car plans fell through when we couldn't find a fourth and it was too expensive for just the three of us. Cara and I decided to hitch and see where we could get to. I took a bus to her
homestay after not being able to find a tent for an extra 2 hours. We got started at 3:30 (only 3 hours after what we wanted) and took a bus from Pt. Chev to
Titiranga. Bought some food and headed out on the road. it was first time either of us had hitched and it felt really weird to stick our thumbs out as we walked. the third car
stopped for us - we had only walked about 30 seconds - and offered a ride. It was a mother with her 2 year-old son,
Colm, and 7 year old daughter, Sophie. She was only going half the way to
Huia but agreed to take us the whole way. she seemed really nice and pointed out that it was probably good that I had a girl with me as I wouldn't be picked up otherwise. She pointed out some good routes for us to take and gave us some advice and
dropped us off at this little store by the Bryan Bay. We bought a local trail map from the store and some bug
repellent and started walking around the bay, ended up walking pretty much straight across it since the tide was so low and it was so shallow it only came up to our ankles. On the other side we found an estuary and tramped up it for a bit then continued up the road towards where the store owner said a forest service office was. The wardens were having a afternoon drink but one came out and answered some questions for us. She said that we should stay at a farm campsite that had shelter for us and that a ranger would come by in the morning and charge us 5$
apiece. We ended up hanging the hammock in the barnyard so we wouldn't get rained on and heading down to the beach for dinner. We ate, searched for crabs for a while and headed back to bed. We were the only ones at the farm except for the pig, a cow, a herd of sheep, some chickens, roosters and four turkeys.
There were no people. We both slept in the hammock - a tough feat to be sure, but it's good to know that it's possible. and in the morning I went for a run. We started hiking again by 10 the next morning, the ranger never turned up so we didn't pay, and we started hiking along the coast road to little
huia. it is really beautiful country over there and it's really interesting that as small a town as
huia is such a big spot on the map - it goes to show how
unurbainzed new
Zealand actually is. just past little
huia another lady picked us up and took us the rest of the way to
Whatipu. She had spent a year hitching around Australia and always tries to pick up hitchhikers when she can. She was heading into the bush for a weekend after spending the week helping her daughter move in Auckland. I would guess she was around 50 and heading out for a solo tramp - I was very impressed. She pointed us towards some caves outside of
Whatipu - which was nothing more than a trail head at the end of the road, but from the map looked like a city.
We headed to the caves, planning to see them and then cross and area marked 'lagoon/swamp' to the beach (as the ranger told us the night before) and hike up the beach to a town called
Karekare. The caves were very impressive, they were really deep and
cara was much more into that than I - never having liked
pitch black caves with only one light myself, and she did some meditating, while I sat waiting and sweating. Once we left the caves we confronted the 'lagoon/swamp' this turned out to be better and worse than we predicted. It was completely dry, so there were no water crossings and we didn't have to worry about getting packs wet, however, it was full of this cactus like plant that was horribly painful, also there was this grass stuff that would form pillows - it looked like the ground had these
rises in it but when you stepped on them your foot would go straight through a great way to roll an ankle. I felt like Lewis and Clark upon coming to the top of a thorn covered sand dune, expecting the beach on the other side and seeing nothing but a sea of more thorn-dunes extending on as far as we could see. By the time we reached the actual beach, we were completely cut and scratched and embedded with thorns and all kinds of crazy shit. The beach
it's self was nice, it extended on forever and was rippling with hear waves, it took 20 minutes to walk straight across from the thorn dunes to the water. Then we hiked north along the beach for a couple hours, which was completely deceptive as the scenery never changed. Also we were hiking barefoot which ended up giving me foot problems the next few days, as I didn't realize how far without shoes I had gone. We finally came to this guy walking down the shore out in the middle of nowhere and stopped him to ask the location of a trail going into the bush away from the beach that would lead us ultimately to
Karekare. We learned that
Karekare was similar to
Whatipu in that it was a glorified
trail head and not to expect any food to buy there, the nearest food was in the town of
Piha, another 5k beyond
karekare. He also pointed out the
trailhead - all we had to do was recross the lagoon swamp which was wet this time, and I'm very glad that there were no leeches. We reached the
trail head to discover that it went straight up for about 2k until leveling off and heading across to
karekare. It climbed mt.
