Day 65: Kaitieke to Whakahoro (25km; 1218km total)

The only problem with artificially flat ground around a monument is that it is often well compacted by machinery, not to mention the footsteps of numerous visitors year after year. Despite the hard ground and the cold I still slept okay. I was just beginning to wake up around 6am when I heard a car pull up, someone get up and then it sounded like they opened their boot. They then walked over toward the tent...at this point my ears were on high alert and my heart was pounding in my mouth as my half asleep brain was going wild considering all sorts of horrendous possibilities that could happen next, and would have, if I'd been starring in a C-grade horror movie. Happily I'm not and after a minute or two (but what felt like eternity) whoever it was went back to their car, got in and drove away. I let out the breath I'd been unconsciously holding and relaxed, but decided to get up before any other inquisitive people came along.

While Taylor and I breakfasted and packed up an intermittent parade of vehicles carrying mostly farming types went past this way and that, interspersed with the odd early tourist camper. It was a surprisingly busy road for such a seemingly out of the way spot.

Taylor soaking up the first rays of sunshine.

We were underway by 8am, keen to get moving to try and warm up. I think my feet know they're about to get a break and are thus beginning to slack off. I barely managed 8km this morning before having to ask Taylor if he minded stopping for a break. We weren't in any hurry so we sat down in the long grass on a bank beside the road for a bit.

Within a few kilometers the road begins to wind through a steep-sided gorge, following the Retaruke River where it has chiseled a path through hundreds of meters of medium-thickly bedded mudstones and limestones. With cliffs rising up on one side and dropping down the other, there weren't many places to "pull over" and stop for a break, but we made do at one end of a short red bridge. There are a handful of bridges over small streams flowing down to the river and each is painted a different colour. Taylor and I wondered whether this was purely unusual creative flare on behalf of those responsible for maintaining the bridges or whether it was an easy way of making the bridges reference points for reporting roads conditions or other emergencies (e.g. "There's a slip about half a kilometers along from the purple bridge"?).

Today Taylor and I discussed school life and family. Suffice to say I'm so very grateful to have had the family and schooling I did!

We continued on, following the road along past steadily more impressive cliffs, sections of forest with conspicuous bright green leaved trees with ever brighter pastel yellow flowers arranged almost as if they're on platters in the canopy. I had no idea what they were (some kind of pale yellow dogwood?) but something about them was distinctly cheerful with a touch of elegance.

As we neared Whakahoro we passed under one particularly impressive white cliff face that had slipped and crumbled a few boulders onto the road. I happily stopped for a break as Taylor took it upon himself to try and roll one of the medium-sized blocks to the road side and watch it tumble over the edge and into the river below with a satisfying splash (you may be relieved to know that a check was made to see that there was no people or livestock down there first!). Boys. Some things I guess you never grow out of.

Taylor takes on the roughest, toughest, meanest
boulder along the entire road.

In places the valley broadened enough to allow proper paddocks to flank the roadside. One farmer had named his paddocks and Taylor and I stopped by a gate entitled "Bluff" to each take a picture with the sign, enjoying the joke that we'd made it already and could go home.

Made it! (Er...not quite...)

As we walked we had passed one or two aged signs that seemed to indicate there was a cafe in Whakahoro. This was news to us as the trail notes don't mention the cafe specifically, and we tentatively began to hope there might be some nice food or drinks awaiting us at the end of the day. We didn't see anyone else all day apart from a quartet of women mountain biking, but they were as in the dark about the cafe as we were, and like so many, were surprised to see people who had walked all the way in from comparative civilization.

Festive driftwood boar outside the Blue Duck
Cafe.

At length we came to the small settlement of Whakahoro at the junction with the Whanganui River, and indeed there was a cafe. Better yet, it was open! The Blue Duck comprises juxtaposed themes of huntsman, stockman and environment; outside visitors are greeted by a driftwood boar and hikers may choose to sit at a long wooden table designated by a wooden sign as the "Te Araroa Table". This is surrounded by benches and a couple of stools topped with old saddles. Inside the walls contain a few trophies plus information about the conservation efforts to save the endangered blue duck or whio, from which the cafe takes its name.

