Te Araroa Trek

Arthurs Pass to Tekapo 1

2011-05-07T13:29:00.001+01:00

This section marked our 3rd and last, long significant stretch, the plan was to get from Arthurs Pass to Lake Tekapo in 12 days but we were striving for 10 days . On the last section, we ended up in Greymouth to resupply, we bought food to last approx 12 days so we have enough food for any safety days.

This section i think was one of the most visually interesting sections, with each pass we went over the landscape and flora changed. We were now getting into quite high country, less beech forest and more open tussocked flats with fantastic views over large basins and stunning blue lakes. New Zealand really can be anywhere in the world, we walked through landscapes that in one place strongly reminded us of parts of Tuscony, Italy; crossing another pass and the landscape remined us of parts of Austria. It keeps you entertained all the time along this section, nothing is the same for too long. Not even the huts! They all have their own character and brilliant settings, especially the huts on the Two Thumb Range. People can ride horses up the Two Thumb Range and the huts are used often by hunters so each hut has a pantry with a reasonal amount of tinned goods left behind. We even found butter! So try not to worry if your running out of rations.
Introducing the Spaniard and the Matagouri (meaning 'Face spiker' in Maori as they used to use the dried thorns for tattooing), both brothers in crime, they're all over the high country and they can hurt a lot. Expect scratches from the Matagouri and painful stabs from the Spaniard. The Matagouri is not as sharp so if you have to bash through, it is possible without bleeding. The Spaniard on the other hand, well just avoid it at all cost.

This 10 day section, quite a few people managed to cross the Rangitata this year and given the right conditions I think is quite managable. Before you reach the Rangitata, watch for any tributary rivers running milky, if they are you can bet the larger Rangitata will be unsuitable to cross. I would be A LOT more cautious of crossing the Rakaia, although not as wide as the Rangitata about 3 times as much water flows through it. If approaching from the North the Rakaia may look safe to cross, note that the final braid is the largest, deepest and fastest; we heard stories of people spending ages crossing only to find the last braid impassable and having to turn back. They are considered natural breaks in the trail as they can be too dangerous to cross when they are in flood so don't feel too bad if you do end up hitching. If you do want to walk around the Rakaia its an extra 2 days walk down to the Rakaia gorge bridge and up the road to Glenrock station and an extra 4 days for the Rangitata.

Tip: If you find you have to hitch around The Rakaia to Glenrock Station. Nothing goes up the road to Glenrock except farmers and a school bus, which is not regular. The school bus driver however will pick people up on his morning trip at 6:00am up the road. If he has children in the bus then there is a good chance he won't.

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Day 111 - Arthurs Pass to Hamilton hut.

The sun had decided to rock out and get rid of the clouds so we were feeling good and cruized along. We covered the 9 miles on road no problem; but we were actually pretty tired and we werent looking forward to going straight up a mountain in the Craigieburn Forest. But as it transpired the walk was pretty easy going even though our packs were stuffed full of food. We climbed up through tussock with great views of the valley. It wasnt difficult walking through to Hamilton, the lack of rain meant the river was low and we could walk safely down the river's braids. Crossing an emergency 3 wire bridge brought us to the hut. Seeing Hamilton Hut blew us away with its huge veranda and warm enormous stone fireplace. We broke out the flour and started baking. Anders made some taste bread and then after some dissapointing couscous we broke out the almond flavour icing (marzipan) that we carried as a little treat. Wrap up some dough with marzipan, and you have your very own camping cinnabon!

Day 112 - Hamilton hut to Lake Georgina.
Woken up by the heavy patter of rain on the roof, we still had the sofa set up from last night so we stoked the fire and warmed our frozen feet. Whilst chowing down on our daily dose of oats and coffee we spotted a rabbit chilling outside the hut! Dinner! hopefully. Can we catch him? Obviously not! We walked down onto the Harper River plain. As fun as walking along the river beds are, its very hard on the feet. On top of the foot pain and the anger from the slow pace, time drags on as you are stuck concentrating on every step. Once we were out though it was all road down to Lake Coleridge, 20 miles of metal road. We had decided that we would walk most of the way, camp at Lake Georgina, and walk the remainder of the miles in the morning before crossing the deadly Rakaia. Well everything went to plan. We walked along the road with some truely incredible views.

Day 113 - Lake Georgina to Glenrock Station.
A cold, cold morning with frost on the grass, we all had to sleep fully clothed as there was a cool draft blowing up through our tent. Even the meths took longer to boil the water needed for the morning porridge. The view from the otherside of Lake Georgina was spectacular as the mountain range in the distance was reflecting off the still lake. We walked down the metal road until we got to Lake Coleridge where we met Micheal and Elna who had come from Lake Tekapo. They too were walking the along the Te Araroa. We then walked up to a flat plain above that offered super views of lake Coleridge and surounding landscape. It wasn't long before we were walking into Lake Coleridge Village, picking black berries from the first bramble bush we could see. There is really nothing in the village except for an information board and a couple of locals. The Rakaia was a milky baby blue and looked fine to cross. Just as we were about to wade and then pack float our bags across the first braid we heard a voice from behind call out to us. A local guy called Patt O'Kieth, who had good knowledge of the river told us it was too dangerous to cross the river at this time. Pat generously gave us a lift all the way to Rakaia Gorge, Blackford Rd which was really helpful as its a 2 day de-tore around the river. 2 hours of waiting and holding our thumbs out we finally got a lift with a farmer called Willy (the only person going up the rd), he dropped us off and it was an hours walk to Glenrock! The weather was coming in and so we wanted to get to the A-frame shelter. De-hydrated and tired we walked down through Glenrock station to the begining of the track, when a young man drove up and asked if we wanted a beer and a warm place to stay? How could we resist! We stayed at a home stay owned by a couple called Kate and Andy Chapman who owned the farm, Glenrock.

Day 114 - Glenrock Station to Comyns Hut.
We went to say thank you and bye to Kate and Andy. Kate wished us good luck and invited us to help ourselves to the apple and pear tree in her garden! The freshest, sweetest, most crisp apples put us in a fantastic mood as we began a long loooong climb up Turtons Saddle. It was a tough climb. Sodden we stumbled into the A-frame hut for elevensies. It is a straightforward walk to Comyns hut. Comyns Hut is pretty awesome and we decided that we would stay, pretty much because of the 100 year storm outside and because Double Hut was MILES away. We became preoccupied getting dry and writing/drawing etc passing time when we realized the sun was shining through the windows. We walked outside. Not a cloud in the sky! crazy weather!<p>So we spent the rest of the day eating food, drinking tea, chopping up what little wood there was into little pieces for the next people and generally wasting time. There is also a mouse in the hut.

Day 115 - Comyns hut to Castleridge Station.
The plan for today was to get as far as possible. We were setting our sites on Castleridge Station and the Maori Lakes, past Double Hut AND Manuka Hut. As I just said, it was cold. We were all layered up and prepared for a standard morning walk up a mountain stream. Well it turns out that you cross Hakatere River over and over and over again. We were crossing the river every 5 minutes for at least 1 and a half hours. Our feet were numb. We climbed up through tussock, our new favourite enemy, to the top of Clent Hills Saddle which in circumspeculation wasnt all that difficult and it offered pretty amazing views of the yellow valley. More sidling, which puts a massive strain on the uphill knee, across more tussock and scree slopes. Another great thing about reaching the saddle was the rest of the day was downhill. The going became easier once passing Double Hut as its flat to Manuka Hut; but then! We have to climb over a mountain. It wasnt really that bad though. Getting down was through more tussock and spaniard plants though (the spikiest, sharpest prickly plants) down to the second 4x4 for the day and the lake. We decided to fill up with lake water incase we couldnt find any more and we walked on to the main road. Incidentally we found another stream by Castleridge Station and we camped out by the road.

Harpers to Arthurs Ps

2011-05-04T00:01:00.001+01:00

Having previously resupplied in Murchison we managed to hitch a ride to the beginning of the Harpers Pass Track at Windy Point. This track took us through the Lake Sumner Forest Park and took 4 days dropping us out at Aickens. Upon arriving at Aickens, you will find yourself in the middle of nowhere. From here you can continue onto Arthurs Pass via the Mingha-Deception track or not. If, like us, you again are short on supplies it is a full days walk into Arthurs Pass, where food is quite expensive as there is only a small alpine store. A cheaper option is either Hokitika or Greymouth (where we hitched to) that both have large supermarkets and are not too difficult to hitch to. It's a little more difficult getting back to Arthurs Pass, so leave early.

The track was very well formed and relatively easy, taking us through valley flats, beech forest and through many rivers. Lots and lots of sandflies, especially around Lake Sumner, so be sure to have insect repellent.

Tip: Between Hope-Kiwi Lodge and Hurunui No.3, the track takes you to the true right of the river, here it bobs up and down through the forest and takes its time. A better option is to remain on the true left and walk on the valley flats, there are remnants of a 4WD track and will save you a couple of hours.

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Day 106 - Murchison to Windy Point to Hope Kiwi Lodge
We picked our spot carefully, right after a turn off to a cafe on a long stretch of road with plenty of space to turn off on and we held up our crudely drawn sign on the back of our cereal box. SH7 Hanmer Springs. We arent actually going there but its a major town a little further on from Windy Point and the start of the Harpers Pass Trail. We waited, until we were lucky enough to get a lift with a cool guy called Simon travelling back to Christchurch. He took us all the way to Windy Point. Upon starting, it was really really hot! Pretty quickly though we were out of the heat and into the beech forests again, filled with wasps keeping us on our toes. Silver lining is that it makes us walk quicker. After the beech we came out onto a little bit of pasture with a creepy little hut - Halfway Hope Hut. Creepy. Cracked, faded windows and a creaky door. Cool though. Signed the book to say hi and carried on in a hurry to get to Hope Kiwi Lodge. Incidentally after leaving the hut we soon came to the flats by the river which was just heaven walking along. When you've been forced to walk mountain after mountain, up and down all day long this cushty flat grass is a blessing. Hope Kiwi Hut is enormous, it's got a large stove and a fenced off area surrounding it, it was different to the huts we are used to, but we quickly made it home and started cooking food and baking etc. A lot of fun again. We struggle to get bored it seems. Anders burnt his hand though trying to rearrange the fire since the hut is lacking a poker, bringing down the mood with his justified anger. Looked around for some possums and then went to bed. Another Good Day, Go TastyTrek.

