy walk to Orewa. Huzzah!

Ok, maybe it wouldn’t be that easy. The first path descending down Moir Hill was a bit muddy in places. Thankfully two dry days had done their part in solidifying some sections that would’ve been a bit scary in the rain.

A short road walk afterwards took us to Dunns Ridge farm. Again, very little mud, but the track was pretty uneven so I still had to be careful where I stepped for the sake of my ankles. Initially taking me through a pretty forest, it soon opened up onto yet another green rolling hill.

Weirdly there wasn’t much livestock in the fields I passed by. The only notable highlight of this track was seeing a bird (couldn’t identify it) fly up vertically, stall, glide out of it, and repeat. Both the aerospace and ornithology nerds in me really enjoyed that.

The farm track had led us to the bottom of Puhoi Valley, the river and road flanked on both sides by hills. The actual TA route follows a path on the true left of the river, however Gabrielle must’ve had a personal vendetta against the swing bridge that connects it to the road and knocked it down. So now I’ve got a 4 km road walk into town, thankfully it isn’t too busy.

With that said, a number of trucks did pass me by due to the presence of the Puhoi Valley cheese factory. I had always assumed the name of the company was just for show, I didn’t realise that they actually made their products in the valley, so that was neat. A short while later as I crested a ridge in the road, Puhoi came into view. I honestly expected it to be a fairly large town, but all there is is a pub, general store, trading post, and a couple houses. Quaint would be a good word to describe it. Anyway, we had some business to attend to at the pub.

Real food always tastes better after a few days hiking regardless of what it is, but these nachos were particularly great. Melly treated herself to a steak, Jazz Hands got a seafood chowder and Matt tore into a big ol’ burger. All in all, an excellent and well-deserved meal. With time to kill, we made our way to the general store for some small supplies to get us through to Auckland and then over to the kayak rental. I opted for a single as did Matt, Melly and Jazz decided to share a double. Oh, and did I mention that the company we hired from transported our bags to the other end of the river? That was a nice touch.

The Puhoi River was very peaceful, although it did resemble the Brisbane River in its complexion.

Every now and then I’d go for it and see how fast I could go. Turns out I can get a decent lick of speed in one of these things, and this was at high tide on a river with no rapids.

With that said there wasn’t any need or motivation to go quickly, keeping it casual as we floated down the river, passing underneath and than along SH1. All in all it took us about 2 hours to do the cruise in, arriving in Wenderholm just after 6pm.

This is when things got a bit, well, stressful. See, the path around from Waiwera to Orewa follows the beach but this can only be done at low tide. And we were just after high tide. The only alternative is to walk along a highway for a few km which I really didn’t feel game enough to do. Instead, I was hoping to make a bus in Waiwera and take it over the highway. Trouble is the bus is pretty infrequent and I didn’t have a lot of time to make it.

So, I got to it, zooming around the hill in the way but sadly arriving late. I still didn’t feel like walking the highway so I waited for the next bus for 45 minutes. It was getting late by this point so so went straight to the holiday park and pitched my tent. Tomorrow’s plan is to reach Browns Bay, after which I will rest before heading further south. This is the first night in a while where I feel like I’m in a city. It’s quite a bit louder than some nights on trail so far. And I’ve got an early start tomorrow to make the tide for a river crossing. Ah well, remember a wise saying for hikers, “take things one day at a time.”