Reflections: Northland

So there's a bunch of stuff I missed mentioning in my blogs about the Northland section of trail (hard to believe given the verbosity of them I know!) so I thought I'd share some final thoughts on Northland before I forget.

First off, I LOVE Northland. Things were probably helped by the fact that I mostly experienced great weather while there, but good weather aside, it is definitely a stunning part of the country. The subtropical climate means that along with lots of familiar NZ natives there are loads of big and brightly leaved and flowered species more reminiscent (to me) of the Pacific Islands. There are loads of kauri of course, but also pohutakawa galore. It's weird for me, having spent most of my formative years in the south, seeing something that is so quintessentially New Zealand and at the same time finding it so unfamiliar. Up here it's almost as if I've found this whole other New Zealand that's even more "New Zealand" than the one I already know. Almost every coastal bay (and there must be thousands of them) is like a kiwiana postcard, with blue-green sea water rolling in white waves up golden white (and occasionally black) sandy beaches that have pohutakawa trees leaning out over the shore. The bays are separated by dark volcanic, or occasionally bright creamy yellow sedimentary headlands and cliffs. Even on a cloudy day they can be stunning. On the flip side, a lot of the bays are part of private property and cannot be accessed by the public (though, obviously, the trail overlooks them). I don't want to know how much it costs to purchase your own private bay!

The other thing that stands out in my mind besides the weather and the vegetation is the birds. There are tui absolutely everywhere! But particularly in the forests, as you might expect. Parts of the Herekino and Ratea track you couldn't go more than a few hundred metres without finding a tui perched in a tree singing (and their songs are drastically different in different areas) or, more often than not, doing a fly-by through the branches nearby. They have a distinctive rustly wingbeat that sounds rather like someone viciously mauling a plastic bag--mauling it in your ear if the tui flies right past your head. Surprisingly I have seen no bellbirds up here yet; Northland is most certainly the tui's domain.

That isn't to say there aren't loads of other birds. There's healthy populations of the usually suspects: black birds, thrushes, sparrows and, as you approach Auckland, South African minors. Along the beaches are the numerous shore birds I've mentioned in my other posts (NB: it turns out I've been confusing godwits and dotterels all this time!). One of my personal favourites are the lovely blue-winged kingfishers, which seem to pop up individually everywhere, even in places quite a distance from water.

In the forests I frequently encountered fantails flitting along the trail ahead of me, calling with their distinctive loud "peep!" and occasional tweeting chatter. Grey warblers too, though difficult to spot,can often be heard warbling their heads off in the bush alongside a track.

Every now and then I heard a low coo  that sounded almost like a person making an odd noise. Finally on the Bream Head track I was able to identify the source as a native wood pigeon. These seemed to become more common as I headed south, though encounters with birds overall, perhaps unsurprisingly, seemed to lessen in frequency and diversity as I approached Auckland.

There were several unexpected birds for me as well. Several times I would hear the chatter or squawking alarm call of parrots and see bright flashes of red and green zooming through the trees. Turns out the vast majority of these are eastern rosellas, but I'm sure I saw at least one other species of parrot that is not quite so colourful...I hope it was the native kakariki. Besides the rosellas, another Aussie blow in I didn't expect was kookaburras. The farmer on the track into Mangawai Heads told me they were in the area, and then I heard one myself on the track to Dome, the unique laug ringing out across the valley below.

As mentioned in a previous post I was surprised to find game birds such as pheasants living happily in the fields and hedgerows in Northland. There's also numerous Californian quails, usually in pairs, dashing about in the undergrowth in the forests, fields and along the side of tracks and roads. While generally content with a pattering run of a retreat when you approach they take to flight like plump little brown cannonballs if they don't see you coming until the last minute. There's also turkey's running wild, concentrated in little flocks in paddocks along the route...at one point during a long stint if pasta snacks I found myself contemplating ways I might score a turkey dinner...

Then of course there are the kiwi. I never actually saw one but I definitely heard one the Ratea track and I have been surprised and impressed by the amount of "no dogs allowed" kiwi habitat I've encountered on the trail. Even quite close to civilisation (literally people's backyards in Kerikeri and Whangarei Heads). Wonderful stuff!

Besides these strange and wonderfully unfamiliar things there is of course plenty of 'normal' stuff in Northland. There's loads of farmland with sheep, cattle, horses and/or the occasional alpaca. Cattle are curious creatures that more often than not come trotting over to the fenceline and follow you to the end of the paddock, one or two of them having a wee excited frolic along the way. Sheep on the other hand tend to flee and horses, apart from the brief raising of a head and flick of an ear, seem content to ignore you altogether. Dogs on the other hand go gonzo as you walk past houses and farm gates. It must drive their owners nuts in high hiking season when Fido starts barking his head off half a dozen times a day as various hikers run, walk or hobble past.

There has been a lot more forestry tracks in Northland than I expected, mostly I suspect to reduce the amount of trafficked road walking you have to do between bush tracks. Also the trail has traversed several farms, which sometimes is the hardest kind of track: green grass looks so smooth and benign, but often hides uneven ground rucked up by giant cattle hooves, creating surprisingly deep holes one (especially a heavily loaded and not particularly coordinated one) could easily turn an ankle in.

The variety of terrain covered in this first regional section of the trail has been surprising. It's been difficult, delightful and everything in between. I may have said this before but my overall impression thus far is that Te Araroa provides a fantastic cross-section of New Zealand, from natural beauty to commercial industry and agriculture, from wild landscapes to historical treasures and from tourist hot spots to people's everyday backyards. It's New Zealand as it is, raw and sometimes difficult to navigate...and I can't wait to see more!