The cafe menu is limited, but at the end of the day even a simple toasted sandwhich goes down a treat, not to mention the free drink offered to TA hikers. I took my ginger beer and went to say hello to the only other people in the place, a young Swiss couple and fellow TA hikers--Nadine and Philippe. They're both nice but Nadine seems to be enjoying the trail more than Philippe. Like Taylor and I they have booked through Yeti tours and will be putting a canoe in here in the morning and are looking forward to giving their feet a rest over the next six days paddle to down river to Whanganui.

After a chat, a drink and a sandwich I paid $4 to use the shower and splashed out the extra $3.50 to borrow a nice big fluffy towel. $7.50 total seems a lot to pay, but I was sweaty and it was there, and I couldn't be sure of getting another hot shower for almost a week so it seemed the thing to do to make the most of the opportunity.

While we were there a bunch of farmers showed up with their dogs, having herded several cattle into yards down the road. At least one of the dogs was obviously quite at home and flopped down across the threshold of the cafe so that it was all you could do not to stand on its big goofy paws as you walked in and out.

After temporarily commandeering the liquid hand soap from the toilets and making the most of a hot shower I changed into my camp clothes, returned the towel and then collected up my things to head across the road and join Taylor at the DOC bunkroom--an old school house converted to dormitory/hut-style accommodation. Curiously it is cheaper to stay in the bunkroom than it is to pitch a tent. Taylor's theory was that the cost in the bunkroom is per bunk, but for camping is per tent, so it only works out cheaper for solo travelers to take a bunk. This must be about the only time solo hikers are this lucky!

Taylor and I were first to arrive (Nadine and Philippe are tenting) so we got the pick of the beds. I wiled away the afternoon blogging and, after dragging the plastic-covered mattress from my bunk out onto the deck, napping in the intermittent sunshine. In the late afternoon groups of canoers began to arrive, sporting life-jackets and hauling barrels of gear up from the river. Four of them were kiwis and quickly made themselves at home. A quiet french couple were not so relaxed. After taking a look around the girl approached me sitting on my bunk (back indoors) and asked where the bunkroom was. When I said this was it her face rapidly morphed into something resembling horror as she asked "Is it a joke?!". I wasn't sure what to say to that and clearly she wasn't sure what to do. She obviously wasn't happy and spent much of the evening in brooding conversation with her boyfriend. I felt a bit sorry for her. No one likes showing up to accommodation that isn't quite what they'd expected, but at the same time, the bunkroom was pretty good by DOC hut standards and I thought that after an initial adjustment period she would either need to adjust or abandon her trip down the river.

The Kiwi quartet were a lively bunch and as all the cooking space outside under awnings (out of the rain) and next to stainless steel sinks was occupied, began cooking on the long wooden table in the bunkroom. Soon the whole place smelt of steak and onions and my mouth was positively watering. The pasta I had recently eaten seemed like bland cardboard in comparison to that smell. Remembering a time when a friend and I had done much the same to other hikers during a traverse of the Overland Track a few years back, cooking up steak when everyone else was eating dried pasta or even 2-minute noodles, I tried not to be too envious. Apparently karma had chosen tonight for me to get what I deserved.

I had little energy for socialising so I soon took myself off to bed, closing my eyes and napping off and on as the hustle and bustle continued on around me and then slowly died down as first one group and then another went to bed. It was a full house in the end, although the perturbed French couple shared a bunk next to me. We were separated by a thin plywood (or similar) wall that had a gap where the bunks met the wall of the building at what we had each chosen to be our "head end". The couple, particularly the girl, whispered to each other in soft French long after everyone else had settled down for the night. I'm sure the rest of the room barely heard them, but something about the enclosed space of the lower bunks seemed to trap the sound and funnel it through to me so that it sounded like someone whispering in my ear. This was more than a little disconcerting and I soon swung around to switch ends, running the risk of having my clothes-bag-come-pillow falling off the end, but mercifully removed from the amplified whispers.

Can't wait to get out on the river tomorrow!