Well the day started off well...after the bus didn't come to pick me up for the scheduled lift to Cape Reinga I rang the company (Sand Safaris) and they'd got the day wrong. Happily they sent someone out in a car who dropped me off at the Kauri Museum just up the road where the bus was having it's first stop.
Up the road, through the requisite herd of cattle we stopped at the Gum Diggers walkway and shop. The
place is reminiscent of alluvial gold mining workings, except every now and then there's an enormous tree exposed in the ground (all apparently oriented east-west...tsunami? Meteor impact blast??). A short stop for unexpected lunch (on my part...I savoured the last fresh meat I'd have in a while!) then it was on to Cape Reinga itself!
At the car park and gateway to Te Rerenga Wairua ('the leaping off place if spirits') I hauled my gear off the bus and walked down to the lighthouse, chatting to a nice French girl I'd befriended on the trip. I got my must-have photo taken under the sign pointing to Bluff before saddling up and heading back up the hill to the sign marking the Te Paki Coastal Track (which is also the start of Te Araroa...evidenced by the small logo affixed to the side).
1:05pm and I was off! Coincidentally two people had set off about ten minutes ahead of me. I caught them up and we walked together for a couple of hours. Scott and Joanne, two globe-trotting Kiwis in between jobs and houses, decided to take on Te Araroa. I could keep up over the first hilly up and down and along Te Werahi beach (where we saw half a dozen small wild pigs) but they left me behind going up a steep dune which I trudge up at micro-pace.
Over the dunes and cutting across Cape Maria van Diemen it was down onto Twighlight Beach. I finally trudged into camp at 5pm, just as Scott and Joanne were pushing on to Te Paki Stream. Not me though, I was here for the night and pitched tent. Two French tourists doing the Te Paki Stream loop in the opposite direction were there. They had fresh mussels for dinner. Morroccan chicken sandwich for me--I never liked mussels!
So far so good. Foot pads are tender so I gave them the cream and massage treatment.
Up the road, through the requisite herd of cattle we stopped at the Gum Diggers walkway and shop. The 
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