Te Araroa : Auckland to Manukau

KM this section : 45
KM completed : 639

On the summit of Mount Eden.

It may seem a bit odd for a long distance trail to pass through a country's largest city, but there's no other option as NZ is only a few kilometres across here, and Auckland stretches from coast to coast.  Indeed, the path through it is named the Coast to Coast Walkway.  First though, I have a lazy day, it was only eight kilometres to the university so plenty of time to relax, shop, check out the Christmas displays in the main shopping area, and of course get to a pub.

Auckland, complete with numerous volcanoes.

In fact, hold the walking for a minute, let us talk of pubs, because NZ, you have a problem here.  In two nights in your biggest city I've now been to three of TripAdvisor's 'top ten bars', and frankly they weren't up to much.  I get the feeling the early settlers here were clean living types who really didn't want to bring pub culture from the old country.  And more recently the powers that be here haven't been encouraging drinking - I suspect out of concern for the noble Maori, corrupted by the demon drink.  But anyway, in the present the NZ pub industry seems dead on it's feet... many establishments survive only by also serving as a betting shop, hardly a good way to attract a younger, family crowd - two of those I visit in Auckland are like this.  There are some micro breweries, and some 'English style' places, and the occasional gastropub - the Shakespeare, my pick in the city, ticks the first two of these boxes.  But often I've ended up going to liquor stores, odd places that mainly sell horrid alcopops, with the beer in a cold room at the back.

The walking?  Is nice, a pleasant stroll through the parks, cricket pitches and suburbs of Auckland, including a climb up Mount Eden, one of fifty or so extinct (probably) volcanoes the city is built around.  Then some easy, flat kilometres along various lagoons and estuaries, a bit of road walking including a visit to the airport, and I'm at Manukau for 7pm - forty-five kilometres done in eleven hours, not bad.

Ambury regional park.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Te Araroa : Whangarei to Auckland

KM this section : 197
KM completed : 594

On the Mangawhai Heads cliff path.

Whangarei is some distance from the route, but I am able to get a bus some of the way, then it is just an eight kilometre walk along a highway busy with traffic for the nearby oil refinery - mainly logs for some reason.  In fact it is fine, indeed I'm enjoying the walking, which hasn't always been the case for the last week.  Partly my body getting used to it I guess, also I suspect my enforced cessation of smoking has got me down a bit.  But now I feel good, the pack seems lighter, and even walking past the oil refinery is fun.

The way continues, more beaches, some easy forest, and a pleasant cliff walk into Mangawhai Heads, where I relax in a holiday home for the night with some beer and fish and chips.  I'm getting into prime holiday / retirement home territory here, for sale boards are everywhere, much of the forest I walk through seems to be available in acre sections.  I think the lack of amenities might put me off, many of the settlements here don't even have a dairy (NZ for convenience store), let alone a pub.

Big beer in Puhoi.

Campsites are good around here mind you, with kitchens, BBQs and TV rooms as standard.  Beats the typical UK camping experience where you are lucky to get hot water.  Walking is good too, though I do manage to go the wrong way at one point - I was only looking at the orange arrows (well, and my footing) so missed a crucial junction.  Why the orange markers, reliable up to now, lead me off the wrong way I know not, but I recover and make it to Sheep World (oh yes) before dark.

Of course now I don't trust the markers and keep checking my GPS.  Predictably this causes the batteries to run out, and it's raining so not ideal for using the phone as backup.  Thankfully the arrows point truly today, towards the pub at Puhoi where I dry out and eat a huge burger.  More beach walking and more meat next day, I cook up some sausages on the campsite BBQ at Orewa.  So much meat.  I leave the two German lads who've been keeping pace with me at Orewa, they're having a day's break.  Suspect they will catch me up again.

D'you see what I did there?

From here it is a simple enough walk down the coast to Auckland, but there is one obstacle, the Okura river.  The guide says this can be waded at low tide, I arrive at what I think is a hundred minutes before it reaches the lowest point, that will be at 3.30pm.  With another eighteen kilometres to do I don't really want to wait.  Wading then... I don't get far before starting to lose touch with the bottom.  OK, ignore the map, there is a post upstream with a cross on it, maybe there?  I get further... one problem is, my rucksack with the drybag inside is acting as a flotation device.  I unbuckle the waist strap and carry on.  This time I'm nearly half way across when my feet cease to reach the bottom.  Ah, screw it... I swim on, bag holding me at the surface by the sternum strap.  It's not easy with the bag, my shoes on, and poles clutched in one hand, but I manage a sort of doggy paddle, and it's enough to get me the few metres needed.  And the drybag worked, reaching the far shore my electronics, and better yet my trousers, are dry.  From here it is easy going to Auckland, where I have a room waiting in a student hall of residence near the centre, but tonight a seaside campsite out in the suburbs is plenty far enough.