Day 107 - Hope Kiwi Lodge to No.3 Hurunui Hut
A beautiful morning! The view was soon forgotten as our feet became wet and cold trudging through a hidden bog, just before a wooden board walk. There is no way around it so don't even bother trying if you happen to come to this section. The track soon walked back into the beech forest and along a much more managable track. After coming out of the beech forest at the bottom end of Lake Sumner, we all tried to appreciate it, except the damn sand flies were almost unbearable so we had to move on quickly. We walked down the West side of the river because it looked nice and flat, plus it was such as nice day we didn't want to ruin the view with the same old beech. We got some amazing views of the whole valley from North to South, i recommend people to walk down this side. Hurunui Hut No.3 was a nice hut with small windows, but 3 storey bunks! Pretty cool! We got settled in quick. Its our next home for one night. We tend to kinda explode all our things everywhere when we arrive, to give it that home feeling. You arrive, live in your new home for a night, treat it with respect, clean it in the morning and move on to your next home. Its exciting to be on the move all the time!

Day 108 - No.3 Hurunui Hut to Kiwi Hut

Day 109 - Kiwi Hut to Greymouth
We continued West along the Taramakau River at a pretty good pace. It was, as valleys are, quite flat but the invloved LOTS of crossings of the river. We knew there was a track somewhere on the true right of the river, but we have found through experience that walking down the river would be quicker. The weather was beautiful and the river was very crossable so we thought we would just continue on our set path and amble along with the river. Unlike further upstream, this part of the river was mainly lots and lots of lose rocks and boulders and pebbles, meaning that we had to concentrate on our foot placement to avoid slips and injury. After a couple hours of walking, we breaked in what looked like the old remains of some farming structure, we were sure we had about another hour of walking to the road but upon checking our GPS position we found we were already there! Awesome! We love it when that happens. We forded the gentle Otira River and joined a short track that took us onto the road (SH73) to a small 'settlement' (for lack of a better word) called Aickens.

The plan from here was to walk into Arthurs Pass along the road and skip the Mingha-Deception track (due to lack of supplies and will). So we started walking. It felt great being back on a road actually, you are able to completely open up and achive those massive stride that track walking doesn't allow. To make the time pass, we each plugged into our MP3 players and blazed along the road. Shortly we arrived in Otira. There is next to nothing in Otira, but there is a BBH hostel. Unfortunately we had no cash and now no food. It would be better to contiunue onto Arthurs Pass. Just as we got back onto the road again we realised something. When we arrive in Arthurs Pass it would probably be 7pm ish, nothing would be open. Perhaps it would be better to hitch to Greymouth now? This was our plan for our rest day anyway. We crossed the road and stuck our thumbs out. In Greymouth we had heard of a cool backpackers that gave out FREE PASTRIES and had FREE INTERNET...obviously this was the place to go. We rolled upto Neptunes International Backpackers and threw our tents out on the lawn. This place was nice, it had a great feel and was buzzing with people. And it definatly did have free pasteries! We organised ourselves and then went off to the nearby Countdown Supermarket to buy dinner, breakfast and food for the next 10-12 day section (we figured) to last us to Lake Tekapo.

St.Arn to Harpers Pass

2011-05-02T03:13:00.004+01:00

Our original intent for this section was to go all hardcore and try get from St. Arnaud to Arthurs Pass in 10 days without diverting to resupply. We had met a fellow TA tramper who had done it, we too though we could. We planned for 10 days but decided to take food that would last us for approximatly 14 days to be on the safe side. This is a lot of food, buying this much food in St. Arnaud would cost a complete fortune. Hitching somewhere else is definately a worthwhile venture. However St. Arnaud doesn't get much traffic either. St. Arnaud you have failed me again! There are a few options for resupply we found: Nelson or Blenheim, have large supermarkets and are quite far but not totally out of the question for hitching to. A more convenient town is Murchison, only ~30 mins hitch away, it has nice cafes, takeaways and a well priced 4 Square. We did all our shopping here for a good price. It also has a fair bit of traffic so hitching back to St. Arnaud was not that difficult. Tip: To get from St. Arnaud to Murchison and back again in one day, leave early and/or make friends with fellow campers in the DOC campsite.

This section took us through the Nelson Lakes National Park, which was a mixture of pleasant walks through beech forest and around perfect crystal blue lakes coupled with bits of rocky climbs giving us some stunning views down river valleys. Things to watch out for: At the time of year we were here the beech trees had a black sort of fungus on some of them that secretes a sweet nectar that wasps love! So beware, we had quite a few run ins with wasps here. Between all of us we managed to collect 10 wasp stings. If you're sensitive to that kind of stuff, carry an epipen!

The huts in this park are massive and very popular and hence (appart from the Queen Charlotte Track) probably the most busy section we found. Not that that is a bad thing, it was actually a very nice change having lots of people to talk to and share stories.

As i said our original plan to complete this section in 10 days did not actually come to pass. Weather in this region is very changeable and even in summer time we had snow up on the Waiau Pass. We waited 2 days in Blue Lake Hut for the rain to pass and then it snowed! Not being prepared for winter conditions we were forced to change our plans (as were now low on food) and turn back north and head toward Murchison. Although we were very disappointed to miss the Waiau Pass, which apparently has some of the best views on the whole Te Araroa trail, we did get to see parts of the park that other TA trampers didnt, like the Tiraumea Valley, which not as spectacular as the Waiau Pass, was still very very awesome.
So after 7 days we were back where we started. Murchison. But that's ok, we really liked this place. Everything you need and more. So now that we had restocked, we were quite aways from Windy Point, the start of the Harper Pass track. We hitched a ride there and continued on for another 4 days to Aikens.

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Day 99 - St. Arnaud to John Tait Hut
We awoke at 06.30 to the sound of heavy heavy rain on the tents. Just wonderful. We packed our bags inside the tents, moaning and grumbling about the rain the whole time, then ran to the shelter to make tea and porridge, then back to pack up the tents. We weren't exactly eager to get going, so we waited until the rain subsided a little before finally doning ponchos and heading off on our 10 days tramp to Arthurs Pass at about 10ish. We were following the easy and well marked Lakehead Track that would take us to the Lakehead Hut where we were planning on having lunch. Although in fine weather the track is very very easy, flat too. In heavy rain streams had washed over the track in a few places. Before too long we got to Lakehead Hut and dove headfirst into peanut butter and plum jam on crackers. Our original plan for the day was to reach the Upper Travers Hut (just before the Travers Saddle) but because of our late start to the day we changed our plans and set aim on only reaching John Tait Hut. It took 4 hours of pleasant but wet walking through beech forest along the Travers River to reach it. There were loads of people in the hut when we got there, which was abnormal for us, every hut we had stayed in so far along Te Araroa we had only shared with 1-2 people. But it was a nice change actually having lots of different people to talk to. Each with their own stories and experiences and plans. As the evening progressed, everyone started making dinner and sitting round the table and chatted. When it came to us and our story, everyone gathered round as we told our tale and showed on the maps where we had been and where we were going. That was really nice.

Day 100! - John Tait Hut to West Sabine Hut
There were plenty of people in the hut so we made ourselves ready as quietly as possible and got a fire going to warm everyone up. We were amazed to walk outside and find that the decking was covered with ice, giving you a feel of how cold it was! But we didnt let that bug us and we walked on up to Upper Travers Hut. It WAS beautiful here and we took off our boots and basked in the sun for a good 30mins before starting out again. From Upper Travers the trail was quite mellow with a nice shallow climb up an alpine valley but then to punish us for thinking this was too easy the trail turned sharply to the right, straight up the boulders, all the way to the top. This was quite a hard climb with 10 days worth of food still in our packs. But we recovered quickly at the top, helped by outstanding views of the surrounding mountains. Not a cloud in sight for lunch on day 100! We decided right then and there that beer was a lunch thing and not to be saved for the hut. The cans of Speights Gold Medal ale came out of our packs and straight into the tarn. 15 minutes later we were enjoying a nice cold beer at the top of a mountain with a well deserved lunch. This day is awesome. Fueled by beer we were ready for the decent and made easy work of the downhill although it is ridiculously steep. More amazing views though before they were swallowed by the beech forest below. Walking along the Sabine River was pretty casual and a plesant walk through suprisingly wasp free forest to a bridge. The short bridge spanned a chasm over the Sabine River and the drop was huge. So awesome, we stood in awe of it for a short time before carrying on the fairly mundane track to West Sabine Hut. After shifting gears to leisure time we relaxed and talked to the other trampers. We had cooked up a storm and had made bread and spagetti and all sorts of deliciousness before even starting on the Day 100 Cake . By candle light we shared the cake and celebrated the end of Day 100 for TastyTrek, after checking for possums around the hut of course.

Day 101 - West Sabine Hut to Blue Lake Hut
We had heard that the weather was not going to be good today so again we had to change our plans. We had intended to go over the Waiau Pass today, supposably a Te Araroa highlight and only recommened in fine weather, but due to the weather we set our goals on only reaching Blue Lake Hut only 3 hours away at the bottom of the pass. We left the hut at midday, the track to Blue Lake Hut was (again) pretty wet in places and although a short journey we found it actually quite exhausting. Possibly due to the very late start or possibly due to the ENORMOUS breakfast. Along the way we stopped to see some awesome waterfalls and caves (complete with a stone circle cooking area! Clearly the cave had been used as a makeshift shelter). Blue Lake Hut was nice with 16 bunks and plenty of room. At the hut were several familiar faces we knew from the days before. We co-inhadited the hut and milled around, each of us doing our own thing. We had heard that the Blue Lake was amazing, and that apparently it is the purest lake in the world...according to the kiwis. The lake was indeed very blue! It became apparent there were no fish in it just by looking at it, it was SO clear. The rest of the evening we all sat around telling stories and chatting with cups of soups and teas and coffees and nibbling biscuits. It was a nice, warm, friendly atmosphere. Just a bunch of guys hanging out at 1200m in a hut. We were all really looking forward to crossing the Waiau Pass tomorrow, that night we went to sleep praying for clear skies.

