Mud Mountain

Mile 137 , KM 221
Kaitaia to Kerikeri

Podcast of the day: I am back to "Hardcore History" with Dan Carlin

I miss: One sock. I must have lost it when I put it on to my pack to dry.

I road walked out Kaitaia and decided to take a break in front of an abandoned town-hall in some nameless town after about 10km. After a few minutes, an old rusty pick-up truck pulled over and a young Maori guy wearing a camo sweater stepped out of the car. He was a bit chubby, had a big smile on his face and the most beautiful bright blue eyes I’ve ever seen. We started talking and he explained that he had just come back from a pig hunt. 3 gnarly looking pit bulls started barking from the back of the truck as if they had heard that we were talking about them, but as soon as he told them to be quiet they turned into the sweetest little pups. Their names were Mindy, Rosy and Sady. Perfect for killing machines. (Side note: While all of this was happening "If you wanna come and take a ride with me.... must have been the money" was blaring from the inside of the car).

From the town-hall the trail lead to the base of the muddy Raetea forest. I had read about this section and wasn't looking forward to it. It turned out to be worse than I had expected. After a few hours of slipping and sliding, I was yelling at trees and cursing at bushes because the slow progress I was making was so unbelievably frustrating. On my way up I passed by two hikers and we ended up camping together on the summit. It was the first view after a long day of fighting vines and mud in the forest. The temperature dropped over night, and for the first time I was actually cold.

Got an early start the next day and I was at the Mangamuka (or something like that) Dairy for lunch. Dairy is NZish for a Corner Store. I ate a burger, drank a coke met a couple of hikers and off I was, heading for Apple Dam. The last camp site before the second forest which is famous for its crazy river walk (I found out later).

A thunderstorm woke me up the next morning. I had zero motivation to get out of my dry tent but I didn't have a choice if I wanted to make it through the forest by the end of the night. Waiting it out was also not an option because I wasn’t carrying enough food. Well planned, well planned Dom. I had hiked about 5k when I arrived at a river. I kept looking for the orange TA-Trail marks but couldn't find any until I realized that the river itself was the trail. What. The. Actual. Fuck!!!

Sometimes the water got up to my hips and I got soaked until I figured out a pretty neat technique to stay dry(ish). I hike with compression socks to protect my legs from scratches and to prevent shin splints from happening, so I tucked my rain pants into my socks and there you go: my light weight DIY wet suit was born!

The river merged with a second river and I had just crossed it when I looked over my shoulder and saw another hiker lady. Turns out it was the much talked about "Adventurous Lucy" who's goal is to run the whole 3000km in under 70 days. We couldn't find the trail anywhere and were just about to strip down and swim over to the other side with our packs over our heads when we decided to look for the trail one last time. We found it! Imagine how difficult swimming with a pack would have been?! Looking back I really liked that day. In the moment itself I wasn’t so sure, but I have never done anything like it before and it was definitely a new kind of challenge.

Well. Long story short. Got to the next campsite early, hung out with a nice French guy who played guitar for me, got to use his stove so had a hot dinner, left in the morning, walked over endless farmland and almost drowned in one of a watering holes and ended up in Kerikeri. A nice little town where I'll take my first Zero. We're a little group now and we'll head out to Paihia tomorrow to do the first Kayaking bit of the trail. Stoked!

Exciting!