Photos to go with this post can be found here and here.

Te Araroa : Paihia to Whangarei

KM this section : 154
KM completed : 397

Handy having a small tent sometimes.

Paihia is really nice, and I am sorry to leave, still if I must then there are worse ways than a walk along the lovely bay of islands coast.  Oddly, after six kilometres or so the guide suggests I charter a boat up the inlet, this will cost me, plus any others I can rope in, a hundred dollars.  Well stuff that, I pay one dollar instead to take the vehicle ferry over to Okiatu (former capital of NZ, not much of a place now).  From there I walk along the charming (and well constructed!) Russell Walkway, and then onto roads.  Things go fine until I reach my planned camp spot - which turns out to be in a river, oops.  Well, the 'path' continues along the stream but I manage to scramble out and camp in the bush OK.

Footbridge from Pataua North to South.

The next few days seem to be mainly road, and I strike up a rhythm, basically walking during daylight hours, then pitching camp, cooking and sleeping.  For these are long days, not so much on paper, but every day there is some bush, and always it is a continual slog up and down vertiginous slopes.  Of course, this involves a fair amount of switchbacks, and I swear the route doesn't allow for them when calculating the distance.  Highlight of this section is Ngunguru, where I crash the local bowling club's Christmas dinner and have proper food, and beer.  I even pull a cracker!

Eventually I get back to the coast, is very pretty, and there is more beach walking, followed by a gruelling climb up Eagle Point Rock, then right down again to camp at Peach Cove.  So many steps...  then next day I walk around a bay until I reach a small jetty, from which, according to the guide, I should get a lift over the bay from a fisherman.  Well I am sure not swimming it, must be three kilometres at least.  No fishermen pass near.  A family does turn up to fish from the jetty, but they have no boat, and seem bemused by my presence.  I wave at distant boats to little effect.  Time passes.  The fishing family packs up and goes, and shortly after another turns up.  They also seem confused as to what I'm doing, and to be honest I'm starting to wonder myself.  Eventually they get the idea I am waiting for a boat, and tell me I have no chance of finding one... I curse the guide and head back to the road, nothing for it but to hitch a lift to Whangarei, where the nearest bridge is.  Too late to go any further, still at least there are pubs here.

Eagle Point Rock.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Te Araroa : Ahipara to Paihia

KM this section : 142
KM completed : 243

Knee deep it was.

I walk out of Ahipara, and into something of a nightmare.  The route is along so-called 'forest tracks', but in truth there is no sign a path has ever been made, let alone maintained, here.  Worse, the ground underfoot is horrible, deep, sticky, slippery mud, even on steep and frankly dangerous slopes.  Progress is agonisingly slow, the way is either too muddy, too steep or too overgrown, often a combination of these.  I have to pick every step, and sometimes clamber over deadfall trees that have clearly been there for years, my speed dropping to as low as one kilometre per hour at times.  What looked to be two easy days on paper become dawn 'til dusk slogs on what are surely the worst 'paths' I have ever walked.

Camped in a random field, at least it is out of the woods.

Thankfully on the third day things pick up, the morning is mostly gravel logging roads, and then a river.  No, I don't mean a path alongside a river, rather I (and a bunch of Americans who I meet along the way) walk in a river for about five kilometres.  It is actually rather fun, and the cool fresh water doesn't feel too bad on the feet.  We even have a little swim where the river joins a more major course.  Still a long day though, again I walk until sunset and camp high up on a wooded ridge.

With less mud underfoot I can appreciate the forest a bit more - I could almost start to like the place...  It is certainly an alien environment, Tea Trees and giant Kauri grow beside odd looking palms and what looks like giant bracken.  Cries of strange birds fill the air...  It's kind of shocking then to emerge from this strange jungle into what could be a British hill farm, with sheep and cattle grazing.  I have a few kilometres of this before Kerikeri where there will be a proper campsite and real food, I am not in good shape though, tired after the last few days, and my legs are swollen from the number of insect bites I've received, mosquitoes of course and I swear, hornets... but it's not far.  Of course at the campsite a swarm of midges descends on my poor legs, but at least Kerikeri has a pub.

