A Dangerous Business

Date: 4th January 2023

Start: Waikanae (km 1621.4)

End: Camp Elsdon, Porirua (km 1671.1)

Distance Travelled: 36 km walked + 13.7 km on a stinky, no good rail replacement bus (49.7 km total)

Total Distance Completed: 1511.1 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: the John Wick theme song (for some reason)

Wind: c’mon, it’s Wellington

Today’s alarm didn’t come from my phone, but rather from the ambient sounds created by Team Camera leaving the church. At 5:30. It’s not as bad as it sounds, I was planning on leaving early too, just not that early. I set off at 7am, everyone else either still asleep or dozing in their beds. This sadly marks the end of the Fellowship of the Tararuas. Vicky and Snacks would be taking a more leisurely pace into Wellington compared to Team Camera and I. In fact, this could very well be the final time I see either of them. Vicky hasn’t confirmed that she’s continuing down the South Island after all her foot issues and Snacks has a much more flexible schedule. That’s just the nature of the trail, everyone hikes their own hike, and sometimes that means having to say goodbye to good friends.

I set off alone for the first time in a while, probably since leaving Taumarunui. A short walk along Waiakane’s streets was the first “obstacle” of the day, the highlight being spotting a small taste of home.

I know jacarandas are technically South African, but they’re very common in Brisbane, so much so that the University of Queensland organises a festival around the time that they all start flowering. This also happens to coincide with when our final exams would be scheduled so I may have developed some undiagnosed PTSD whenever I see their purple flowers.

Uni-induced trauma aside, I turned off the road and onto a pathway running alongside the Waikanae River which took me all the way to the coast. This early in the morning there were few people out and about, just a handful of regular walkers, runners, and dog owners. It was nice, not the most interesting but a welcome change after the almost too interesting paths over the Tararuas. Towards the end, the rover turns into an estuary, with the trail taking me on a boardwalk over a reedy wetland.

Instead of following the actual trail onto the beach, I stuck to the streets to a cafe I hoped to grab brekkie at. Google said they were open, but when I arrived a sign said they were still on their end of year break. Perfectly understandable, everyone deserves to rest from their work, but that doesn’t do much for solving my hunger. Checking with Team Camera, they had had the exact same issue I did (same cafe and everything) and had found a different establishment a bit down the road. To get me by, I inhaled a fresh cream doughnut from the Four Square next door and got back to walking. The place they mentioned was a bit on the expensive side, but all financial concerns were removed once I tucked into my breakfast tortilla, the first bit of somewhat healthy food I had eaten since Palmy.

From there, I had a quick jaunt down the beach to the lovely town of Paekakariki. The tide was out, the sand was hard, and I had completely forgotten the pain caused by all my previous beach walks.

It was quick work, helped by the return of a very dramatic Andy Serkis playing in my ears. I’ve almost finished Fellowship, just in time for my Audible subscription to renew so I can download Two Towers.

Still being powered by breakfast, I settled for a small lunch in Paekakariki which was bustling when I arrived. Cafes were full of people, but only normal people. I couldn’t spot any weary faces/feet that would give someone away as being a Te Araroa walker. From here, the trail traverses the Escarpment Track, starting at the frustratingly empty railway station.

This was a bit of a Tongariro moment for me, as I had walked this track 364 days ago with my family from the opposite direction. I remember meeting a couple of TA hikers along the way, noting that I would be in their shoes the following season. And now I am.

Feeling a bit lost in the surrealness of it all, I started the track, initially climbing nicely through a forest. But it isn’t called the Escarpment Track for nothing; I’d have to walk over 1200 steps to reach the other side.

My strategy for them was to keep a steady rhythm all the way up. The Tararuas taught me that although your pace can feel slow in the moment, if you just keep moving you’ll still make good time. Coming out of the forest I was met with bare hills and sightlines back along the Kapiti Coast and towards Pukerua Bay.

To my surprise I reached the top of the first climb much faster than anticipated. The views were great as was the wind that was picking up sheepishly I started descending, beginning the pattern of steep ups and downs that would continue all the way to the end of the track.

It was by no means a dangerous wind, it just put me on edge a bit, not wanting to do anything stupid that would make it dangerous. Unfortunately for me, there were two obstacles in the way that did scare me a bit.

The two swing bridges on the track were already bobbing up and down by the time I reached them. My walking across them only exacerbated it, creating an unpredictable vibration that tried its best to knock me off my feet. It failed, I crossed both successfully.

After the second one, the track flattens out and drops back down to the railway line, running parallel to it past the closed Muri station and then through a few of Pukerua Bay’s streets before arriving at the railway station. The crossing that took me 3.5 hours last year only took me 2 hours and 40 minutes this time around. Guess that just goes to show how much my fitness has improved since I stepped foot on Cape Reinga.

That is where my walk ended. Matt and Melly were about an hour ahead of me on the pathway down to Porirua, however with the state my feet were in I had no motivation to continue on. I had hoped to catch a train from here, but this sadly did not come to pass. Instead, it would be a ride on a rail replacement bus. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t a train. Picking up a few groceries from the New World, I set about walking up to Camp Elsdon on the western end of town. The wind was getting quite strong by this point, the tailwind I’d enjoyed on the beach now blasting right into my face.

I can’t really tell what Camp Elsdon is. It has a bit of everything: dorms filed with school kids, campervans staying long-term, and a handful of regular campers including Callum and Dennis. It was good seeing them, but apart from that I didn’t get the best vibes from the place. No matter, I just focussed on the good bits (read: friends and food). Team Camera finally rolled in at 7:30 and joined us. They looked properly exhausted, which makes sense since they’d been on trail for 14 hours. This is the part I don’t like about doing long days like this, there’s no time to properly relax. You get to camp, have to set everything up, then eat dinner, shower, go to bed, and 8 hours later (if you’re lucky) you do it all again. I much prefer having a few hours at camp where I can just chill and not do anything.

Speaking of long days, tomorrow promises to be another long one. Wellington is known for two things: wind and being hilly. Today was a taste of the former, tomorrow will be the latter (plus a second good serving of wind). I think all of our eyes are firmly set in the South Island by this point, so I can imagine tomorrow is going to be pretty tiring, everyone just wanting to be done with the North.