S01E02 Te Araroa | Days 5-8: Ahipara to Paihia

[Music] you need to access other people on them much more significant level then [Music] [Music] good morning everybody so I am currently in Kaitaia and I will be catching the bus ticket Yeti this morning it's about 7:30 a.m. at the moment and the buses do 8 o'clock and so I had a really nice mistake yesterday a zero day here in Kaitaia we managed to catch a ride with a trail angel named Greg into Kaitaia John and Julia and I were all in the car to start with we dropped John off at the super 8 we stopped for dinner yesterday afternoon and he did the 12 kilometer road walk into cocktail and then Julia was making her way to the start of the Rottier forest so she stopped him car tires to do a quick resupply they helped her get some groceries and things and show her around the supermarket and then they dropped me off at the hostel here in Kota at the Beachcomber backpackers and she went off to the forest to camp we did a start nice and early this morning so our little groups would have split up a little bit but I turned up at the hostel and picked up my resupply package which had arrived nice in safe and sound and I was talking to the lady at the desk and she mentioned that she was going to put me into a room with another girl now we were having this conversation and she mentioned that the girl was American and that she was from Texas and my mouth sort of dropped open and I asked her what her name was and she said it was Hayley so despite the fact that we thought we had lost Hayley yesterday and she was in the room when I turned up so she was very surprised when I walked through the door and inside just kiss her so it was really nice to see her and she's suffering with some really bad hamstring pain and her right leg and as more and more hikers arrived throughout the day lots of people arriving from ninety Mile Beach yesterday it seemed that the general theme was that everybody has some sort of pain in their right leg so it's the same with my right leg as well so yeah yesterday was just a day for keeping things nice and rested we went to Frosty's bolt barrow and cafe for lunch and hit some beautiful food and then wandered down to the pharmacy picked up some supplies so I picked up some insoles that hopefully will help with the plantar fascia and my left foot and hopefully prevent any and my right foot and I also got some antihistamines for the rash that's on my feet and some deep hate to rub into my knee and my hamstring once I have laid out rest and stretched it for a few days so yeah all in all it was a pretty productive day yesterday so there's a sort of tentative plan for the next few days for me so as I mentioned today I'm going to kitty-kitty I will book in at the top ten near for tonight and again today will just be a race day I'm gonna hopefully get in lots and lots of stretching and maybe even get my hands on some ice so I can soak my feet you know so it put some ice on my knee and then tomorrow I think my plan will be to get a ride out to Paquita Forest HQ so that is the the hut or the campsite that is at the end of the pickety first and so if you typically that means I won't have been skipping much of the trail outside of the actual forest part and the little connecting road which goes through among the Luka in between the two of them so if I can stay at rickety Forest HQ maybe tomorrow night hopefully I will meet up with some hikers there and that means that I can then hike the 20 odd kilometers through to the highway just outside of kitty-kitty on what would they be Monday or Tuesday I don't losing track of my date and but hopefully that'll be just a nice little gentle introduction I'd rather do 15 kilometres but there's just not much choice to do that yeah if I decide that I do want to do a shorter distance then I can also hike the kitty-kitty River track from the town centre but it just means that there's a 6.0 kilometre track and I'd have to sort of hike out and hike back so that would make it 12 ish kilometres so I'll just see how my leg is feeling and in what it feels like it wants to do but yeah that's sort of the Teamster plan at the moment so that's about it for now I'll update you guys a little bit later I'm a John and Hayley good luck what a Hey morning everybody Tuesday Stephen and today will be my first day back on the trail after 2 0 days via to zero in Kaitaia with the other guys in the group and meet up with a few other people who just come off of the beach that day and I just took a zero here in kitty-kitty yesterday I wasn't really in the mood to do any blogging or anything he's today it was a bit of a strange old day and I had to obviously leave yeah the members of the group I hopped on a bus at 8 o'clock and leave them all behind in my plan was to hopefully today and get a ride to the end of the pickety first section and stay at the pickety forest Hut I mean sort of door the road walking and connection between there and kitty kitty but unfortunately I wasn't able to get the transport that I wanted to get so we're still not keen on her checking by myself and I haven't met any other hikers today so for yesterday so um obviously everybody who comes through here has already completed that section so that's fine today instead I will hike out from the hostel the honey Hickey backpackers hostel hike to the start of the kitty kitty River Trek and then back through around to the hostel it should take me about four hours unfortunately there's about two hours worth of road walking which is not part of the trail to get there but then I'll be back on the trail in at least doing some trail kilometres today with my check to see how my leg and my feet holding up [Music] as bird walking to the trail these off-trail kilometers are the worst ones all right first state highway walk there's a state highway team which I'm walking up to boogie total Road which is where the TA trail will be rejoined so just trying to keep as far right as possible on this Bank state how is a Huey dangerous roads to try and walk [Music] so in your road walking in New Zealand you have to be particularly