Otaki Township to the SOUTH ISLAND!!!

January 18th: Bus Otaki to Paraparaunu Beach

We took a bus out of Otaki Township back to the TA at Paraparaunu Beach (I dare you to try and sound that one out) Stopping for the night to stay at the historical Barnicle Inn. Our room had this photograph of the hotel in the early 1900's...not much has changed.

Only in New Zealand: Tractors pulling boats 

January 19th: Priorua Beach to Camp Eldson
We said goodbye to the Barnacle Inn and walked down the beach, finally back on the TA. Compared to our experience on the beach yesterday conditions had changed to being quite stormy . At least it wasn't raining, just very windy and cloudy which didn't stop people from swimming and fishing on the beach. As cody pointed out "the winters here must be rough if people are willing to swim in this horrible weather". Both of us have determined that we could not live in New Zealand for a number of reasons; but winter here definatly would be top of the list. We walked down the beach for about 2 hours; then the tide really started coming in forcing us to walk on the soft sand, which is not very fun with heavy packs. We heard from a local that we had some sand dunes coming up; we already knew what walking in sand dunes with heavy packs is awefully frustrating so we opted to start walking on the road. We bailed on to the nearest hwy and immediately got a hitch to the next beach. Wanting to stay close to the trailhead we stayed at Camp Eldson, which should be named camped Smelldsons, or some other horrible name.

The weather looked as if it was going to be a little wet so we had booked a room in their "lodge". The "lodge" closely resembled a jail cell; an overpriced jail cell. The surrounding area wasn't much better so we traded a dead bolt and some peace of mind for an obvious rip off. At least staying in a dump would motivate us to get on the trail early. As if to set the jail mood, that night I had a minor run in with a Maori family while I was making dinner. They thought it would be fun to bully the lone American tourist. Funny how all of that stopped as soon as Cody entered the kitchen. Having a guy around can be pretty useful.

January 20th-23rd: Wellington to the South Island!

That morning we walked some of the prettier sections of the track, then hitched and bused the rest of the way into Wellington.

We finally made it! One island over and done with and the next one was just a short boat ride away!

We stayed at the YHA-which was awesome! They took our low carbon discount which made the room relatively cheap for NZ standards(63$ per night split between two people) This also happened to be the fanciest YHA we'd ever stayed at so future TA hikers should take note.  Literally every TA hiker that was on the trail near us stayed at the YHA with us for those few days.  We met some new faces and hung out with the old gang as well.

Here are some of the highlights that we did while in Wellington.

We went to the Te Papa museum-which was free.  We spent 4 hours running around which made our visit totally worth every penny and then some ;)

Giant Moa!

Giant whale heart!

Giant whale skeleton!

Interesting display of marine skeletons

We walked down Cuba street which is their main street for day and night life

We ate overpriced Mexican with some of our friends from the trail.  Chips and salsa were very limited and we had to pay $4 or 3 extra tortillas.  The wait staff made a mistake and brought us 6 so I guess we won in the end.  Or at least that's what I like to tell myself.  All in all it was good Mexican but the service was so deplorable, and portions so small, that it soured the experience. 

But we all had fun anyways!

We headed out to the South Island on NZ's largest ferry company the Inter Islander.  The ship was a lot bigger than expected.  More of a cruz ship than ferry.

Inside we had access to gambling, cafeteria, television, and expensive internet...I did none of these things as I was glued to the floor debilitated by sea sickness.

Cody was using my hair as an eye mask

After a few hours we finally docked in Picton; a very ritzy and artsy little beach town. Boat ride #1 down!

view of the Inter Islander

Now onto the smaller and more fun ride up to the start of the Queen Charlotte track with Beach Comber ferries.

Smelly TA packs all in one corner of the boat

                         Happy I'm not seasick


Our next ride was less direct but a lot more fun.  We zipped all around the Sound "in geography a sound is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, and wider than a fjord; or a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land"  

Beach Comber ferries was also the mail delivery for the remote houses of the Sound.  All the tourists would clamber to the side of the boat (myself included) to get a photograph of the skipper handing off a bag of mail to its recipient.  I've never been more fascinated with mail delivery than I was on that ferry. 

 Finally we've landed on the South Island!  With one step forward on the dock we have officially said goodby to the North Island!

The place we were dropped off was also Captain Cooks favorite hangout spot.  

For those who are unfamiliar, Captain Cook is credited with discovering and charting all of New Zealands coasts (although the dutch actually discovered New Zealand). But Cook put NZ on the map and blew the popular undiscovered super continent theory out of the water. Cook is also known to be a genius and the best sea navigator that ever lived (or so I'm told) 

Interesting fact: the local tribesman of the island ended up killing and eating a few of the sailors of Captain Cooks sister ship-Yummy!  That still didn't stop Cook from having good relations with the local people and returning to the New Zealand several times in the years after his initial discovery. 