Day 102 - Blue Lake Hut weather break day
We got up early and it was pouring with rain, so we waited for a short time to see if the weather would get better and hopefully clear. Unfortunately the rain didn't clear for a long time so we made a group decision to wait in the hut and go over the pass the next day as we really want to have great views when we go over. The Waiau Pass is a Te Araroa high light and we really wanted good weather. So in the mean time we opted for a day walk. We set off with Hendrik (a friendly german tramper) when the sun had slightly come out. We tramped back down the track towards West Sabine Hut. We then turned West and headed up a steep climb towards the waterfall that was pouring out of the Mahanga Range. The views of the West Sabine river valley as we got higher and higher were amazing. Our initial plan was to be slightly recklace and climb into a cave above the waterfall; however it was obviously too dangerous, so we didn't do it. Although once at the top we found we could actually walk up next to the waterfall as a manageable gradient. The pass followed the river up to the long grass and shrub flat plains above. We got some BEAUTIFUL views of the river valley below. The long grass made it difficult to see the smaller hidden rivers, so we slipped, tripped and stubbled South to see if we could get a view of Blue Lake from above, unsuprisingly the view was again stunning. After chilling and taking in the awesomeness we slidled South again and actually found some orange markers! Turns out we had stumbled on to the Moss Pass track which went West over to different huts. We followed the track down a stream which took us all the way back to the hut. A great day walk!

Day 103 - Blue Lake to the bottom of the Waiau Pass then back to West Sabine Hut
Up really early as it was going to be a big day getting to Carroline Bivy over the Pass. It was 7 degrees, our coldest morning so far! Infact it was snowing! It was freezing in the hut which made it really difficult to get out of our cozy warm sleeping bags. Anders forced himself up and got the fire going to boil some water for morning tea and porridge. We set off towards the Pass in good spirits as it was still early and we thought the sun would burn off the snow when it came over the East mountain range. We had to sidle along the West side of Lake Constance, up scree first. Everything had a thin layer of snow on it so it was slow going as everything was slippery. We continued with carefull placement of our boots; but after about 45 minutes all our feet were cold and wet from the long snow tipped grass and ice cold streams we had to climb down. The sun did come over the East mountain range, before being englufed by a thick snow cloud that came from the South. From the beach next to Lake Constance we could see the Southerly winds had brought the snow and it was all being deposited on the Waiau Pass and onwards further south. Towards the North it was clear skies and sunshine, so it seemed like all the snow was being dropped right where we were trying to get to. After a group decision we decided it wouldn't be clever to climb up the Pass and down the really steep windward side in snowfall. We had heard the other side of the Pass was tricky even in good weather.

We didn't want to go back the same way we came so we thought it would be a good idea to walk along the Eastern side of Lake Constance along the Slate beach. It was easy going along the slate, hopping from one boulder to the other, until the last 100 meters, which turned from nice beech wlking to vertical rock climbing! With heavy packs we climbed along the rock face above the ice cold Lake Constance. Falling in wasn't an option. It took us an hour to climb 100m's with numb fingers and toes. It wasn't so bad at first but closer to the end it got really tricky. DM being the weakest climber was finding it very tricky as his front pack was obscuring his climb as it was really full. So at 1300 meters on a cliff face, he managed to take off his bag, balance it with one foot, take off his clothes and re-pack his bag again. He dropped his bag into the lake and dived into the cold, cold lake with his boots still on and swam back to the slate shore with his pack floating infront of him. After that it was uncontrolable shivering while he dried himself and put his clothes back on. We quickly set off back to the hut where we had some lunch and got dry and warm. Instead of waiting another day we wanted to get moving, so we decided to go back to West Sabine Hut, then back to Murchison to re supply and then hitch to Harpers Pass, from there go to Arthers Pass.

Day 104 - West Sabine Hut to Tiraumea Hut
Today we blazed along the river track as we had a long way to go. We were suprisingly energised and almost ran a lot of the way, only stopping for short breaks of water and 'bit o' gorp' (scroggin). The landscape was completely different to that up at Blue Lake. We had gin clear water running to our left and silver beach trees above our heads, while the forest floor was covered in lime green moss. So cool! We walked up to Lake Rotoroa and then across a braided river up to D'Urgville Hut. There we had lunch, before pushing on to the next hut, Tiraumea hut which was 5 hours away. It was a 30 minute walk to the bottom of the saddle we had to tramp over, it was only 300 meters up and then flat until the hut. Easy! ... We still feel our hearts pumping in our heads after a steep climb. For the rest of the 3 hours it was relativily flat with a few more stream crossings. Tiraumea hut was a nice small 6 bunk but with a savage fire place that got the hut hot quick. We had to open the door to let cool air in. When the sun went down and we had eaten dinner we set some traps for possum and then went looking for some with large sticks. Unfortunately the only possum we saw was small and too high to bash. DM threw a his stick only scaring it further out of view. We went back to the hut and Anders made some oat cookies that we dipped in spare jam and chocolate. Delicious!

Day 105 - Tiraumea Hut to Murchison
We had a large porridge in the morning and got going. In the first 5 minutes our feet were wet, we had to cross 2 rivers and there were not many rocks to hop on. We had to follow the river the whole way today, criss crossing the river constantly. It was alot of fun, walking over fallen trees and rock hopping to the other side of the river. Eventually we got fed up of slipping on rocks and getting our boots wet and taking 5 minutes to cross, so we just waded and walked through the river. The track disappeared every now and then, due to landslides that blocked our path due to heavy rain fall in December which caused severe river flooding. On the other hand the flood took all of the green didymo off the rocks so they were less slippery when hopping on them. We followed the river for several hours though the lush valley until eventually the valley opened up and the track turned onto the cow fields. After about 30 more minutes we were on tar-mac road which meant it was time to stop for lunch. Just as we finished lunch we managed to get a short lift into Murchison. (We had to get there early to get food and sort out all the other objectives we needed to do, like blogs!) Lucky we got that lift because the road was very empty. In Murchison we went to Kiwi farm which was a camp site and petting zoo! Alright, but the pigs better not disturb our night sleep.

Havelock to St Arnaud

2011-04-30T05:36:00.000+01:00

From Havelock we had planned to combine the Pelorus River track and the Richond Alpine Range track into one MEGA track and attempt to do it in 8 days, although just to be on the safe side we took food for 10-11 days, in case of any rain that meant we would have to sit and wait out for any rivers to drop. Needless to say it weighed quite a bit. We did all our shopping for this section in the local 4 Square, which we were expecting to cost an arm and a leg, but surprisingly didnt.

Okay, im not going to lie. This section was pretty tough. Obviously it is doable, but by the end we felt relieved to be finishing the track, more so than any other track we had previously done. The things that made it tough were the daily, steep ups and downs, also there was a lot of rock hopping along the Richmond track which meant that to avoid injury you had to concentrate on your foot placement all day long. Mentally this became quite draining, especially after the 8 days.

From the beginning of the Pelorus River track we were into the Mt Richmond Forest Park, from here on we began to see a marked change in the local flora. We saw a departure of the ferns, pungas, supplejacks and other bushy plants we were used to from the North Island and a welcome arrival of beech forests, which is a lot easier to walk though and has a really nice feel. We spent the first 3 days of this trip on this track following the beautiful, turquoise Pelorus River which we whole heartily recommed swimming in! It's so cold and fresh and pure and delicious. The remaining 4 days were spent on the Richmond Range Alpine track which was predominantly above the bush line, hopping from stone to stone. The best bit of this whole section: summiting Mount Rintoul as every cloud in the sky disappeared. What views! Some of the best in the whole of New Zealand arguably.

Another thing that was new and exciting about this section was this marked the beginning our time staying mainly in huts, not including the occaisional hut in North Island we stayed in, from now on we were in many many of them. With this came a new style of trail life, many huts have fireplaces meaning that instead of cous cous we could now start bringing pasta and rice etc on the trails because we could now cook it easily, without burning tonnes of meths. However the most exciting thing this meant is we could now bake! Flour, although heavy and only really recommended carrying on shorter sections, is so versitile. Not only does it give you something to do in the evenings but can significantly supplement any meal. We've since made flat breads, apple crumbles, dumplings, pain au chocolate all with reasonable ease and little fancy ingredients.

As i said finishing this section was very relieving, however arriving into St. Arnaud was such a downer. There is next to nothing in St. Arnaud. When ALL you want to do is finally eat a ton of food on arrival, there is only a one store (also the gas station) and it's very very expensive. It actually hurt parting with that much money for that little food. There is a though a cheap DOC campsite that has awesome aweomse views over Lake Rotoiti. Very nice. Apparently the hardest bit of Te Araroa is now behind us. That feels good.

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Day 89 - Bluemoon BBH Havelock to Pelorus Bridge DoC Campsite
After an enormous breakfast curtosy of our new friend Johanna we started walking with heavy packs, full of food for 8 days, along the road. It was a pretty boring walk along the road, listening to music. The two Kiwi sisters we met along the Queen Charlotte track, just happen to drive past and they offered us a lift, but we had to decline. It was nice to have someone stop and say hello though! The Pelorus Bridge was an ok camp site but it was cool to see how much the scenery had changed from the coast. The trees are now Beech and the forest is more temperate.

Day 90 - Pelorus Bridge to Captains Hut
Up early and walked along the road, with some EPIC views of the valley behind. The road followed the Pelorus river and it was beautifully clear. The clearest water we have ever seen. The begining of the track was a nice tramp to Emerald Pools where we had lunch. The water was beautiful and cool. We took the opportunity to make a few videos for Knotty boy, but DM broke the no.1 rule and dropped his soap. Luckily he has a spare! There was a deep part to the river so we jumped off the cliffs and did a few flips as well. The walk to the first of our huts was pretty cool, following the river the whole way. Captains Hut was really nice and had a lot of character. It even had some flour, so Anders and DM took the liberty to bake flat bread. One spicy and one with mixed herbs. Before the sun went down we had swam in the Pelorus River and again jumped off the cliff into the clearest water ever! GREAT DAY!

