“Then one day when you least expect it a great adventure finds you”
Ewan McGregor
Day 1 – 4
- Day 1 – Cape Reinga to Twilight Beach campsite ; 12km
- Day 2 – Twilight Beach campsite to Maunganui Bluff campsite ; 28km
- Day 3 – Maunganui Bluff campsite to Hukatere campsite ; 30km
- Day 4 – Hukatere campsite to Ahipara ; 31km
Total hiked: 101 km
Wow. How to describe starting Te Araroa…
Scratch that, how to describe a great adventure that you’ve spent years thinking about,months planning and weeks leading to the big start date uncertain whether your town would suddenly go back into lockdown.
Yeah, Te Araroa this year won’t be like any other. Mix a delta variant pandemic into a through-hike and you’ve got a lot of empty campsites, flip flopping hikers and friendly waves with locals at a two metre distance.
As most people who imagine one day walking Te Araroa I started true to the trail, from the top in Cape Reinga.
Unfortunately, what is usually a popular time to start the hike in late October was not the case this year and only I started that week on Saturday October 29th. Fortunately, my partner knowing this to be my first overnight hike (there’ll be many to come haha) and the nerves I’d developed very, very, very kindly offered to walk the first day and stay overnight with me at Twilight Beach.
We started from Cape Reinga/Te Rerenga Wairua late in the afternoon and headed down the infamous stairs to Te Werahi beach.
Due to high tide antics, rock climbing and thigh deep water stream crossings quickly became our norm, we made it to Twilight/Paengarehia beach campsite saturated but in one piece!
The rain and wind continued overnight and gave my new tent a real test for durability, which very thankfully it passed. Late in the morning we set out from our micro campsite to Scott Point/Tiriparepa where we were parting ways and I was continuing my adventure solo. Not without a quick karate photo first though 😛
From here I placed the first of many (many many) foot steps on Ninety Mile Beach/Te Oneroa-a-Tohe.
Over the course of the next three days I walked down the beach, waved at local fisherman, got rained on intermittently, danced to my appropriately named ‘Trail Mix’ playlist, developed these rather cool sunburn/windburn high sock tan lines, wore a rain jacket for rain, sun and strong southerly wind protection and had only a few meltdowns at how much further I had to walk along the sand.
In particular, day four turned out to be a shocker for relentless sun and south westerly winds all without anywhere to hide and protect your skin from the burning, pelting sand. It actually made me miss the rain! Needless to say the evolution of my outfit over the course of the final day was quite something…
While staying in Hukatere campsite the delightful owner Gabriela told me of how her and her late husband had been involved in the construction of the first in-hospital marae in Kaitaia, she even carved her initials in the corner to remember it for years to come – definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area.
Whilst no other hikers joined me at any subsequent campsites it did offer ample time to read my books (good thing I bought the kindle) and write my blog 🙂
Mid Tuesday afternoon I walked (more like hobbled) into Ahipara and was greeted by the two lovely faces of Jules and John, I don’t know whether it was the shower or two people to talk to that I treasured more but thank-you.
I passed 100km hiked whilst on the beach, just 2900km left to go!
GC Chronicles 
Awesome Alex! Kia kaha. I suppose now you are locked down in the far North. I hope you’ve got a tripod of some kind for all the selfies! How did you fill up on water over the four days?
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Thanks, I had a tripod but it broke the first day so just a really long arm or on pack placement for the photos haha. I actually still live in Whangarei, so very fortunately 2 lovely people helped me exit Northern Northland and now I’m planning on where to re-start the trail from. There are ‘streams’ along the beach but by the time that reach the dunes they’re salty, so I just filled up on water at each campsite to carry for the day. Kia kaha 🙂
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Wohoo! Way to go Alex! I envy you.
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I’m so happy Nate was with you xxx
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Amazing pictures, well done
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