I set out from the Stone Store feeling that, despite having re-supplied and now being full to the gunnels with food, my pack didn't feel as heavy as I'd expected. Marching up the first hill around the headland seemed...easy. Part of me wondered if this was just early morning energy, but as the day progressed and the pack weight started to bite into my shoulders and my feet and legs began to tire, they still didn't feel as tired as I remembered. It seems a rest day did the trick and I am now rid of latent fatigue...at least for the time being.
The trail today lead out of Kerikeri, over a bridge across a mangrove-lined estuary and then was mostly a gravel road walk through the Waitangi Forest. I didn't get off to the best of starts as I took a wrong turn (that curiously was still marked by trail markers...so an understandable mistake I think) and ended up on completely the wrong road out of Kerikeri. My options were to continue with long unintentional detour of to back track...I chose to back track and had to go almost right back to the start to find the right trail. This made for an extra 2km or and wasted a good hour.
More than a little grumpy about this I made off round the headland on the right road and my mood recovered as I made good progress. It's still a bit intimidating sharing a road with cars, but I had to laugh when a van load of guys came up from behind yelling "good on ya dude!" as they drove past...and their look of surprise when they suddenly realised I was a dudette. Oh well, so I look like a guy...might be a good thing.
Talking to people I've encountered they seem to either be shocked that as a woman I would do this trek on my own, or alternatively they know of other women who have done it. Either way their response has usually been an encouraging "good on you!". One guy was recently involved in the search and rescue for a solo female hiker (she was pulled off Te Werahi beach the day before I started, suffering from dehydration and hypothermia). We discussed the fact that while a lot of information is disseminated about hiker safety from the elements, there's very little about personal safety of solo hikers from other people. Apparently it's something the emergency services have discussed, specifically in reference to solo female hikers on remote parts of Te Araroa. There isn't really much advice out there on this front. The best I could do for my own (and more importantly my mother's) piece of mind was to take a self defence course before embarking, which was at the same time useful and really good fun!
Anyway, back on the trail I spent the day traversing the pine forest, which is closed to cars but which is a haven for mountain bikers, as well as dirt bikers. One mountain biker stopped to chat while I was having a long lunch break beside the road. Apparently a friend of his son's is planning to do the trail once he finishes high school. Not a bad ambition for a teenager I think.
After lunch it was on and out of the forest, past the cairn and plaque commissioned in 1995 when then Prime Minister Jim Bolger opened this, the first official part of the trail (the entire trail was not officially opened until 2011). I performed the hiker rite of picking a fern frond and sticking it into the cairn before heading on past Mount Bledisloe and down to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. There's some large construction going up next to the road here, but it was getting late and I didn't stop to find out what.
Over Waitangi Bridge and I'd made it to Paihia...pity the hostel is up the other end of town! I sat by the water for a bit to check where exactly the hostel was, rest my feet, and soak in the atmosphere of families and tourists soaking up the late afternoon sun on the beach. The reggae beats of Kiwi chillax music emenated from more than one house and car along the waterfront. All in all the scene was like a Kiwi summer postcard brought to life.
On to the hostel and I checked into my 4-bed dorm, which only had one other person in it, but was full before the night was out. I walked straight into the shower and then tried to bury my smelly hiking clothes (even after only one day!!) under my other gear so as not to offend my fellow inmates in the confined space.
Clean and refreshed I wandered off down the street in search of dinner. I had a pizza craving and was able to satisfy it at at upstairs restaurant called Ruffino, where the pizzas are big and the service super-friendly (the woman behind the counter addresses everyone as "Beautiful"). I splashed out on a gelato on the way home before being the first in the dorm to crash into bed.
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