Day 91 - Captains Hut to Browning Hut
The day started out much the same as every other day, except now we were in huts again! we love huts! The track was steep - it doesnt become known as the hardest section of the Te Araroa without it being difficult, having said that though the morning walk up to Middy Hut (which we were supposed to do yesterday) was fairly mild for what we had in store for us. Elevensies at Middy Hut just to sign the hut book and check out where other Te Araroa trampers were going. The walk from Middy Hut to Roebuck was less than easy. The trail information suggested a 5 hour time, but we are coming to realise that these are somewhat subjective - normally we are about 1/3 quicker but recently we've been bang on (so longer than we expected). This track was another section that was timed appropriately for us with lots of challenging, steep sidling along thin paths with steep falls. Needless to say we didnt like it. It exhausted us and caused considerable anger. Slipping again on a rock, stretching out our knees, occassional expletives echoed through the beech forests and up the river valley. Lunch at Roebuck Hut allowed us some recovery time. The next track didnt offer any sympathy,again it took longer than expected battling our way through steep, slippery forest which, for now, was blocking out the sun. Finally Totara Sadle (only 30mins from the hut - we had reevaluated our target destination to Browning from Hackett) but it was still a steep downhill. Upon reaching the door to the hut we were well and truely exhausted, can it really get harder than this? Is it only this bad due to the weather? Well apparently from other trampers its pretty hard all the time. But man this was probably the worst day on the trail so far. And to top it off, one of the worst huts of the trail. Everything was wet, there was no wood for the fire, there were rats in the ceiling, there were mosquitos (sandflies we are used to now, not mozzies). What a dump. Still, its a roof.

Day 92 - Browning Hut to Slaty Hut

This was the day. The hard day. 900m in one straight climb. Apparently this is one of the hardest days of the Te Araroa, so, understandably, it took us a while to get moving. Lucky we didnt make it to Hackett yesterday so we had a little warm up section by way of a 1 hour walk to Hackett Hut. Everything still wet from yesterdays rain, gators can only do so much when your boots are falling apart, our feet got soaked, again. Hackett Hut was awesome though, and as a bonus we met two cool dudes there. 900m up. Started with river hopping with a wet track and slippery roots and rocks. Then up through the beech forest for a grueling couple of hours. We didnt take many breaks since it had started to rain a little, although 2 flat, no... flat-ter sections gave our thighs and arses a little respite. For some reason the wasps were angered and they took a liking to Anders' legs and stung him a couple times making the climb even worse, luckily though we were approaching the bushline and therefore Starveall Hut and LUNCHTIME! After glimpsing a couple views of the sea when the clouds infrequently cleared a hole we took off towards Slaty hut. Guess what? it was up. Up and covered by clouds. Alpine climbing is much more exciting and therefore fun, and when its fun and exciting it makes for easy walking. It barely felt like we had left Starevall Hut when we arrived at Slaty Hut. Another cool Hut with ample wood and lots of forest to get more should you need any.

Day 93 - Slaty Hut to Rintoul Hut
It was cloudy and cold. We were aprehensive that we spent all this time and effort getting all the way up this mountain and then we wouldnt even see anything. All the way to Old Man Hut we were in cloud not seeing any views except for track by our feet. Old Man Hut had two turn offs and upon reaching the first we made a decision to not eat lunch and not to stop at the hut but to carry on going and eat a little extra scroggin and some energy bars. This was mostly due to the 30min walk just to get to it, we didnt want to add an hour walk to our day. Lucky things got better and not worse! We climbed up Little Rintoul and the clouds started to clear off. We could see quite a ways. We were happy and walking better now. Then, the clouds vanished! SHWEET!! we now faced the climb to the top with amazing views, warm weather and perfect visibility! It was a long climb and quite technically challenging but it wasnt overly hard. There is also a huge reward summiting such an exposed mountain and thats demonstrated by the photos. We spent an hour and a half at the top. Eating lunch, taking photos and videos, we even wrote a note for other hikers - hopefully it will brighten their day. The climb down was pretty cool actually. Felt like we were on a beach at first, really mellow descent but then, of course, it got steep. Really steep. But it was cool, kinda like scree-surfing, just hard on the knees. Then a short section through trees and we came to the hut which we spotted from the summit. What fun.

Day 94 - Rintoul Hut to Mid Wairoa Hut
Up the ridge through the trees for the first of three climbs today (and the only peak - Purple Top) brought us to the bushline where we climbed a little bit more and sidled across to a pass just to the East of Purple Top. Then we climbed down again. Back into the trees and made our way to a lake and Tarn Hut for lunch. Really nothing incredibly exciting happened, and the alpine scenery is starting to get a bit same-y but thats only when you cant see anything cause of the beech trees. Tarn Hut wasnt spectacular either, the lake was alright, the weather was nice. Ate lunch and then realised that we had run out of toilet paper. Hmmm. Newspaper will have to do. The afternoon was pretty similar to the morning. Pretty standard walk until the last climb down to Mid Wairoa Hut. Now things got interesting. It was steep. Probably the steepest - longest descent we've had to do. It hurts the knees and it doesnt stop. Still its downhill so its not aerobically challenging its just harder on the joints, Still not sure whether I prefer up or down. Another day done we dropped our stuff and went straight for the river. Rocks to jump off again! YES! We LOVE doing this. But the water is FREEZING! not sure how I can understate how cold the water is here but it didnt stop us going for it. Got the blood pumping. Plus Mid Wairoa Hut has an open fireplace!!! oh yeah! nice big fire to warm the hut.

Day 95 - Mid Wairoa Hut to Hunters Hut
Although it bucketed down during the night, it wasnt as wet as we had thought. The river had only risen a couple centimeters as well. We were concerned at first - there are lots of river crossings in the next section up to Top Wairoa Hut. In fact we follow the river all the way up! The track itself though is difficult. Its steep and slow going. The river crossings are fun but take a lot of time if you dont want to get soaking wet boots. There are amazing waterfalls and swimming pools up the track. Considering how difficult it was I think that we managed it without too much trouble. We generally agree that it was difficult and given the right circumstances dangerous but we think that it was still a fun and enjoyable track - if only for the waterfalls. Top Wairoa Hut was awesome as well, another open fireplace. Over lunch it started raining again and we werent too keen on the idea of climbing the next mountain in poor visibility and rain since the information states that the markers are difficult to see in clear weather. So we decided to wait till 2pm to see what happens. 2pm came along and we went for it. The rain had, for the most part, stopped and it was bright still so we figured we would be ok. It was wet though, warm, but wet. Once on alpine terrain we were at home again on the shale and scree and we started getting back into our stride. Cruising over the ridge we could just make out the next pole in time to prevent walking off the side of the mountain and getting lost somewhere. Down into more beech forest we climbed down and down until we could see from under the clouds! There was Hunters Hut. Miles away. Damn. It looks alot further away when you can see mountains in the way! still knowing that we were in sight made things so much more bearable and we continued on without any hiccups. The last 15 minutes up to the hut however were steep and we were exhausted. Hunters Hut is a fantastic hut with great views and a very very good stove. Make sure you stay here!

Day 96 - Hunters Hut to Red Hills Hut

Eventually the dreaded time came when we have to leave the comfort of this great hut. Luckily though it was only a 4 hour walk to Porters Hut and the weather had lightened up a little. On top of better weather the landscapes were awesome! Loads of martian-esc terrain although it reminded us more of Australia than Mars. Walking across yet another boulder field we came to another river crossing, well not so much a river as a stream, but still eventful. Anders went first. As with all crossings, we try and scope a way we can get across without getting our feet wet (walking is much more pleasant with dry feet and our boots have lost all the waterproofness they never had), Anders found a path and threw himself at it. His right foot (the forward foot) slipped to the left throwing his 80-some kilos backwards over the foot high waterfall and into the pool below, his fall broken neatly by his Truist 65ltr Eagle Creek backpack. Absolutely devastating for Anders, HILARIOUS for Landey and Dm! ok well we were just glad that he didnt smash his face in, and it did suck that he got soaked in freezing water but the sun had come up a little so it wasnt the end of the world. At Porters we stooped through the midget doorway and checked out the tiny hut. Another open fireplace, a hut book dating back to 1986, old axes and a weird little rain gauge. I have to say that this hut has the most character of all the huts we've been to. We pigged out a little on lunch (tomorrow we would be in St. Arnaud!) and headed out for Red Hills Hut. This section was said to be longer than Hunters to Porters and it was. Although it was beautiful it was dull and hot and tiring. Time dragged on until we eventually made it over the last saddle and could see the hut in the distance. Only thing is a marsh stood in our way. Well its not mapped as a marsh but you walk through knee high grass which obscures the ground which little swampy streams haphazardly wind their way through. Red Hills Hut has a brand new feel to it and an amazing porch but it lacks a fireplace and a sink. Tomorrow, St. Arnaud!!

Day 97 - Red Hills Hut to St. Arnaud DoC Campsite
Today had few thrills. We treated ourselves to the remaining chocolate in our porridge and walked down the 4x4 track to the carpark and then took a right and walked along the road shoulder into St. Arnaud. The road was a welcome change with a long, well graded section with even ground. We didnt have to concentrate hard about where the next foot was going and could zone out and even listen to a little music. No rain again, always nice. Made it into town easily for lunch and b-lined it straight for the chippy. It was shut. WHAT! only open on the weekends! ok then, looks like we arent going to be treating ourselves, head to the store. Which one? Theres only one. Ok found it. WHAT ON EARTH! everything is priced triple its value. Monopolys are horrible. As I said all in all an uneventful day. The views from the DoC campsite though are amazing and there are some pretty big eels in the lake, they are protected though, cant go around eating these ones - they take 90 years to mature in these frigid waters!