zion, to a height of 273m and there was no leveling off before the top. When we reached
karekare we both just crashed in the grass of the park by the parking lot. About 5 minutes after we sat down a man asked where we were hiking to and agreed to give us a ride. We accepted, still thinking that this trip had been far to easy. He (~45) was with some family friends - a grandma (~65) and her granddaughters, who were both really crazy. The girls,
Analiese and
Stephanie (i think) were 11 and 14 and quite feisty. The little one looked
cara up and down and asked "are you posh?" she then turned to me and after inspecting me for a minute asked "do you clean your teeth?" Cara's
response was: "what does that even mean?" mine was: "not since this morning - why?" She then
proceeded to inform us that she was a daredevil and enjoyed doing crazy things, or as her sister termed it: putting herself at risk. the grandma promptly started in on the fine line between putting yourself at risk and yet not killing yourself since there are people in
the world who care about you. Cara and I - the two hitchhikers with out a plan on where we were going, who hadn't really even told anyone we were going anywhere - Cara and I didn't have much to contribute to the
conversation. The guy - Bill - was really friendly and took us to a lookout over the town and bay of
Piha, it was very beautiful and
Analiese entertained herself by rolling down the hill on the side of road - while her grandmother complained about grass stains. Bill dropped us off by the beach in
piha and we explored the town and found a place to eat then went to look for a campground for the night. The lady at the public campground told us about a forest service one up the road that we could use and not have to pay for if we got far enough back so the ranger didn't see us in the morning, we looked for it but couldn't find it and ended up sleeping in the public campground on the lawn - keeping one eye open all night for rain, which would have ruined the sleeping bags. The next morning we hung out at the beach and by 2:30 decided that it was time to start heading back, we had class the next day at noon and weren't sure ow easy it would be to hitch along
piha road. we were expecting to get a lift to
titrangi and then spend the night on the beach and take the bus early in the morning, what we didn't realize is that
Piha is where all the
aucklanders go on the weekend so the first car who passed us picked us up and dropped us off on the corner of
parnell and
ayr street - about 2 minutes walk from home. Dave was our driver and he had been in
piha training for a 100k race in a few weeks. He was a lawyer in the city who just graduated and was saving money till he could go out and spend a couple years doing something sweet, in the mean time he was training for an ultra. He seemed like a great guy and knew
cara's Buddhist teacher by name so they had a nice chat. We agreed to go out and run sometime and maybe go drinking. We got out of the car and just laughed back and forth at each other that it was
soo easy and we made it. It was the weirdest feeling to realise that we had one of the best weekends one can hope for: met kiwis, saw the New Zealand bush, slept in a barnyard with the pig, explored a bunch of caves, and only spent 50$ (including a 10$ map) between the two
of us.
There were no people. We both slept in the hammock - a tough feat to be sure, but it's good to know that it's possible. and in the morning I went for a run. We started hiking again by 10 the next morning, the ranger never turned up so we didn't pay, and we started hiking along the coast road to little huia. it is really beautiful country over there and it's really interesting that as small a town as huia is such a big spot on the map - it goes to show how unurbainzed new Zealand actually is. just past little huia another lady picked us up and took us the rest of the way to Whatipu. She had spent a year hitching around Australia and always tries to pick up hitchhikers when she can. She was heading into the bush for a weekend after spending the week helping her daughter move in Auckland. I would guess she was around 50 and heading out for a solo tramp - I was very impressed. She pointed us towards some caves outside of Whatipu - which was nothing more than a trail head at the end of the road, but from the map looked like a city. 