It also has a large waterfall, and NZ's oldest stone building, I walk past these on an easy tramp over to Paihia, a charming resort on the Bay of Islands (there are four hundred or more islands, as counted by Captain Cook).  I have a motel here booked for two nights, there are several pubs, it is good.  Though I really hope not much of this walk is like those two days in the forest...

Rainbow Falls, Kerikeri,

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Te Araroa : Cape Reinga to Ahipara

KM this section : 101
KM completed : 101

Sign tree at Cape Reinga, start of the walk.

OK, now I am walking.  I've wanted to do a proper long distance path for a while, indeed one reason for creating this blog was to document such a trip - has taken me a while to get started.  But now I have the time, so off I go.  At this time of year it has to be the Southern hemisphere, and I confess that English speaking is a draw, New Zealand it is then.

Te Araroa ('the long pathway' in Maori) is a three thousand kilometre trail from Cape Reinga at the northern tip of North Island, to the far end of South Island - don't know how far I'll get, but if I make it the whole way it will probably take four months.  It takes a couple of days of buses and motels just to reach the start, and then I start walking, along a beach.  Ninety Mile Beach, it is well named.  The tide comes in, out, in again, the sun sweeps across the sky, and the beach remains.  As do I, striding over the packed sand, the Tasman Sea to my right, dunes to my left.  Highlight is the first evening, a strong southerly wind drives streamers of sand like will o' the wisps around my feet.  Next day, there are parts of the beach where every shell has its own little wind sculpted aerofoil of sand, pointing my way south.

Accommodation on the way includes a random sand dune and a cabin shared with a German fellow hiker.  Then at the end of the beach I find Ahipara, time to rest up for a day in a nice motel before continuing.  I expect blog entries will become less frequent as the walk continues... I shan't be stopping every three days :)

Ninety Mile Beach.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Off to Laos

I take the air conditioned bus out of Chiang Mai, the beautiful mountain scenery it passes through is well worth the 145 Baht (£3!) fare by itself.  After three hours I'm in Chiang Rai, a pleasant little place, there is a noticeable French influence here.  The night bazaar has a sign 'marche de nuit', and there is even an hourly son et lumière show at the gold clock tower that is the town's major landmark.  I end up eating some highly spiced pork followed by a much needed ice cream sundae at the night bazaar, while a series of musical acts perform and go through fabulous costume changes.  Is awesome.  I could spend longer in Chiang Rai, but next day it's time for another bus, this time a whole 65 Baht to get to Chiang Khong on the Mekong river.  In fact it turns out that it goes all the way to the border post by the new bridge, for another 35 Baht anyway.  Then after a degree of queuing and bureaucratic hassle I'm in Laos!  Also I am now a multi-millionaire, turns out you get quite a few Kip for your Baht, and my pocket is stuffed with a wad of 50,000 Kip notes.

The mighty Mekong.

From the border I get a quick tuktuk to Huay Xai, a one horse town where I nonetheless find a decent hotel and a nice meal overlooking the river, service is a bit lacking here mind.  I get a beer in one restaurant, wait some time for the dirty plates from previous diners to be removed, and eventually give up on getting food, never mind.  Is very hard to spend money here, my room is 100,000 Kip (£8), a big beer 12,000 Kip, dinner 45,000...  Next day, the adventure continues by boat.  I have a ticket for the two day slow boat to Luang Prabang, former capital of Laos and one of the highlights by all accounts.  I mess up a little by getting the wrong bus to the pier, apparently I didn't buy a ticket as such, and only the right tuktuk driver will convert what I do have into a ticket.  It is sorted easily enough... shame about the ninety minute wait on the sweltering and increasingly packed boat before it leaves.  When at last it does we get a bit of a breeze, and the journey is never dull thanks to the incredible views from the mighty Mekong river, Thailand to one side and Laos the other.  Turns out the best thing is to abandon my cramped seat and head for the back, either the engine room or the 'smoking section'.  They even sell beer!

Bamboo bridge at Luang Prabang.