careful about these inside corners because Kiwi drivers team to drive over the white line comment none so far but they can be dangerous [Music] all right well finally made it back to the TA so it's down that way a little bit now no other hikers around that I can see so I'm just gonna keep pushing on to the kitty kitty rivertrek [Music] finally made up with some other hikers actually managed to catch up with the same group that was coming through to get back when I started Thursday that I got the other day before I headed up to Cape so it's really neat [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so yeah it's doing really really well with the kitty-kitty rivertrek and then I came up on a foot washing station and everybody was there and we all sort of washed our feet and everything and and before we knew where we were at myself and the younger two it heated up a driveway to the main road and we'd been walking along this for about 15 or 20 minutes before I eventually looked at the map and realized that we were supposed to carry on by the river so we've been doing about it more Road walking for the last little while I think they've stopped back there a little bit they don't have any battery on their phone and they're out of food so so yeah have come the wrong way to the stone store it's not the way that I wanted to arrive at the stone store but never mind the obsessive-compulsive part of me wants to backtrack to where I left the trek and carry on but my hips my hamstring my foot are all saying no it's okay I've still walked the distance regardless so I think I'm gonna just carry on from the stone store back into the town because it is still a little way from the air into the town center so [Music] [Music] we just spent the last 10 minutes looking for this trail marker came out onto this plateau just up from the stone store and heat it out this way because there was no marker when I got to the middle of the plateau walked out that way to the power and then realized that that wasn't the right way came back to this meadow there's tracks everywhere but nothing in the middle to say you need to go this way sorry future hikers just head straight so from that meadow you love seeing that I followed the trail marker signs to come down a little river track and that Trek was supposed to go past the TYT waterfall about 25 minutes or so silly me I thought that might be the end I walked down this check for about 25 minutes until I eventually checked the map because something didn't feel right and I saw that I'm way off track but that trail had actually taken me around a river instead of directly back onto roads effectively so I'm starting to get a bit anxious a little bit stressed because I was in that first but little forested area by the river by myself nobody else around they've all headed off into the town centre I have no idea where they um walked from and - but we all got split up at period different points and yet quite frankly I have freaked myself out a little bit because one wrong turning you know one little mistake where we weren't paying attention and yeah lead to me going off and completely the wrong direction but also like so difficult to follow the trail so far and if I'm finding it difficult here it really makes me quite worried about what's to come so it all sorts of thoughts going through my mind like maybe I should just wait for the others to catch her and maybe I'm not cut out for this so I think I just need to get picked face tonight and debrief have a little bit of food and just see what that eats deeper is back I have to say this whole experience today here's definitely decided me on the fact that it is no fun hiking alone for me hey I really struggle with getting myself motivated it's certainly not this early on in the piece anyway so I don't know what I'm going to do whether I might hang around and wait for the others to catch up or what I might do but then I have to take him to account the fact that they walk at a faster pace than me and though I may not be able to keep up with them so I don't know it's not been a particularly good day quite frankly and I'm just having another bad day I just want to go home eating today I just want to be done and stop walking and just give up anyway that's all for now ok so it's been like a week on the trial sofa and I just wanted to run through quickly what I am sending home and what I'm really bouncing ahead and so everything you're looking at right now is pretty much what I was needing home and so I picked up all my compostable bags that I've been having my food in and it's all gonna go home to mom so that she can compost of things this is my sleeping top which I'm reluctantly sending home but what I will actually instead be doing is just sleeping in my hiking shirt so there's no need really to carry an extra top and these are two little containers one of which I am put some sunscreen in because I don't want to carry the whole bottle of sunscreen and these were the two leftover so they will go home to Mum so she can send them out to me if necessary Vaseline that I live it your used sleeping socks and so I actually decided to just use my spare pair of hiking socks as my dry socks and so it saves a little bit of weight on these I think these are like 140 odd grams so that gets rid of a little bit of weight there and a sleeping mask which again a little bit reluctant to see in home it weighs nothing but it's just extra bulk but I'm gonna send it home and see how I get on if I want it back then again it can always be sent out to me um this little piece of cord I brought with me to try and attach my headlamp in my pinch them how so that I didn't have to wear it at nighttime but yeah I just ended up never doing that so it's extra weight and bulk that I just don't need to carry and this is the cord off of my compass which now I have actually just attached my compass to a carabiner in it sits on the shoulder strap on my pouch sorry on my peg so no need to carry that extra little bit of weight in bulk these are the old results from my ultra trail runners and so I've replaced these