Tuesday 27th February 2024
Moirs Ridge Road (Stu’s place) to Bush Campsite at 490km
24km Walked today
490km to Cape Reinga
I have a quick chat with Stu before leaving. He’s an interesting guy with a solid background in pest control and other practices, until recently running a large company with 20 employees engaged in possum and other pest eradication in the Waikato. He’s moved on from that for various reasons and still looking for the next task.
The weather isn’t completely as promised. There are still a few showers and I’m in cloud at 300mASL so the umbrella gets another workout. I’m expecting a grass track like yesterday but it turns out to be a gravelled four-wheel-drive track through regenerating farmland that’s mostly easy walking. I nearly take a tumble a few times on some slippery clay sections after the rain. A farmer is repairing a tractor in a shed and comes out for a chat. He’s my age and has lived here all his life. He remembers AH Reed, the book publisher, walking through in the 1960’s. I’ve read his book about the journey and once got a ride with a couple who owned his old house in Dunedin.
There’s more walking along quiet roads and through 6m wide corridors between fence lines which I assume are unformed “paper roads”, with many stiles over fences. Now there’s a long descent to the (closed) Dome Tearooms on busy Highway One.
The plan today is to walk about 25km to a camp spot beside a stream, then tomorrow another 20km to the coast where there’s a caravan park and small store at Paraki.
I’m feeling good after a rest day, but I’m still not fully fit. I reach the Dome Tea Rooms, now totally fenced off with signs saying there’s demolition going on. I get some water from the owner of a nearby house and keep going. Halfway to the Dome summit there’s a lookout and bench seats so I stop and have lunch. After that the track gets gnarly and slow going.
A man with a pack comes up the track below me. He’s holding an iPad in a plastic case but he’s also wearing a full pack. He tells me he’s doing a track assessment for DOC and is full of good information about the next section. I ask him about a marked bypass section where the original track is apparently blocked by a large fallen tree on a dangerous slope. He says it’s possible to get around because DOC has done some work on it. Good news, because the bypass track was longer.
I finally descend to the creek where I intend to camp, but it’s a devastated, recently logged area. When I go down to look at the creek, there’s a DOC toilet and a couple of potential campsites nearby in dense native forest that’s been left along the creek line. It’s 6pm and I’m tired so this will do for the night. There are no mosquitoes which is surprising. After setting up the tent I filter some water from the creek, cook some food and I reckon I’m asleep 9 pm. That was a long hard day.
SAUNTER101 