With a very heavily loaded pack, the Cape Reinga walkway was a more slog than stroll, but was a great holiday anyway. My legs are still stiff, a sure sign I wasn’t fit enough for the weight of my pack. I shouldn’t have been carrying sandles, a big thick book on the Spanish Revolution, a spare torch, and maybe there were some other things? Or I should buy a lighter tent? or just get fit.
Inspired by Michelle and Brian’s tramp of last year, and with their map, a copy of their blog post, and the DoC brochure, I drove up North on Saturday.
The toll road bypassing Orewa and tunnelled through the Waiwera hills is a fast easy drive, but avoid trying to pay at the service station. The 15minute queue is longer that the time the road saves over going through Orewa. If you’ll be back home within 3 days (not me) you can just pay online when you get back, or you can prepay if you can successfully navigate the website. When I first looked it seemed you had to open an account and pay for at least 10 trips, but now I see if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this pay a toll page and follow Next there you can pay just 1 or two trips in advance.
I organized transport through Waitiki Landing. At Kaitaia I was told that, as there was only me going, it’d be $70 to be dropped off at Spirit’s Bay that day and picked up at Te Paki stream later. Seemed fair enough, but then when I got there I was told there’d also be a parking fee of $15/day (more expensive than parking in Auckland!). Looking confused (as I do), she back-tracked and asked if I could pay the $70 in cash now, that I could sort out EFTPOS for the parking when I came back. So was dropped off, and three days later picked up (early even) by the friendly driver, and his wife and dogs. Back at Waitiki Landing, I asked if I needed to pay for parking, a different person there told me, as long as I’d paid for the transport I didn’t need to worry about parking and looked at me like that was some crazy city idea. Confirmed to me it was a rort. So, something to watch out for.
Was good to spend the first night at the Kapowairua campsite. Not only did I get a chance to have a look at Spirits Bay and make a reasonably early start, but better I was lucky to meet a local couple who I was camping near (there were only 3 vans and my tent overnight in the whole campsite). They gave me loads of good advice: take the track behind Spirits Bay for an easier walk than tramping on the sand, where to camp on Twighlight Beach (in the middle), what route was passable at low tide, that the water wasn’t safe to drink even in the campsite (confirmed this after I’d drank and made dinner with it), where there were mussels (but I really didn’t have time for collecting shellfish), some other stuff which I’ve forgotten.
Clear skies made for hot days, and freezing nights. Woke to a frost on Sunday, but I kept warm enough with all my clothes on and in a 3-season bag. First day is a long one, 8 hours. Definitely it is best to get this day out of the way first. Along the bay, then over the hill to Pandora beach (tide was in), and then up higher along the ridge and a couple of 280m hills with spectacular views of the sea washing the rocks below. Finally I started descending towards Tapotupotu campsite. I was a bit worried when the track forked and the orange marker pointed away from the campsite. ‘were the orange markers really for the full Cape Reinga walkway?’ but they are the track winds down to the estuary upstream from the campsite which I was fortunate to cross at low tide without even getting my boots wet. I just dumped my pack on the first flat bit of ground and set my tent up there, was a nice spot and handy enough to a tap and the toilets.
The few clouds around on the Monday were most welcome for their temporary shade. There is now drinkable water at Cape Reinga (at least it comes out of drinking fountains and peeking in at the plumbing I see it goes through some big filters). It didn’t taste good, some mineral/salt taste, but I filled up my bottle anyhow. There’s not much water at the days destination, Twilight Beach. Just a trickles flowing through the rotting seaweed and flotsam and over the sand. I bought a filter for this trip, used it at the campsites, and was really glad of it here too. Pitched my tent near a stand of pohutukawa as had been suggested. (Tent pegs don’t really work in sandy soil.) Had a pleasant night with the beach to myself, was most comfortable night of the three.
Last day is about 4-5 hours. Up off Twightlight beach, around the headlands and down along Ninety mile beach which had all sorts of interesting shells as well as a lot of rubbish cast up on it, then trudged up Te Paki stream to the road end (although legally the stream is a road too) where I was picked up.
I’d imagined leisurely sitting around outside my tent on the beach on this trip, but although it didn’t require really early starts, each day was mostly tramping. Great scenery though, and getting somewhere while seeing it. Next time I think I’d add a day in somewhere, at a campsite, or another night free camping. Was handy to Auckland and can be done (better to do) outside of summer. See the photo album
If you’re reading this, then the DNS entries have updated and I’ve finally made the move from SliceHost to BlueHost. SliceHost had been a good home, but I can’t justify the cost of running my website there any longer. It was cool to have complete control over a whole virtual machine, but I really haven’t done anything that custom with it….. I’ll just experiment with that stuff on my home server. BlueHost has a good reputation. I’ve suggested it to my friends for their websites. Now I’ve taken my own advice.
. And thanks to some sneaky Javascript for a first name they don’t show up in the list of users.