now with some orthotic and soles to try and help with my plantar fasciitis so they are going home reluctantly I am also sending home Thermal pants I was just having a conversation with somebody about these I don't know whether that's going to be a good or a bad decision but I'm just gonna see how I get on with my sleeping types and use them as my only long pair of pants but I still really like to have a dry pair so we'll see they might be coming back at some point an Apple pencil for my iPad that just doesn't work because it hasn't been charged properly so that's going home two carats of almond milk powder so I intended to use these in my cups of tea in the morning but I just can't get it to not clump in my tea so yeah that's gonna be seen home and mum can just use those in any food resupplies that she puts together for me in the future this is the Laurel bottle cap off of my soya squeeze pouch I don't see any need to carry it because I'm literally only filling that pouch up attaching the squeeze to it and then filtering my water so no need to carry that and then these are a couple of shells that I picked up off of ninety Mile Beach which are gonna go home to Mum and she can do with them what she will I was gonna carry them all the way with me but yeah I think I'd rather just save the weight so they can go into the bag okay and here's a quick list of everything that is going to be bounced I need and so I have my bottle of sunscreen which like I see there fifty canted some into a little plastic container a couple of steer bars are smokers and things that came in to in my resupply package which I don't need to carry some chamomile tea bags things like nail clippers nail file razor which all can be bounced ahead to the places that I'm going to use them so like a week at a time probably between when I'm going to need to use these so these are all going to fun anarchy holiday packs same with my destroy a plunger to clean it out I've already cleaned it ocupado so this will just be bouncy here to fund the naki and deep heat that I picked up I'd like to carry that with me but I'm just gonna see how I get on for the next three or four days without it smaller tube of toothpaste so again came in my resupply and they don't actually need yet some tweezers again with the whole array of beauty products here and then my MC propellant which I didn't use it all down 90 mile beach and yeah I'm just gonna wait and see how they at the end feast get but seem less akin to the Holiday Park and fun and lucky as well good morning it is day seven I think today and as you can see it is miserable today but I meet up with Julia and today we are heading to PI here so down this road a little way and then we are onto the white honey forest track I think it's called yeah we've got our full waterproofs on and everything today and we're getting quite wheat but at least we know that we will hopefully have a bead tonight so it's just a case of plotting on about 22 kilometers for today I did a little bit of doubling up this morning when I meet up with Julia hit the post office and we just hiked into the stone store again and then picked up the trail from there but I went the right way this time instead of walking to the tyd the waterfalls like I did yesterday we actually took a left-hand turn and ended up coming out in the right place on the trails so so that was nice at least I got to put my mind at rest about that so yeah we're just gonna keep on hiking today get a little bit wheter and i'll give you a bit of an update in a little while [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you so instead of going on the nice weed downhill this way looks like we're being redirected guess what [Music] so it's been a bit boring looking through the bars today but I has been pretty lots and lots of hills lots of uphill lots of downhill it's been a good workout my name and my fate so I can't complain and maybe another five or six kilometers into Waitangi in the end through - hi-yah for tonight and nice rest up but do some strategizing and some planning for tomorrow I think I've had my pain threshold again so yeah fetus or leads a sore everything sore shoulder like my left shoulder just a king and a king I don't know why I think it must be the way that the pack is set up and somehow but right now you which is the one that's been giving me all the pain up till now is aching again I think it's definitely inflamed and all I keep thinking is the neck stretches for days to fund anarchy Anunnaki Holiday Park which is where I'm nobody seen in my needs resupply package and it seems like a long way away at the moment the big road warp tomorrow you got to hit the bad days with the girl right okay one day at a time [Music] [Laughter] well we made it to play here sorry I'm not sure if you can see me probably better yeah made it today beat a very sore leaked a very sore but I think we're either gonna go and try and find a backpackers to stay in with some other hikers or we may even split a hotel room tonight so just for a little bit more comfort and then the all-important task of feeding ourselves this is a motel for the evening we've decided to give motel and not to stay at a backpackers so put all of our stuff airing out out here and a couple of beads this little couch TV little kitchen area through here which is really nice team coffee microwave in the shower on the toilet and stuff next door yeah nice bit of comfort welder [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Long White Gypsy

Views: 3,110

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: ahipara, kaitaia, kerikeri, paihia, long white gypsy, te araroa, te araroa 2019, te araroa thru hike, thru hiking new zealand, te araroa trail, te araroa 2020, thru-hiking for beginners, thru hiking for beginners, long distance tramping, new zealand hiking trail te araroa, te araroa trail new zealand, gear for the ta, te araroa trail gear, long distance hiking gear, thru hiking gear, gear for the te araroa trail, gear for te araroa, te araroa gear

Id: wJ3G92kh_pM

Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 12 2019