We also discovered what Weka were immediately after leaving the boat. Anything shiny or edible had to be put it in the packs

The trail we walked up was trap central! NZ has a serious rodent problem! Never have I appreciated snakes, hawks, cats, and any other animal that take care of our pest control back home. With no predators around New Zealand is for lack of a better word screwed.

Our campsite for the night was in a quiet little bay with sailing boats moored just off shore.  

We camped with our new TA hiker friends Serina (Canada), PJ (Norway), Patrick (USA), and Eef (Belgium).  

One really fascinating thing about the trail is that it attracts people from all over the world. For instance our old TA group had people from Britain, Israel, USA, and Scotland.  I've never had access to so many people from vastly different parts of the world.  This has been a very special and enlightening experience for me. 

Going to close the Blog for now, Cody and I have been doing very well. As most of you know his knee problems were pretty severe before this trail so he's had to wear two heavy duty knee braces while hiking on the steep/rough trails of the Te Araroa.  

It was a bit of a gamble because there was no way to prepare for how muddy, rooted, and steep the terrain actually is on the North Island.  Thankfully he's been doing brilliantly and hasn't experienced any knee problems.  Taking on a hike like this with his background requires a lot of courage, I know his folks are very proud; as am I to see him come this far.  Looking forward to the South Island which has been rumored to be less muddy and more beautiful.  So far the trail has proved both of these truths.  We'll see what the future holds for us.  Thank you to everyone who is reading this blog, it has been a lot of work to keep it up but it's worth it knowing that there are a few people who visit it from time to time.

The Tararuas!

January 15th Poads road to Te Matawai hut

This cutie had been tucked in last night and and was snug as a bug this morning

We woke up early to an egg breakfast. The eggs were fresh from the hen house and the bread was homemade, the goats milk for our tea with milk from Stephanie's goats earlier that week. Talk about the freshest breakfast I've ever had. After breakfast Stephanies daughter and I walked the goats down to the grass below the house. First time I've ever walked a reluctant goat on a leash I can now check that off my list!

Stephanie gave us a parcel of fresh goat feta cheese and the bread that she baked the night before, then sent us on our way. Not long on the road we ran into Gil. The night before he had opted to cuddle with the sheep and apparently had a very pleasant time.

 Found this Weta, a victim of a hit and run

The start of the Tararuas was very steep. Ascending quickly from farmland into dense, muddy jungle-typical.

We were to acend 2,624ft in the first 5 miles. Then climbed another 1,640 ft and descended 1,968ft in 3.7 miles. In total we hiked a whopping 8.7 miles, which took us roughly 8 hours to climb. Never did I put so much effort into such a small amount of milage.This was madness!

Our homemade bread and cheese for lunch, and yes my legs really are that muddy

Beautiful views from the top

taking care of blisters 

We got to Te Matawai Hut at around 6:30, exhausted and ready for food. Gil was already there waiting for us, sitting there placidly and looking all too much like he had enjoyed himself today. I must admit that Gil's idea of fun is somewhat skewed.

This was our first real hut experience, and it was glorious! We had running water, long drop toilet, large dining area, and bunk space enough for 16 people. There was no one else in the hut so I had license to spread out as much as I wanted...and spread I did!
We slept very well on for mattresses pushed together. Besides chasing a rat away in the middle of the night our sleep was undisturbed

January 16th Te Matawai Hut to Waitewaewae

For breakfast we had our usual oatmeal, adding muesli, dried berries, and powdered milk as a new twist. I like to add honey as well to my morning tea and oatmeal. When you're carrying 500 grams of it you try to add it to everything. Which I know I should probably stop buying it but I'm seriously going through that much honey every two weeks.

We hit the trail by 7 a.m. with low hanging clouds coming in fast all around us. Today we were going to push hard to get out of the mountains. What probably should have been done in two days we shoved into one very long, and painful day. It was 13 miles to get to our destination hut Waitewaewae. We gained 2 ,226 ft and descended 1,640ft in the first 5 miles to get to Dracophylum hut.

tiniest hut on the mountain

                              cool forest

Then we continued onto Nichols hut climbing 1804 ft and descending 2,296 ft in 3 miles.

Thank you to the hikers who left granola bars and chocolate, we were running a little low on food and this was a big help.

View of Nichols Hut

Finally the last leg of our journey was Nichols hut to Waitewaewae hut, ascending 1,240 ft and descending 4,067 ft in 4.9 miles...which sounds crappy but on the descent the last two miles of it cover 3,243ft. And we did it in the dark (sorry Mom)

We followed the ridge lines for most of our trip. Now I can officially say that going straight up a hill by the ridge is not the most practical or fastest way to get up a mountain. I've said it before but I'll say it again, God I miss switchbacks!

This deer carcass was left by hunters a long time ago. Hunters prefer to helicopter in rather than hike the ridge.