We headed to the caves, planning to see them and then cross and area marked 'lagoon/swamp' to the beach (as the ranger told us the night before) and hike up the beach to a town called Karekare. The caves were very impressive, they were really deep and cara was much more into that than I - never having liked pitch black caves with only one light myself, and she did some meditating, while I sat waiting and sweating. Once we left the caves we confronted the 'lagoon/swamp' this turned out to be better and worse than we predicted. It was completely dry, so there were no water crossings and we didn't have to worry about getting packs wet, however, it was full of this cactus like plant that was horribly painful, also there was this grass stuff that would form pillows - it looked like the ground had these rises in it but when you stepped on them your foot would go straight through a great way to roll an ankle. I felt like Lewis and Clark upon coming to the top of a thorn covered sand dune, expecting the beach on the other side and seeing nothing but a sea of more thorn-dunes extending on as far as we could see. By the time we reached the actual beach, we were completely cut and scratched and embedded with thorns and all kinds of crazy shit. The beach it's self was nice, it extended on forever and was rippling with hear waves, it took 20 minutes to walk straight across from the thorn dunes to the water. Then we hiked north along the beach for a couple hours, which was completely deceptive as the scenery never changed. Also we were hiking barefoot which ended up giving me foot problems the next few days, as I didn't realize how far without shoes I had gone. We finally came to this guy walking down the shore out in the middle of nowhere and stopped him to ask the location of a trail going into the bush away from the beach that would lead us ultimately to Karekare. We learned that Karekare was similar to Whatipu in that it was a glorified trail head and not to expect any food to buy there, the nearest food was in the town of Piha, another 5k beyond karekare. He also pointed out the trailhead - all we had to do was recross the lagoon swamp which was wet this time, and I'm very glad that there were no leeches. We reached the trail head to discover that it went straight up for about 2k until leveling off and heading across to karekare. It climbed mt. zion, to a height of 273m and there was no leveling off before the top. When we reached karekare we both just crashed in the grass of the park by the parking lot. About 5 minutes after we sat down a man asked where we were hiking to and agreed to give us a ride. We accepted, still thinking that this trip had been far to easy. He (~45) was with some family friends - a grandma (~65) and her granddaughters, who were both really crazy. The girls, Analiese and Stephanie (i think) were 11 and 14 and quite feisty. The little one looked cara up and down and asked "are you posh?" she then turned to me and after inspecting me for a minute asked "do you clean your teeth?" Cara's response was: "what does that even mean?" mine was: "not since this morning - why?" She then proceeded to inform us that she was a daredevil and enjoyed doing crazy things, or as her sister termed it: putting herself at risk. the grandma promptly started in on the fine line between putting yourself at risk and yet not killing yourself since there are people in the world who care about you. Cara and I - the two hitchhikers with out a plan on where we were going, who hadn't really even told anyone we were going anywhere - Cara and I didn't have much to contribute to the conversation. The guy - Bill - was really friendly and took us to a lookout over the town and bay of Piha, it was very beautiful and Analiese entertained herself by rolling down the hill on the side of road - while her grandmother complained about grass stains. Bill dropped us off by the beach in piha and we explored the town and found a place to eat then went to look for a campground for the night. The lady at the public campground told us about a forest service one up the road that we could use and not have to pay for if we got far enough back so the ranger didn't see us in the morning, we looked for it but couldn't find it and ended up sleeping in the public campground on the lawn - keeping one eye open all night for rain, which would have ruined the sleeping bags. The next morning we hung out at the beach and by 2:30 decided that it was time to start heading back, we had class the next day at noon and weren't sure ow easy it would be to hitch along piha road. we were expecting to get a lift to titrangi and then spend the night on the beach and take the bus early in the morning, what we didn't realize is that Piha is where all the aucklanders go on the weekend so the first car who passed us picked us up and dropped us off on the corner of parnell and ayr street - about 2 minutes walk from home. Dave was our driver and he had been in piha training for a 100k race in a few weeks. He was a lawyer in the city who just graduated and was saving money till he could go out and spend a couple years doing something sweet, in the mean time he was training for an ultra. He seemed like a great guy and knew cara's Buddhist teacher by name so they had a nice chat. We agreed to go out and run sometime and maybe go drinking. We got out of the car and just laughed back and forth at each other that it was soo easy and we made it. It was the weirdest feeling to realise that we had one of the best weekends one can hope for: met kiwis, saw the New Zealand bush, slept in a barnyard with the pig, explored a bunch of caves, and only spent 50$ (including a 10$ map) between the two of us.
1 comment:
That is so frickin' cool that you are in Auckland! Sorry, I hope you remember me, we knew each other back in high school. Man, I've got easter break coming up this weekend and I REALLY want to get up to 90 mile beach- just above Auckland. I hear it is one of the best backpacking areas in the North Island. Most everyone I know is heading South- I'll do that in November. Well if you are at all interested, I just might be heading up that way. I've got two weeks off! Catch ya later. Oh and if you'd like to check out my blog...
capri-24.blogspot.com
Crazy, sweet as!
Capri
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