90 Mile Beach...and just as many blisters...

Superhero pose before we start

31st Oct 18 - 4th Nov 18

Day 1: 12km Cape Reinga to Twilight Campsite

Day 2: 28km to Maunganui Bluff Campsite

Day 3: 29km to Utea Park (Skipped this day in the end...read on...)

Day 4: 18km to Waipapakauri 

Day 5: 13km to Ahipara (Also skipped this one)

First view of the Te Paki Coastline

High Moment - Realising we had actually started the Te Araroa Trail! And scrambling around rocks close to high tide without getting wet. Bit of an adrenaline rush!

Low Moment - Actually wanting to quit part way through day 2 when Emily's blisters first appeared and realising just how tough the trail will be.

2 hours. 2 hours is all it took on day one for me to start questioning why we were doing this. Glen's mother had just dropped us at Cape Reinga and we had done the standard hiker photos before heading off on the start of our adventure. 2 hours later I had barely made it across some rocks a bit too close to high tide and had started climbing one of the strangest sand dunes I had ever seen, with its red sections, and was wondering why on Earth we were choosing to put ourselves through months of this. The first two hours were quite a high realising we were officially on our way, but then I became first-hike-day tired and hit a bit of a mental wall thinking about the rest of the trip. Little did I know there was worse to come...

We made it to Twilight Campsite in pretty good spirits and had 4 other campers for company. Another Kiwi girl just doing the section to Auckland, and 3 Europeans also attempting the whole trail. This group followed us the whole way down the beach, plus and minus a few other hikers. Weather was a bit off and on, but had a decent sleep, though a couple of the others apparently had some bad possum problems. We got going early the next morning as we had a long 30km day ahead of us. The first 4km were up and down over the bluff then finally we were down and taking our first steps on 90 Mile. Then it got really tough...both of us had sore foot pads, but just after our 3pm stop for high tide, my sore pads turned into true blisters. I kept walking on them, which of course didn't help much. Glen was still doing ok at that point, though achy and tired as well. We hobbled on more and when we only had 5km still go, even Glen started flagging.

We honestly considered quitting on this day, both of us discussing why we don't just give up and somehow get back to Glen's parents. But actually the reality is, there is no way off the beach and we didn't really want that! We just had to keep going and push through it. Walking down 90 Mile Beach is an incredibly difficult task. It is quite boring, with sand, dunes and ocean as far as the eye can see, which causes you to think everything is closer than it seems. It was luckily not the sunniest of days, but after lunch the wind picked up hugely and we were struggling just to walk straight, let alone forwards! All you have, to keep yourself busy is your mind and my mind was focused totally on how far we still needed to go, how sore my foot pads were and the state the blisters would be in when I finally stopped and also how sore my hip was starting to feel. We pushed on and got a hold of ourselves mentally and when we crawled into the Bluff Campsite at 7pm after 11hours out on the beach I couldn't believe it! Almost too tired to even feel proud, but we were.

Our MSR tent set up at Twilight Camp

We had both researched this trail an awful lot over the last year or so, and fitness was something I was quite worried about, as we just couldn't easily train for 30km days on this type of beach. The trail really doesn't start you off gently, it just throws you in the deep end. I do wish we had done a bit more training, but actually most other hikers, even the really seasoned ones were suffering after that first day. Unfortunately, because my blisters were so bad, and after a terrible night at Bluff Campsite, my hip was also kaput, we made a tough decision to get a ride to the next stop rather than attempt another 30km day. Tania from Utea park came and collected us from Bluff for a small fee and we had an entire day to rest up and prepare for the last 2 days to Ahipara. There were actually a couple of other hikers whose joints had also suffered too much on this beach who had also stopped here, and were heading out to Kaitaia for the next section the next morning. Tania and Paul are both super hospitable and have a great set up at Utea Park. We had a hot shower and got a cabin for the night to try and heal my hip.

After a good day off I was still very much hobbling around, but stubbornly wanted to continue on our journey. We packed up, geared up and left for the 17km trek to Waipapakauri. Only about 500m down the beach, my hip started cramping again, enough pain for some tears, but I sucked it up and we continued. At lunch time, Glen ended up texting his mum and she agreed to meet us at the end of the 6 hour day to take us home, This meant we would skip the last day of this section too, but before I could beat myself up too badly, Glen reminded me that I have quite a lot further to go and ruining myself this early would not help me get through the rest of the trail. 

Me hobbling along between Utea and Waipapakauri.
You can see my pack is very much off to the left, which turned out to possibly be the cause of my sore hip...

We are lucky to have each other on this journey, I think I wouldn't have enough gusto by myself to make it. Most of the other hikers we met on this week (and there are plenty) were younger and single, but it would be so much harder to do this alone. At the end of that last day Glen realised my pack was actually not strapped up on the hip belt properly which is why it had been sitting too low and slightly to the left. This was possibly pressing on a nerve causing my hip pain. We also decided that our packs are just too heavy and once we got back to Glen's parents we would have to do another gear check and remove what we can. Overall, this week was a very valuable learning curve and we will take what we have learnt for the next section, and then the next, and the next, all the way to the end.