It's funny how without me actively choosing which songs to sing out loud (which oddly enough I haven't done for a while now) my mind feels the need to fill the void with random songs of it's own choosing. Which songs get playedon my internal radio tends to depend on the pace of my movement, which is fair enough, but weirdly they also run strongly toward musical numbers and Disney songs rather than pop, rock and other genres which--I assure you--I also listen to. Weirdly enough a popular song when I'm walking has turned out to be "Don't Call Me Baby", which I don't even know all that well (only the chorus) but it's a well paced song for walking and the pauses between the words on the title line can be stretched when negotiating a difficult bit of track, especially if it can be done in four steps: "Don't (step)....call (step)...me (step)...baby! (step, and we're away and normal walking pace again).
But what if I'm not walking? Well, if last night is anything to go by, lying down trying to go to sleep I had "Hubby Of Mine" from Chicago playing in my head. This is all very well as it starts slowly and sleepily but I couldn't help following it through to the rather more energetic end...and so was awake again. I also usually wake up with a song playing in my head. While not always paying enough attention to what song it is, this morning it was "Arabian Nights" from Aladdin. Eclectic personal radio much?
So with this as my background tune for the morning I packed up and them made breakfast. In hindsight I should have had breakfast first as it was very hard to get going this morning. I seemed to set off in a bit of haze that was as much in my mind as it was the cloud that had settled through the trees over night. One small piece of excitement was a curious insect that appeared out if the bush, scaled my pack just before I put it on, went down the other side back to the ground and set off up the trail, all in a rapid, halting, many spindly-legged gait with no pauses that made it impossible to get a non-blurry photograph of the curious beasty. I'd never seen anything like it, but if you imagine a large, slightly more robustly built jet-black daddy-long-legs with a long black protruberance from its nose and something yellow on its body you'll be close (I would discover later today that yes, in actual fact it was a type of daddy-long-legs, a male harvestman, but nothing like the spindly little grey things you get in your house. If they're the Bruce Brenner of Harvestmen then this thing is the Harvestman Hulk).
Over the next hour or do I gradually began to wake up a bit, during which time I emerged into the open scrubby top of Puketeatua, enveloped in cloud and completely silent every time the light and intermittent wind dropped. It was eerie, but kind of cool, and I stopped to munch a muesli bar and soak in the silence. Setting off again the trump-trump-trump of my feet seemed strangely loud. I got that weird feeling you get in silent forests that everything, even the trees, are listening...(yeah, ok, so I've probably read Lord of the Rings ten too many times).
Even in my sorry state I thoroughly enjoyed the Puketeatua walk. The track is easy and forest pleasant and variable. I met a day hiker half way down and she stopped to chat. She was very interested to hear about Te Araroa, though like most people I encounter these days she was already well aware of what it was. She lives in Waikanae, and offered to put me up for the night but admitted it would be hard to coordinate with me walking out and her driving etc. I thanked her very much anyway and we each headed on, me down and her up in search of the summit in the clouds.
Toward the end of the track you leave native bush and head down a ridge through pine forest. Soon you hit an old forestry road and follow this down to a nice little stream crossing (where I stopped to fill up my water bottles and splash my face) and then up and out to the end of the road. There's a small shelter there with information boards and I sat down to lunch, eating the last of the wraps, cheese, salami, tuna and chcolate. Two sheep were freely grazing the parking area and after deciding I wasn't a threat carried on unperturbed.
After giving my feet a good rub down I set off down the road to walk the 11km out to Waikanae. As I passed I found the sheep settled down in someone's driveway to chew the cud. They looked perfectly at home and I figured rather than being escapees they were probably just allowed to wander around the quiet road end. There was only one car in the carpark, a bright yellow little runabout that I presumed belonged to the hiker I had met up the hill. I wondered if by astonishing coincidental timing whether she would drive past me just as I reached the outskirts of town...time would tell I guess. Her offer of putting me up for the night was still ringing hopefully in my ears.
The road steadily gets busier as you go along, and once past an intersection after 5km there was a car going back or forth every other minute. I stopped at a bus shelter at the intersection to have a snack and rest my sore feet, scoring some scrutinising looks from a pair of passing young guys on bikes. It's called thru-hiking guys, get over it.
I set off again, trying to lay down as quick kilometres as I could, this is road walking after all. 1.5km from Waikanae a little yellow car passed me honking its horn and pulled in just ahead. It was the hiker from this morning, with a renewed offer to put me up for the night and then drop me back to this exact spot to carry on in the morning. While internally I might have screamed "yes, oh yes please!" in practice I said something a little more subdued but in equally grateful tones like "ooh, go on then!". In a few moments my bag was in the boot and I was in the passenger seat trying moderately successfully to keep my muddy boots and trouser bottoms from dirtying the apholstery.
The time had come for proper introductions. The lady's name was Penny and she and her husband had recently moved to the outskirts of Waikanae from Wellington. Their section, when we arrived, proved to be a lovely spot with several nature fruit trees and a well-tended vege garden out the back of a lovely house they had built themselves.
Inside it wasn't long before I was showered and all my clothes were in the wash. Penny was kind enough to lend me a sarong which I was able to fashion into a kind of halter-top dress to wear while everything of mine was going through a severely needed heavy duty cycle. Penny showed me to the spare room and I think my eyes might have glazed over upon looking at the lovely big comfy looking queen sized bed. Ahhhh!
Over a gloriously enormous cup of tea and biscuits Penny and I compared maps and I showed her where TA comes through the Tararuas. We enevitably got to talking a bit more about ourselves and what we each do and I was very interested to learn she works as a counsellor for emotional trauma and is currently studying biogenetic psychotherapy--loosely, how getting people to physically act out things they wished they had done in a past traumatic situation can help as a treatment. Penny's husband Roger came home late in the afternoon and so I also quizzed him on his ex-profession (he's retired) as a quantities surveyor, something I'd heard of but never knew what it entailed. He's also a computer programmer, and let me use his computer to google the mysterious insect, which somewhat underwhelmingly proved to be a harvestman.
I chopped veges for dinner (all from their garden!) and Penny made a delicious stir fry of beef and veges. Sooo good! I had seconds, and soon thirds when they told me there was no point leaving the little bits left over. On top of all that there was stewed apples and ice cream for desert. Ahhhh!
After dinner I hung out my clothes and then we all sat down with a cup of tea and had a good long chat about anything and everything: work, travel, movies, counselling, the UK NHS and cloning. Mind buzz!
As I was heading off to bed I got a txt from Andy. He's a week out from finishing the trail! I wished him all the best for the final miles and will probably take him up on his offer of advice for the South Island. But not right now though, right now I am going to sleeeeep...in a bed with sheets and a pillow! Heaven!
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