Wellington to Havelock

2011-03-12T14:18:00.002Z

Reaching Wellington, our just-over-half-way mark was a great feeling, but nothing compared to actually arriving on the South Island and actually starting the trail again. We had heard so much about the South Island, about the incredible scenery and the super friendly locals and about the ever present and overly large sandflies! Either way, we were more than excited to find out and experience it for ourselves.

TastyTrek were lucky enough to obtain sponsorshp from InterIslander, one of the main ferry companies, who supported us with free ferry tickets, usually costing $70ish. TastyTrek were even more blessed because those free tickets were for 1st class! Travelling anywhere 1st class is always more fun, but after our experience there really is NO other way to cross the Cook Strait. Usually only an additional $45 ontop of the $70 ticket, we travelled in UTTER LUXURY. We were treated to comfy sofas, free internet (when available) and lots and lots of food. First course is a buffet selection of eggs, bacon, beans and hash browns with unlimited toast, cereal, juice and tea and coffee. Next, they bring out platter upon platter of sandwiches, cakes, tarts and sushi! All in the meantime there is a bar that freely gives out a range of wines and beers should you feel you want that early morning buzz. As you can imagine, we spent the whole 3 hours ride just eating and eating and eating (i think Landey actually ate 14 hash browns just to himself!). We could hardly walk when getting off, however, in hindsight we still wished we had taken the opportunity to eat more. For $45 extra we most happily recommend taking the 1st class option.

Our first port of call on South Island was the main ferry port and small seaside town of Picton where we only spent a brief amount of time buying food and arranging transport and passes for the first trail and first taste of the South Island, The Queen Charlotte Track, starting at Ship Cove (a historic and favourite spot of Captain Cook's, being visisted 4 times by him in the 1700's) and finishing at Anikiwa. The QCT being a great walk requires great walk passes that cost about $12 each then we had to arrange transport to the beginning of the trail by watertaxi, that whilst being a lot of fun and a great experience travelling through the Marlborough Sounds, it was also quite dear. So be prepared to fork out some cash when arriving!

Altogether the trip from Ship Cove to Havelock took 4 days and included walking the Queen Charlotte Track and the Linkwater Track (a road section from Anikiwa to Havelock), there's no shop in Anikiwa so we carried food for 4 days, the only shop between Anikiwa and Havelock is a small gas station that significantly uped it's prices. Havelock has a 4 Square supermarket and met all of out resupply needs although hitching back to Picton or Nelson wouldn't be hard if needed.

One of the very best aspects of this section of the trail is the abundance of really really really good seafood. Daily on the QCT we picked mussels (4-5inches long!) and cockles to supplement our dinners. You can find them stuck to rocky outcrops or just walk down the beach along the shoreline and you should see them dotted around stuck to rocks on the ground. On the track we boiled them in fresh water but not until we reached Havelock (the Green Lipped Mussel capital of the world) did we find the secret. Steamed mussels take about a 5th of the time and fuel to prepare. Add mussels and only a little water to the pot and leave the lid on, they should take baout 10 mins and are just divine! Another thing to watch out for are the cheeky Wekas (kind of like a bush chicken) they are very inquisitive and love to steal shiny things! Oh and another thing that was striking about the track is the number of people, there are loads of them!

We had read ahead on the Te Araroa information that the section after this, through North Canterbury and the Richmond Range is the most challenging section of the trail. We found that the easy grade walking tracks of the QCT were a perfect way to ease into the hardships that were about to follow.

Day 84 - Wellington (7:00) to School House Bay (18:30)
6:30am. Oh too early. Luckily though we had enough forethought to pack our bags the previous night. Even so it took us 30 minutes to pack up our stuff and get it up to Dan's van. Dan had offered us a lift to the ferry since he worked in the vicinity so we jumped at the opportunity! Groggy eyed we queued for check in and got on the Interislander ferry. Interislander, one of our sponsors, had even managed to arrange us to cross in first class! so we had breakfast on board!!! Needless to say it was an awesome crossing. We did however check out the ship and look at the views of Wellington. Imagine our excitment though when we saw the South Island for the first time. The 3 hour crossing passed in no time and the Interislander staff were more than helpful. After just a short time on the boat there was even an announcement for the first of two films showing in their on board cinemas!!! We didn't watch them but man these ferries are cool, so happy that Interislander could help us out.
With full stomachs we disembarked and b-lined it to the information center. Standing in line we planned what to do. Anders stood waiting to buy ferry tickets and trail passes and Landey and Dm went to find the supermarket. Once there Dm ran back to show Anders the way and Landey did all the shopping in around 5 minutes. Anders and Dm arrived just in time to carry the stuff down to the wharf to catch the beachcomber ferry up to Ship Cove. In fact we even managed it in enough time to chillout and repack the food waiting to board.
The ferry ride itself was actually super awesome although the cost ($58 each) weighed on our minds a little. The ferry doubled as a mail boat taking and recieving mail for the 500 some permanent Marlborough Sound residents, obviously though we didnt stop at 500 jettys. We stopped a couple of times and for the majority of the cruise the driver gave an entertaining commentary. We saw fur seals, muscle and fish farms and just amazing views of the sound from the water. About an hour later we were in Ship Cove walking down the jetty to the Cook monument and the start of the Second Island!
Needless to say we were in high spirits and blazed through to Schoolhouse Bay (only a 2hr walk or so) and instantly went in search of muscles... and FOUND SOME! and ate well. Its good to be on the South Island.

Day 85 - School House Bay (10:15) to Camp Bay (15:30)

We have decided that officially this is our first day of walking in the South Island. A beautiful morning, with the sun creeping in over the bush behind us on to the ocean view at our tent step. It's definitely alot chillier in the South than the North, as we had to layer up in our minus 33 clothing. We will just have to re-adjust. By the time we started walking it was about 10:00am as Landey was busy making an amazing start-stop motion clip of our routine in the mornings. (it will be up loaded soon). The walk was at low altitude with the sea always just in view through the bush. The water here is very blue and clear so we were looking forward to a swim later in the day to relax and chill.

On coming up to our first saddle over looking the many bays and headlands of the Marlbourgh Sounds, we stopped for elevensies on a bentch to absorb the awesomeness. (believe me when i say that this view was nothing in comparison to what came later). Anders thought it would be a great idea to film a Weka up close for all at home to see; however when placing a small amount of energy bar infront of the camera, the cheeky little Weka gobbled the bait and then imediately tried to run off with Anders camera! Luckily in Anders panic the Weka dropped the camera and we got some very funny footage for you all to see. (also to be uploaded soon with the JAWS theme music by John Williams.

We met an Austrian guy who was also doing the walk and he was very interested in the bush knowledge we have learnt over the past 85 days. Anders explained everything and we walked with him until the Camp Bay camp site. We planned to move on but the next camp site was at altitude so we couldn't eat any mussels! Therefore it we justified staying for an epic meal. The camp site was not great but once the tents were up it was all good, as two Kiwi sisters came over and gave us spagetti and bacon! Amazing! thank you! FREE DINNER! DELICIOUS TASTE!

Day 86 - Camp Bay (09:00) to Cowshed Bay (16:00)

We seemed to be the last people to leave the camp site, (loads more people arrived later on in the day). It was cool though because we eventually ended up walking past everyone and being the first to arrive in the next camp site! It was interesting seeing how much our fitness has improved. The track had some amazing views along the ridge line where you can see mussel farms. It difficult in some parts but again we were quick to recover and started again just as quickly as we stopped. It was a good walk and we really enjoyd our selves, especially at 'Eatwell Lookout' which had views of 100 km in each direction! The massive mountain to the South were quite daunting as it was the mountains we were going over next.

We got to Cowshed bay very sweaty and needed a swim. The camp site was split by a road, one side by the sea and the other in the bush. We had to camp in the bush side as the ocean view was taken. A nice spot in the sun next to the toilets and water. From above along the ridge the bay looks really nice; however it was infact not that great as it was muddy and smelly. To be honest though the cold water was very refreshing and we managed to pick some large green lipped mussels off the beach that blew some of the other campers minds! DM even picked up a dead mussel that had a fish inside! Using the Titri we had a constant controlled fire going cooking our mussels, cous cous and coffee and manuka tea. We love the Tea Tree!

In the camp site we met a really cool German woman called Johannah, who was travelling around NZ. She was on her own so we told her to come and chill with us. The night was spent chatting and relaxing around the Ti-Tri cooker and Johannah generously gave us some egg, english mustard, bread, and salami to dig into. Johannah was really impressed with what we were doing and thought we were really cool! She especially liked the solar light caps that Landey and DM were using. Before ending the night DM explained how the Maoris used flax and he made her a bracelet out of flax and tape.

Day 87 - Cowshed Bay (09:00) to Davis Bay (2:00)

Today was a nice easy day with a steep climb in the morning that had some beautiful views of the Sounds. The track then descended to the waters edge and kept at this altitude until the camp. We got there early at 1:30pm, just in time for peanut butter and jam on bacon flavoured corn crackers. Unfortunately the camp was swarming with wasps and they tried to eat our delicious salami.

Other than the wasps, which eventually leave when the food is gone, it was a really nice camp next to the sea with a river running through it. The water was so calm we kept forgeting it was the sea as it looked like a lake. In the river there were some big, plump, delicious looking ducks and they were all sleeping .... we could have .... but didn't, as some of the other campers would have frowned upon it.

Met another two German women who were 'free spirits', they were just going, Never having a plan. We chilled with them by the bench all night and swapt a small amount of meths for bisquits. A good deal! Later in the night we saw some possums and really, really wanted to do our part for NZ, but the German girls were quite against the idea. Next time possum!

Day 88 - Davis Bay (10:00) to Bluemoon BBH Havelock (15:30)

The track was an easy strole to the end of the Queen Charlotte track. We met an 'Outward bound guide' who was looking over a 22km run that morning, and he was stoked by what we were doing. Cool guy. As we were coming to the end of the track, we were walking with a girl who was part of outward bound. Being the last person of the race, everyone was cheering her on and clapping, which made us smile as it felt like it was for us.