If Huay Xai has one horse, then Pak Baeng, halfway stop for the slow boat, maybe merits a donkey.  Still I find another 100,000 Kip room, eat buffalo curry, drink some Beer Lao and have a nice chat with a couple of Thai tour guides.  Then back on the boat in the morning, this one is smaller, and the engine room is closed to tourists, and at regular intervals we stop at random bits of shore to let more locals onto the already crowded boat.  It is at least cooler today, and the views remain fine.  Luang Prabang is not a big place either, more than one street maybe, but pretty much only one with restaurants.  Classy cuisine though, that French influence I guess.  I go to La Casa Lao and eat Laos style tapas while rain hammers down outside.  Blue sticky rice!  Next day I have a good wander around, cross a bamboo bridge over one of the bigger tributaries of the Mekong - Luang Prabang is built on a peninsula between the two rivers.  I visit a couple of temples and ascend Mount Phousi at the heart of the city.  Then time to head to the current capital, Vientiane, on the 'VIP sleeper bus'.  At least the Swedish guy I end up sharing a bed with is slim...  and I have a bottle of Lao whisky (15,000 Kip!), with the help of which I sleep well enough.

On Mount Phousi.

Vientiane!  The bus drops us off a few miles from the centre, so I have an interesting walk in.  The road is terrible, vehicles weave right across it to avoid the massive potholes.  At least it has some tarmac, every side street I pass is just packed earth.  There is clearly some money here, I see new houses going up, still in the French colonial style... noticeable that the scaffolding is just sticks tied together though.  Eventually I reach the centre, seems to be mainly palatial government buildings and embassies, and there are red flags with the hammer and sickle everywhere - even the apple store.  There are enough sights to fill my day or so here, and even a little tourist area with some nice French restaurants, and some music, although Chiang Rai it is not.  I read about the terrible events in Paris, seems particularly poignant here in this former French colonial capital.  Time for me to leave Laos though, turns out not to be easy what with the huge queue at the immigration point.  Then another night train, much like the first, and one day to recover a bit in Bangkok.  And then off to even further afield...

I saw a lot of the Buddha this week.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Back in Chiang Mai

Elephant feeding.

Right, doing the travelling thing in earnest now, and where better than Chiang Mai, a real hub for people travelling around Southeast Asia, and somewhere I liked a lot last visit.  This time rather than flying, I take the night train from Bangkok, it is rather fun... After I've eaten a tasty dinner, the staff come around and fold my seat and the one opposite into a bed for me, very much like in a campervan, while a second bunk folds out above.  It is perfectly comfortable, and after a few cans of Chang I drop off.

Dawn in the mountains.

At 8am the train gets to Chiang Mai, it's a short walk into town, and after a quick coffee I head to a tour office.  No hotel for me today, rather I want to do a longer version of a trip I did last time I was here.  Sure enough they book me onto a two day trek, once again with elephant riding - this time we are an odd numbered group so I have to ride on the beast's neck which is, interesting.  Speaking of the group, turns out they're all French except me, so I spend the day dusting off my French.  It is still just about there...  After fun with the pachyderms and lunch we hike up, and up, eventually reaching a hill tribe village at over a thousand metres, this is home for the night.  Rather cool too, we have a dormitory cabin on stilts, with mattresses and mosquito nets.  And after a fine green curry dinner our hosts light up a camp fire... which attracts the English speakers from downhill.  We sit shirtless around the fire and a Canadian guy plays the guitar and sings - very badly.  Well it is the authentic travelling experience I suppose.

King and Queen pagodas.

Next morning we head downhill through fantastic surroundings and eventually reach a familiar waterfall, then down the river to catch a raft over the white waters, and then back to town.  I find a hotel and have a relaxing bath, listening to the sound of monks chanting at the temple next door.  Next day I take a rest from trekking, pretty much, with a bus trip to Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain - nice to cross off another of those, my count now stands at three.  American style, there is a road almost to the top, nice though, there is even a peat bog up there.  We also check out the King and Queen Pagodas, a fantastic array of gardens and Buddhist architecture, all above two thousand metres.  Then an excellent and huge lunch and a couple of awesome waterfalls before heading home.  Last day here, has to be more trekking then... Well, the other one day option I find is not too different to what I did before, still fun though.  I ride on an elephant's neck again, this time through a river, swim under another waterfall, and float along on a bamboo raft, is most cool.

Wachirathan waterfall.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.