Very purple mushroom Cody found on the trail, he originally thought it was a superball that someone had dropped because the color was so unnatural

We arrived in camp at 9:40pm very achey, sleepy, and hungry- all in that order. That indeed was the hardest hiking day I've had yet. In total we ascended 5,276 ft and descended 8,003 ft all in 8 miles...crazy. That's what I call getting no where fast...or slow. All of these measurements are taken from the trail notes and are probably not accurate since I measured the distance with my GPS on the last day and found that the maps we were given were apparently 5 miles or 8 kilometers off! That added 5 more miles to our day that we hadn't planned on. We'd planned on hiking 12.4 miles that day but ended up hiking 17.4 miles.... That is a gargantuan discrepancy. Since then we've occasionally used the GPS throughout the day to see how far off the maps are, and they're always telling us a few kilometers less than what we actually walk according to my GPS (Garmin 64s)

All in all I'd say that the Tararuas were an enlightening experience for us. Seeing steep mountains on paper is quite different than actually walking the ridgelines in person. I've always been a little iffy with great heights and I have found these exposed sections of rough track very challenging both mentally and physically.


We were pretty beat up and not to mention very low on food. So we decided to bail off the TA Trail early to the nearby town Otaki to resupply and continue down the beach.

That night we shared the hut with Gil and 4 other gentleman. The hut was quite large with wide windows, a big kitchen, and enough space for 16 people and their hunting dogs. We weren't able to take pictures at night so all the photos are taken the following morning.

We had running water from a rain barrel collection

The blue barrels are for hunters dogs

January 17th: Waitewaewae hut to Otaki township

We awoke to some commotion about an hour before our alarm was set to go off. Apparently there was a helicopter outside ....again? This was the second chopper that we encountered in New Zealand. One of our hut mates; a 70 year old man who had acquired a knee injury on the trail, had been the object of their search. He had injured his knee on the top of the Tararuas, just before the big descent. He had told his partners not to call the helicopter as he would take an extra day to come down. Either his partner or wife obviously didn't get the memo and had sent the chopper for him. The chopper landed in the river bed and the pilot had come all the way up to the door of the hut. He declined the ride which seemed perfectly fine to the pilot. New Zealand has a very good search and rescue system that is supported by taxpayer dollars. Luckily tourists are covered under it as well- free chopper rides for all! Just kidding. Although it does seem ridiculously easy to get a chopper ride if you need one. If cody or I were to get injured seriously enough to need a lift we could do so without getting into serious debt. After the fictitious ride and hospital visit we would then go through ACC. A program started by the government to provide insurance for accidents. If the injury was the result of an accident that would help to provide coverage. We had heard a story about 30 New Zealand Boy Scouts that had gotten themselves lost 20 kilometers from the trail in dense bush. All 30 of them were taken up one by one by the chopper. Another New Zealand man we had run into had been picked up three times because he simply didn't have the strength to walk out of a bad situation. Obviously there is some room for abuse with this system. But just knowing that we have easy access to a helicopter ride makes me feel a lot better about venturing out into New Zealands mountainous country. So no worries mom! :-)

We left the hut and continued down the trail not 5 minutes into our journey a second helicopter landed in the river bed near our hut.

Obviously they were looking for the kiwi with the injured knee that already headed up the trail.

We thought the track into Otaki was going to be a cakewalk. Boy were we wrong! The trail had been diverted and a new trail had been cut to bypass a slip. The new trail was not a nice trail, basically they had cleared the surrounding bush enough for a faint footpath to be visible. It was more of a guideline than a trail, the going was very slow on our sore bodies. We ran into the older kiwi with a sore knee 25% of the way in. He was in for a long day climbing over trees and stumbling on roots down steep descents on a bum knee. Got to commend him for his determination, knowing the trail conditions I might have actually taken that helicopter ride. The track finally widened out at about 2 p.m. And we had been hiking since 9 a.m. It was only supposed to be a six mile day!

On the wider trail our pace picked up from 1 mile an hour to 3- that's a huge difference.

 Summer has finally come to New Zealand, I've never been so happy to see dry grass

Fun swing bridge crossing a river

Once at the car park we stuck out our thumbs and got a ride down the winding mountain road to the town.

When we arrived we noticed that we had landed in an area with the most outlets we had seen in New Zealand. And the ice breaker outlet was having a fantastic sale. Just in time as our shirts had developed holes from overuse.  Finding a deal in New Zealand is like finding a needle in a haystack -damn near impossible. After our shopping we pigged out on amazing Indian food, and settled on a place to stay. We tried Air B&B for the first time and stayed in a very nice spare bedroom in a house that was over a hundred years old. The owner of the house had many pets, I was delighted to get my cat fix in.

After a shower and putting on new, clean clothes we felt human again. both of us were still very worn out and fell asleep almost instantly. Only waking up to put the clothes from the washer and hang them out on the lines to dry.

Fun fact about New Zealand people is that most of them don't own dryers; despite the temperamental weather they tend to put their clothes out on a clothesline to dry. Some of them even have clothes lines in their houses. I think we could learn from their example and conserve energy back home by adopting some of their techniques.