The rest of the day was walking on road to Havelock, there was a track called the Linkwater Track which was useless as it followed the road anyway. It also went up a massive hill just before Havelock and Landey's knee was hurting him so we decided not to walk it. It was quicker to go on the road anyway, plus we got to see an antique Jaguar race with lots of old people at the wheel!

Johannah wanted to meet us, so we organised to meet her in Havelock and have dinner. As we were walking into the 'Green Lipped Mussel Capital of the World', Johannah pulled up and offered to take our gear to the BBH which was 5 mins walk away. After we agreed and Johannah drove off, we realised that we had just given our lives to a person who we really didn't know! Funnily enough she was thinking the same thing, except she thought we were very trusting.

The BBH was amazing as everyone was really acommodating and as it was the weekend they were having a BBQ for everyone. Pretty much everyone was German there, except for one American guy who said we were the first non-German guys in 3 weeks! It turned out to be a bit of a party as everyone got to know each other and we drank Steinlager. Later in the night we then walked along a small track to see some glow worms. Johannah cooked us some pasta, which went great with the steak and ice-cream!

Hamilton to Welly!!!

2011-02-14T06:48:00.004Z

Ok. It takes longer to write these things than we thought, so, you know we didn't write them. And now we are in Wellington. Crap. Oh well. I will write a blog of the highlights of our trip from Hamilton onwards...

Right well, we left off from our rest day at McLaren Falls which was epic so I will start from the next day, which, incidentally was a great significance. The idea of staying in a DoC hut had invaded our heads and we consequently decided that it would just be a swell idea to walk from Hamilton to the top of Mt Pirongia. Undaunted by the maps we cruised down the roads without so much as a hint of fatigue... that is until 16:00. We had just walked 19.5 miles and up Couchran road (steep and unrelenting) in the midday heat of the clearest day yet. Blown away by the views we had our late lunch and recuperated in the shade of some pine and kawakawa trees. With our lunch finished we started another days walk - the DoC signs suggested a 7 hour walk to the top (a typical length for one of our days!). It started steep and by the time we had lugged our full packs to the Trig point our lungs were burning and we were almost sick due to shear exhaustion. Collapsing onto the bench and breathing allowed us the time to think about where we are! Near half way to the top of our first real mountain in the middle of New Zealand in summer. Man our lives aren't all that bad! Its getting hard now to even think about how hard we worked to get to here. We must be getting fit now, we cut DoC's timing in half! a long ways yet though. We climbed and scrambled up steep volcanic faces with bolted chains to steady ourselves with our fully packed Eagle Creek 65ltr Truist Backpacks and up and down ridges over and over again, always going up. The final sign - 30 mins to summit, I was pumped, so much adrenaline, started sprint walking... 6 minutes! But what a view! I feel for anyone who does this in the cloud... we could even see Ruhapehu! and Hamilton in the far distance!

After leaving Pahautea Doc Hut, it was a very muddy and slippery descent of Pirongia and we had a few falls here and there; but nothing serious. It was a hot and sticky day, so we all became irritable while walking along metal road. On the other hand the views of the Kawhia coast were still as amazing as the previous night. We took shelter underneath a bridge and had some lunch. This lunch session then became an eal man hunt, as we spotted our first eal and were determined to catch one. Unofrtunately our fishing methods were unsuccussful. A navagational mistake and a swift solution brought us back on track in the bush; but things didn't get any better, DM bashed his nose with his trekking pole and Landey fell face first into the wet marsh.

The next day we saw a rare sight of two boxing hares. Our fortune was about to change for the worse as the lovely Te Araroa markers disapeared into head height gorse. After a good hour of battling the menace brought over form England, we headed back to the top of the Valley. Taking a bearing with the compus we head along our own path. The Tasty Trek trail. We ended up on Queens land and then a friendly farmer told us how to get out to the road. DM's bag had broken so there was work to be done once in Waitomo, Juno Hall BBH.

From Waitomo we walked along the road to Mangaokewa reserve, which was a really nice camp site and this was the location of the first of tasty trek's favourite dinner. While walking Anders and Landey got sprayed witha smelly liquid as a truck full of cows drove by. I can honestly say no one i know of has ever been pissed on by a cow moving at 80km/h! The next day we walked along the Mangaokewa track which is described to be very pleasant with a wide path. Well its definitely not wide and in fact it was very challenging becasue the track was over-grown with gorse on the up hil and bramble on the down hill. It was a scratchy experiance. We then got a bit confused and ended up 3 miles of the track; however if this didn't happen a poor sheep would have died. It was fate for tasty trek and sir sheep to meet. Also it was hilarious watching Anders and Landey struggle pulling this sheep out of a bog! Back on track we pitch tent in a field next to a river. Eager to catch an eel for dinner we went about again fishing. Success! Just as we were all about to pack our gear away, the fishing line started to violently move, and tasty trek got their first very tasty eel.

The next day was suprisingly quick for the huge distance we walked (24 miles). It helps listening to music when doing long raod sections. We got to Pureora DOC Campsite in good time for us the nap and start a nice fire and chill. The day after to the summit of Pureoa was amazing as the views were incredible and gave us a 360 view of Pirongia to the North and Lake Taupo to the South. The walk through this forest was one of our favourite as it wasn't savage up and down but a constant horizontal all the way to Bogg Inn hut. This hut rocked with character and we had a competition to see who could chop the smallest piece of wood. Walking in the bush is very different to walking on roads. As obvious as this remark seems, we were suprised to see how slow going it was in the bush per mile. While pondering the exact amount we walk an hour in the bush a dog jumped out with is hunter owner and scared the crap out of us! He told us that the Pureoa forest was the most heavily poisoned forest in NZ. At Waihaha hut we met some biologists who were collecting ferns to measure the impact of deer on the forest. They gave us loads of their food the next day as we left to the next hut. Well turned out there was no hut so we ended up camping on the side of the road. The walk to Taumaranui Holiday Park Campsite was along road the whole way, so instead of listening to music like we normally do we tried to tell stories of movies we had seen or books we had read in the past. It is a good way to keep the mind occupied. Once in Taumaranui the information ladies helped us out for a place to stay even organised a ride to pick us up! Getting to Taumaranui was a big step in our journey so we had a rest day, insidently it wasn't in Taumaranui but in Ohakune because it had shuttle buses to the Tongariro Crossing.

The Tongariro Crossing is expensive to get to by shuttle but the walk is definitely worth it! We didn't find it that challenging to walk, in fact we even ended up running at the lowere sections of the trail. Lots of fun as we had to skip around people and jump down stairs. Although i have to admit i thought i was going to chunda when we got to the bottom. Before finishing the crossing though we had to climb Mt Ngauruhoe AKA Mt Doom! This was a difficult but worth while climb up scree and loose rock. Unfortunately we didn't get to see much of a view at the top as the clouds had come in; but we were made famous on Mt Doom. An Austian couple said they had heard of us from the French woman we met earlier on 90 mile beach! Awesome! When everyone had gone we took the liberty to strip off under cloud cover and pose for a photo.... Common, how many people can say they have stood naked ontop of Mt Doom? When we got back to we were running about trying to organise the next epic part of our trip down the Whanganui river.

Lots happened on this river, so i'm going to summarise all the best parts ... theres ALOT! We set off from Taumaranui down the river with Anders and Landey in the canoe and DM in the kayak. It was a beautiful day and the river level was apparently low so the rapids were more rapid. It was cool being on the river, because we had talked about it so much when walking and now we were finally on it. We stopped at Poukaria Campsite. It was great to stuff our selves on the river because the barrels in th canoe allowed us to take way more food! It started to rain the next day and we didn't want to leave the campsite because we were all nice and warm. After putting on our wet gear again we paddled to warm the muscles. It was great on the river now as it was moving really fast and we didn't have to paddle that hard. After manouvering through some rapids we heard this roar and to our dis-belief, there was a waterfall gushing out of the wall so massive it almost came across the river, which was narrow at this point. Landey and DM were in the canoe and tried to power there way through the side current the waterfall had created in the river. Well it didn't work well and we ended up being slammed against the side of the gorge and nearly cap-sized. After this adrenaline pumping ordeal we thought that we might need to get off the river soon. Once at Whakahoro the river was raging and we made a tactical stop at Lacy's landing which is were we met a man called Dan Steele who was rescuing his speed boat before it too disapeared. We hauled our gear out of the river and pulled it up to the tree line and tied the canoe and kayak up. Dan gave us a lift to the DOC hut next to his. Dan is a farmer but conservationist at heart, taking special care of the Blue Duck. He let us shower at the Blue Duck Lodge and we settled down dry talking to the people in the lodge. We decided it would be best if we had a rest day in at the lodge and wait for the river to go down. Two siblings, Andy and Cathy also had the same idea and had a safety day (we were staying with them in the DOC hut). We loved the Blue Duck lodge and all the people there, especially a man called Gary who took us hunting with the John the chef. They got three goats and kindly gave us one. Hell yeah! Back on the river after the rest day was pleasant enough when suddenly Andy from the DOC hut waved us down from the side of the river bank. As it happened Andy got sucked in by a very large Whirlpool which turned out to the bain of the river. We spent the night on the river bank with Andy and Cathy. The next day we beat the whirlpool and headed down river to the next hut. Unfortunately there was no warden so we left a message on the board with Andy's and Cathy's 10 digit gps location on it. After this it was a very pleasant rest of the day, as we pulled up to our next stop 'The Bridge to Knowhere'. What a place! It has an eery feel to it as this large cncrete structure connects two sub-tropical rain forests. The next stop along the river was, Tieke Kainga Marae. A Maori woman called Lesleigh took care of the place and she taught us loads of craft using a local plant called Flax. Lesleigh also let us help our selves to all the food the Marae had. Apparently 80 people were stranded there when the river was in 10 meter flood. The next day we canoed and kayaked to Pipiriki. It was more or less uneventlyful, except the strong wind made it really difficult to paddle. In Pipiriki we met a really interesting old man who told us about Maori culture. The following sections of the river were easy going except for the wind as it gradually increased the further down river we got. Infact Anders Fell in the river due to the wind!. The rest of the journey from Downes hut (Awsome hut) to Whanganui was less impressive as we came out of the national park and the lanscape turned into farmland. FINALLY WHANGANUI!

