A Dangerous Business

Date: 4th December 2023

Start: Village Cafe, Whatawhata (km 784.4)

End: Kaniwhaniwha Campsite (km 808.1)

Distance Travelled: 22.5 km walked + 1.2 km hitch (23.7 km total)

Total Distance Completed: 804.7 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: just Andy Serkis doing various LOTR voices

Tomorrow’s Forecast for Mt Pirongia: little bit wet, but otherwise quite promising

To camp at the cafe in Whatawhata, there is one condition I failed to mention in yesterday’s post: we had to be gone before they opened at 7am. To be fair this wasn’t that big a deal, I did have a long walk ahead of me so it couldn’t hurt getting going nice and early.

Despite the early check-out time, I stuck around for an extra half hour to have a coffee and say goodbye to their guinea pigs. I really like guinea pigs.

Then it was onto the road, first a bit of SH23 then peeling off onto a more rural road. The trail technically follows the Waipa River for a while, but there were a bunch of comments on Far Out telling of an overgrown boggy trail and recommending hikers just stick to the road. I was more than happy to oblige. The road was a bit too busy for my liking, that has to be said, but I made it through, turning off to the east on my journey towards Mt Pirongia.

If you’re a bit perplexed by today’s finishing point after I made it plain yesterday that I intended to go up to Pahautea Hut today. And I did, until Vicki and Sonja drove past and offered me a lift up to the next track. I soon found out why they weren’t a day ahead of me as I thought: they’d arrived at a farmstay at Whatawhata on Saturday and waited out the rain yesterday. And now they were going to Kaniwhaniwha campsite today. And now I had a dilemma. Either keep going up to the hut alone, or wait a day and go up with them. I felt good, I had plenty of time to get up there, but having support through a tough section with people I know would be of great use. Once we caught up with Destroyer that more or less settled it for me: I’ll go up tomorrow.

The four of us then embarked on the Karamu Walkway. It’s just a farm track, albeit my favourite farm track so far on this trip. We got some great views over the surrounding region, the track itself was in decent shape (the first half, at least), and it was filled with sheep.

They were clearly herding them somewhere for some reason, the answer to both of those questions I do not have. Their bleating echoed over the hills, as did the barking of the sheep dogs and high-pitched peep of the farmer’s whistle.

The descent was a bit more tricky, with slippery clay to contend with. A couple of close calls but no falls thankfully. Traversing yet another paddock filled with curious cows, we reached another small road section before the beginning of the track that would take us to Pirongia.

It was only 1pm by this point which left me with plenty of time to tackle the route up to the summit. But again, I’d rather not do these challenging sections alone. I’m thinking back to how much I appreciated having Marlon and Vadem in the Puketi Forest. I’ve found the rough bits are much more manageable when in the fellowship of friends.

So that meant another early arrival at camp, which was a big grassy clearing next to a stream. It was basic, but we still had tables, toilets, even a couple bins. Lunch was the first point of action – well, after another round of rapid-fire tent pitching during a break in the weather. The afternoon then seemed to drag on for a long time, not to mention we didn’t have anywhere nice to relax. Our tents were too hot but it was raining lightly so we couldn’t leave them if we wanted to stay dry. In another gap in the weather we decided to explore a nearby cave.

Yeah, when I say explore, I mean Vicki and I stuck our nose in, not trusting the grip our shoes provided, whilst Sonja and Destroyer went further in. I’ve been in caves before, it was cool but nothing new.

More hikers started to roll in later on, with one report of hip-deep mud on that river section I avoided. That’s rather odd: Jonathan made a good decision for once! Nice job me *pats back*. We then sat around one of the tables waiting for dinnertime to arrive whilst trying not to get eaten alive by sandflies. Other than that, we had a good chat for a couple hours and then went to bed in classic hiker fashion. It’s such a different rhythm to what I’m used to back home; I’d never be in bed before 10pm normally, yet here I am writing this in my tent at 8:30.

So tomorrow’s the big day. 800 m to climb, 8 km to travel horizontally, potentially a good bit of mud to slow us down along the way. I don’t feel entirely ready for bit, but certainly a lot better now that I know I’ll have company.