Worst to best

25 May

Makene Rd Campsite to Takahue old school hall

KM 132.5

Distance: 21.5km

Elevation: ascent 1042m; descent 1032m

Steps: 39,000

Time: 7:40am - 5:10pm

Today was one of the worst days on the trail for Vaughan. It was one of the tougher for both of us.

The day started out just fine, with the rain having passed overnight (by the way, it stopped raining long enough last night so that Vaughan did not have to cook in the toilet).

We almost immediately got started onto the Raetea Forest Track... or so we thought. See, we have gotten very used to following the trail on The Trail app. It's well marked out on a topographic map, so you can see the black dotted line of the trail on the map; and it's also overlaid by a line following some previous hiker's GPS track. 

Well, the first few kilometers of the Raetea Forest Track have apparently changed since both the topographic map and the GPS trail were recorded. Because we soon found ourselves in dense bush with no trail, let alone any obvious trail. But we were determined, so we bush-bashed onward.

It was quite possibly the slowest kilometer we've done on the trail! It was only just after we made it to the first of five "peaks" that we re-joined the actual trail. We have never been so happy to see trail markers!

(Nobody visits this peak anymore. Except us. And Aud and Pol who made the same mistake we did.)

Once we got back on to the actual trail, we looked more closely at some very informal track notes that we have access to. In these, one person noted that the track has apparently changed, so people going northbound, like us, need to ignore The Trail app and instead use Google Maps?? Good to find this out later. Ugh. In any case, here's a picture of Vaughan actually on the trail - can you see the difference?

This short bit of the trail took a lot of energy out of us, on a day when we knew we would need a lot of energy for a day with significant climb and descent; and also knowing that this track is a bit muddy and rooty at the best of times.

And oh, it was! Today was definitely a slog. There had been just enough rain in the area to thoroughly wet the clay ground; not enough to make it deep boggy mud, but enough to make it slippery. And where there wasn't mud, our shoes had picked up enough mud that we were slip-sliding on that surface anyway.

It is a little bit sad that we struggled so much today, because we have heard from several locals about how special, sacred, these mountains are.

It would have been good to have had the time and mental and/or spiritual space to really feel that. We obviously felt it enough to still be smiling at lunch-time (still peanut-butter-wraps with a finisher of gummy snakes).

The other thing about days like today is that our eyes are down on the trail surface, which means, you guessed it: lots more cool funghi! And a fern koru.

It was getting toward sundown when we approached the small settlement of Takahue, where we had read that TA walkers are welcome to camp out at the old school grounds. We approached a nearby house, seeing no signs, and received a lovely, warm welcome! A whanau connected to the local iwi, which is looking to convert these grounds into a marae, is staying here and looking after the place and its visitors. They bade us put up our tent, ushered us toward the hot showers, even bringing fresh towels for us! And then invited us inside the house for a cuppa. 

The cuppa turned into a full feed; they have three generations living on site and also fully expect others, both whanau and not, to show up so they always have extra food on. Steak, sausages, chips, fresh fruit - not our usual trail fare by any means!

The absolute welcome and generousity - true manaakitanga - evidenced by this whanau managed to turn this from one of the worst days on the Trail to one of the best. So our bodies and spirits are both lifted, ready to head into Kaitaia for our last resupply (eek!) tomorrow.