We took a rest day in Whanganui with the woman Cathy who we met on the river. Tasty Trek on Classic Hits with Phil Lemon was our next new experience. Just trying to spread the work to raise the donations. Cathy picked us up and drove us down the to begining of our next walk. We walked to Fusilier Wreck along the coast line which is really cool, covered in large dead peices of wood and even whole trees. oh! and afew dead cows along the way as well. With the mass amount of dead wood we decided to build a shelter and sleep under the stars. A decision we came to regret as we woke up with sand everywhere! Walking along the west coast meant we couldn't go swimming as it was too rough, not to mention there would probably be loads of drift wood about. However we did get wet when we had to cross two major rivers. Re-organising our gear to ensure it is water tight, we pack floated our gear across while we swam next to them. The second river crossing was savage and longer than we thought. The next couple of walking sections was pretty boring from Himatangi Beach to Levin to Otaki, to Otaki forks, all along the roads. From Otaki forks however we tramped into the Tararua Ranges along Judd Ridge to Field hut. The weather was rainy, and cold but we had to go on. The whole two days was pretty much all up in bush at first but as we got to 1400 meters the bush disapeared and we were just walking through low lying bush. The weather took a turn for the worse when we were on top of Mt Hector (1520m) and Anders gor blown off the ridge. We all hit exhaustion and decided to head back down to Otaki Forks the next day. I have to say though, it was a really fun experience. From Otaki Forks we walked half way and then hitched to Otaki and then hitched the next day to Tawa. The hitching is justified as we walked the miles on the ranges. From Tawa we walked to Wellington. Trelisick Park that took us to Wadestown, the park was awesome, although we are litteraly a stones throw from central Wellington the park was reminisient of some bush walks we had done right out in the countryside. It was nice. On emerging from the park we were now following the Northern Walkway as well as the Te Araroa trail, for the next bit we had to climb an insanely steep road hat took us upto Tinakori Hill, from up here we had some really great views of central Wellington. The walk down the hill toward the city took us though some nice forest bits, we met many cyclist along the way. The trail then took us through the botanical gardens and it was only a cable cart away to the city! HALF WAY!

I wouldn't change a single thing about the the trip up until this point. Its been AWESOME! .... peanut butter butter

Auckland to Hamilton

2011-01-31T12:07:00.001Z

Can't believe week 6 has past already! The days seem to be merging together as we continue to have more and more amazing experiances, like watching the sun set ... on top of a volcano! But don't you worry we will have even more incredible travel stories as the trek goes on. We start the next part of the journey down New Zealand from Hamilton towards Tongariro. Lets take a quick look back at what we have just done.

Day 41 - With lots to do we repacked and restocked our bags and supplies, prepared everything that needed to posted, and finally figured out where to buy a vodaphone vodem. Knowing that we would be back on the trail, we made a decisions to eat as much as we could as it was back to couscous with soup for dinner.
Sadly we said goodbye and thank you to The Mortons, and then Ricky (Anders old school friend) drove us into Milford to deposit our mail and pass by the vodaphone store; however the post office was closed. Ricky generously said he would post them for us the next day. We were however successful at Vodaphone, although it did take us until Hamilton to get wirelessly connected! Ricky dropped us off on Mill Rd outside Papatoetoe. Back on the road. Back to the bush. Back to the beautiful country. To be honest it doesn't really feel like we left. From Mill Rd we head roughly South East on the roads most of the day, zig-zagging on the roads until we got to McNicol Rd just south of Clevedon. The road slowly got smaller and turned into a pleasant walking track following the Wairoa River. Not too far along the walking track we made camp right next to the flowing water.

Day 42 - Breakfast was so delicious, the best porridge, with some Apricot, Honey and Vanilla Dried Yoghurt Powder, a dash of cinammon and brown sugar. Down the Wairoa River Track it was an easy start. River on your right and wild mint at your feet with only a little goarse!
The track just kinda ended without any warning (we didn't check our progress because the trail was so well trodden and marked) and we walked on road to the Cossey Dam! pretty cool but it's a earth barrier dam so it's not really that impressive, just looks like a hill with water behind it.
We headed up the Wairoa Cosseys Track which was steep plus the humidity and heat, which meant we finished our water. After a great lunch, we carried on to the Suspension Bridge Track. We walked UP the Moumoukai Road. It was hot, and we were out of water and IT WOULDNT STOP GOING UP. But we are simply that tough! A cool guy who suggested alternative routes gave us the rest of his water.
We walked along a bike tack downhill to the Upper Mangatawhiri Dam Campsite to restock water. At the campsite, we had a swim and tried out our Backcountry Cuisine Freeze Dried meal to compare to our normal dinners. We had a photo shoot - a questionable one (to others in the campsite) trying to get a good photo of us using KnottyBoy all-purpose soaps.

Day 43 - We all had very disrupted sleeps, as there was a group of guys in the camp site who got fairly smashed and didn't stop partying until about 4:00 am. Its cool if you have a good time but no one wants to hear banging trance music blasted until 3:00 am!. We set off along the Mangatawhiri track to the next camp site - Lower Mangatawhiri Dam camp site. If we had known how amazing this camp site was we would have tried to have stayed there as there was no drunk, loud guys and there was a rope swing into a lush, fresh river! We had an early break and a quick drip.
It was a really steep walk into the forest and went up to 445 metres which was thick with vines. Exhausted, we finaly got to the top and we were so happy! We had an early lunch because the meths in Landey's bag leaked everywhere! Apart from this it is still really cool to be chilling in a sub tropical rainforest!
We battled the vines and twisting roots which slowed us considerably and our water was running low with no re-fill spots! Thankfully the forest cleared into a pine forest.
The descent out the forest was really fun because it was really steep so it made it interesting when trying to climb down. It was nice to be out of the forest and the next stage of the walk was along a river through some pasture. We re-filled our water bottles in the river however it tasted abit 'Earthy'.
Anders got in contact with a friend of his from school (Sarah Sanderson) who lived in Te Kauwhata and she kindly agreed to pick us up at the end of Lyons road and give us a place to stay for the night!

Being chilled in the Waikato River

Day 44 - We got up at 5am to get a really early start for our longest day so far! Although our sleep was short, we were made an amazing bacon and egg breakfast before being dropped off at the of intersection Koheroa Road and State Highway 2 by Sarah and Jill (Sarah's mother) on their way to work. It was a very pleasant cool morning, perfect for walking towards Meremere, so pleasant infact that We actually overshot our turning and found ourselves in Mercer. Our mistake turned out to be a good one, as we got excellent bacon rolls here at Pokeno Bacon. We also got free multi- award winning cheese from Mercer Cheese (a small local cheese shop). Seriously...this cheese is really really good so we highly recommend it on anyones way through.
The next 4 miles were a very boring along State Highway 1. The track after a while diverts down to the Waikato River through farmland, casually avoiding sheep and cattle, and over pretty swampland. It was a freaking hot day and were drinking so much water, we had been warned that the Waikato was not that good to take water from, it's was pretty murky so we had to start limiting our water intake, not perfect on such a hot day! At lunch we hopped a fence to sit next to the river. All of a sudden DM goes berserk...there are some MASSIVE carp in the river! Anders and Landey had a short power snooze whilst DM climbed some trees. Rested and fed we were back on to the farm track up and down hills along the banks of the Waikato until finally reaching a road. Before starting our final few miles on the road we had a quick dip in the river to cool off...a lot of people dont recommend this but you only live once! We finished the day on a lonesome road into Rangiri where we were picked up by Sarah again and were driven back to Te Kauwhata where we stayed the night again.

Tasty cheese at Mercer Cheese....yes, that is a massive cheese knife

Day 45 - After another early start we were feeling great and the temperature was cool in the shade of the clouds. We were raging, burning rubber down the straight road. Just before Huntly we encountered a massive coal fired powerstation which, had an amazing Maori carving opposite. By elevensies we had covered 11 miles! just under 3 miles an hour which is pretty good going. Not much to look at this day and we spent most of our time talking and listening to Rage Against the Machine, The White Stripes and In Flames.
For lunch we found a little shade from the burning sun underneath a massive eucalyptus tree before finishing off the day with 4 more miles. Another successful day!

Stretch. An old but cool looking barn along the Waikato River

Day 46 - A nice lie in as it was the weekend and Jill and Sarah didn't have to get up at 05:00 to go to work. It was well needed! Sarah cooked us amazing bacon and eggs with home made 'halloumi' in the morning (We really miss this... Thanks Sarah!) We were driven to just outside Turangawaewoe Marae (the largest Marae in NZ and also the King of the Mauri's Marae). We said our good byes to Jill and Sarah and were just about to start walking when Dm realised he forgot his i-pod at the house! They Generously agreed to drop the i-pod off once we were in Hamilton.

Left to Right: Anders, Sarah, Jill, Landey and Damien outside the Turangawaewoe Marae

Unfortunately our packs weighed 20kg each which was a bit of an annoyance as our packs had been lighter. As it happened we walked 3.5 miles in the first hour which meant we were alrady half way to Hamilton! Anders played some White Stripes as we walked and talked so the next hour went quickly. At the Waikato river we followed a path through a park beside the river. It turned out to be a really random day... First, we found a public toilet which had an auto-sliding door and the toilet played lounge music when the door shut! You didn't even have to flush as it was automated. Second, We walked into a wedding ceremony next to the river and said congrats to the Bride. Third, when we were walking past the golf course, 2 golf balls came flying into the forest and came very close to our heads! ... luck was on our side and we survived the golf ball encouter with another funny memory for tasty trek. We walked to a bentch by the river to have lunch. Penut butter and jelly on corn crackers was on the menu with some of Jills delicious x-mas cake. After resting and taking in the sun by the river, randomly 2 nice women who lived in the house behind the bench generously offered us some tea! An offer we couldnt refuse. Instead of tea we actually ended up having rum and a bit of banana cake. The two women are called Marama and Saffron. Marama works for the trade union and Saffron works for greenpeace. We ended up talking for a while as they both have interesting histories. It got late and Marama said it would be fine for us to camp on their lawn for the night. This was better for us because we needed to go into Hamilton to get a Vodem the next day. Marama's friend Louis came over and we had a small party by beating mushrooms and playing scrabble.
So a very random day with epic memories and new friends for tasty trek.

Louis, Marama and Anders hangin on the rocks

Auckland summary

2011-01-02T20:38:00.000Z

Reaching Auckland was a very significant thing for us, it took 6 hours to get up to Cape Reinga and took 31 days to get back! However it really doesn't seem long ago that we were back here all fresh faced and anxious to start our Te Araroa adventure.

Whilst in Auckland we stayed with a good old friend of Anders' in Castor Bay on the North Shore. We had quite a few rest days here in between nights of celebration: Christmas Eve/Day, Ricky's Birthday and New Years Eve/Day. Taking this many rest days, although pleasant, seems to be quite dangerous, it's very easy to fall back into the house living life...complete with soft beds, hot showers and all sorts of comforts. Because of this we are keen to get back onto the trail again, otherwise we're afraid we'll never leave.

For the time we were in Auckland we obviously continued to walk the trail, but every evening we would bus it back to Castor Bay. This was helpful as it meant we always had a place to stay and it meant that we could leave our big packs at home and just take a single day pack for our city excursions.

Day 32 (25/12/10) - Merry Christmas from TastyTrek! Today we had an invite to Waiheke Island to have Christmas lunch with some family friends. The ferry to Waiheke leaves from Devonport, incidentally on our trail, so we thought we take two birds out with one stone and walk from Castor Bay to Devonport then catch the ferry to Waiheke. The walk from Castor Bay, through Milford Beach and down Takapuna Beach is very very nice, the tide was out so we hopped across the rocks and walked along the beach the whole way...along with all the other people taking it easy on Xmas day. At the south end of Takapuna beach we figured we'd miss our ferry if we stuck to the coast, so we opted to take Lake Road into Devonport where we then caught the ferry to Waiheke Island. The rest of the day we spent drinking, eating and being merry on this very excellent Christmas Day.

Day 33 (26/12/10) - Obviously the day after Christmas is an obligatory rest day. We indeed rested hard. When we felt we had enough energy for the day we drove into town to hit the Boxing Day Sales hard and buy a few bits and pieces that we needed. We also stopped off in Papatoetoe where we met with Don Campbell from The Bone Art Place, he showed us some of the literally stunning works of art he had around the house and we chatted for a while, he gave on tips and info on how to carve our own bone and other materials. Here we also picked up our 30 donated bone carvings, that we will be giving out to our most generous charity donors. On the way back home we stopped off at Burgerfuel, an awesome Kiwi burger chain. If you're in Auckland or anywhere that has it, GO THERE AND GET A BURGER!

Day 34 (27/12/10) - Sadly Anders and i received news late the night before that our grandad passed away. This came as a shock to the both of us and so there was a grey haze over the beauty of New Zealand and our adventure. However we have now decided to finish the walk in memory of our grandad, Frank Ford, loved by all. Although we are in mourning, it is his life we are going to celebrate by completing the Te Araroa. In our memories grandad lives on. Later in the day we were kindly dropped off at Long bay by Dave Morton. We walked along the coast at low tide around the head lands and bays. It was a really cool walk as you have to climb over rocks and jump down on to slippery wave cut platforms. There are some amazing geological features, faults, folds, stacks, and intrusions to list a few. There was two rope swings in one bay so we had to stop for a swing, unfortunately it was low tied so we couldnt let go and fall into the water; but we did try run along the sea wall! It was an easy and pleasant walk with beautiful views of the coastline.

Day 35 (28/12/10) - It was Ricky's Birthdays today, unbeknown to us. He kept it very quiet. Thus we had another day of rest and relaxation. And by rest and relaxation i mean we spent forever creating the most delicious quadruple chocolate cake ever. Picture this: (from bottom upwards) Chocolate brownie with chocolate drops, sliced banana with chocolate icing, moist chocolate devils cake all covered with a different chocolate icing. Sooooooo delicious. That night we partied.

Day 36 (29/12/10) - Today, not an intended rest day, was in fact another rest day. The heaviness of yesterdays party had set in. We blobbed out around the house and wrote some blogs in between cleaning up the house. Later in the evening we all went canoeing in the bay, just to get out the house and do something with the day. Whilst DM snorkeled, Anders and Landey attempted to fish at some nearby rocks...with some success ultimately. Landey caught a mackerel and Anders, a small bream...both however managed to flip flop their way out of the plastic bag and back into sea. Later we made tortillas and burritos for dinner.

Day 37 (30/12/10) - After taking an incredibly indirect route on the bus from Castor Bay to Midtown, we started walking through Auckland. A quick stop in a couple of shops to collect some much needed things and we carried on up the hill. Honestly it's not that exciting walking through just another city. However Auckland has amazing hills such as Mt Eden and One Tree Hill which offer spectacular views of the city. Walking up and down the hills was much more pleasant without carrying our packs and all that weight, a simple day pack with some water and some money works just fine through Auckland. Ambling through the city streets we finally climbed our first volcano of the day, Mt Eden. From here you can see all of Auckland, very nice. It's a pleasant 2 miles though, through suburbs and schools and a park before climbing up to the point, One Tree Hill. The park at One Tree Hill is awesome! There are loads of cool trees to climb on and I bet it's an incredibly nice place to relax for a while. But we strolled on to the top, to the obelisk - a monument erected in admiration of the Maori people. Again there are stunning views from the top of this cinder cone and we could see our next destination - Mangere Bridge. We were starving by the time we reached the bottom of the hill and went in search of a place to eat. After an hour or so of slowly wandering (in the right direction) in search of food, we stumbled upon a Pak n Save! hurray! a cheap awesome lunch. Then more suburbs and a little industry we hit the bridge and had a nice coastal walk to Ambry Park, thankfully there was a lot of nice grass where we could sit and chill until Dave came to pick us up (Thanks Again!) The end of another great day.

Day 38 (31/12/10) - The plan for today was to kayak from Castor Bay out to Rangitoto, climb it and kayak back home again. We wanted to do this because we figured the walk around the airport wouldn't be very exciting. If we could get those miles doing something else (more exciting, like climbing a volcano) then we could skip out the airport walk and begin from Papatoetoe next time. Great plan we thought. Didn't pan out that way though. There were 3 of us and all we had were 2 pretty old single person kayaks with the oar missing from one of them. There were also quite strong southerlies that didnt help the situation. After paddling HARD for 15 mins and getting nowhere we accepted defeat and decided going to Rangitoto was a foolish idea. So we went fishing and snorkeling again in the bay. Tonight being New Years Eve meant we had an almighty party at the house. Before we all got too carried away witt he party, Anders did his best to give Landey a mohawk. Now he looks totally badass. I think we partied hard till about 04.00 and then crashed out on the sofa.

Day 39 (01/01/11) - Today failed sooo hard. Most of us didnt really start moving until about 16.00 and slow moving at most. Not much could be done today, a few blogs were written but that's all.

Day 40 (02/01/11) - Things needed to get done today, we had to restock and resupply and repack our bags in preparation for starting back on the trail unsupported again. We drove to Pak-n-Save to get the food we needed that we divided up and packed up. Lots of little jobs were finished, like finishing blogs, writing letters, cleaning the house among other small things. We are now ready to get going tomorrow, back onto the Te Araroa trail.

Auckland was A LOT of fun, it would be nice to stay longer and just hangout, but we have a mission to do. To finish the trail. We're very excited to be back on the road again and greatly looking forward to things ahead. Things we're looking forward to most are the Tongariro Crossing and canoeing down the Whanganui River. Bring it on Te Araroa!

Gifts to charity donors

2011-01-02T11:33:00.002Z

In our efforts to try to maximise the amount of money we can raise for charity, TastyTrek have teamed up. Don Campbell of the The Bone Art Place has gifted TastyTrek with 30 assorted bone and mother of pearl carvings that we intend to give out to our most generous charity donors. We will be gifting these carvings to donors at the end of our trek as a thank you for helping us reach our charity goal.

The carvings themselves are heavily derived from Maori culture and symbolism and are all handmade by local kiwi artists. They truly are works of art in themselves and must be seen and felt to be truly appreciated.

After meeting with Don, seeing the carvings and learning more about their significance and the pressures put on the industry through cheap, machine made bone stamps (often with designs ripped off these artists) we are very proud to be supported by and to be supporting The Bone Art Place.

TastyTrek with Don Campbell

Whangarei to Auckland

2011-01-02T00:58:00.003Z

FINALLY! We made it to Auckland! And 5 days ahead of schedule! We tore ass across New Zealand to get here in time for Christmas. We are really excited to be in Auckland for a bit of rest and relaxsation. We have successfully completed the forth leg of our epic trip, our feet are sore and it's nice to sleep past 7.00am and not have to get up and eat porridge. In addition we are very excited about what the trail has to offer next.

Day 26- We left at 11.00 because we knew a river crossing was coming up on the beach and low tide is 11.30ish. After saying goodbye, Robyn drove us to the beach. It was a quick walk to the river and it was only knee deep, so we crossed it with ease. It didnt take long to get to Waipu where we went staight away to find the Waipu Wanderers BBH Backpackers. The hostel is owned by Steve and Elain a very nice and welcoming couple who moved to New Zealand 15 years ago from the UK. We wanted to help out and collectivly we wash down the grime from the side of the house. Dinner was amazing! Add a little wine, a bit of herbs du provence and a block of budget cheese and you have a gormet cheese fondue! Using an old fondue pot we found in the house, we ate this with lots of toast and lamb and rosemary sausages! For dessert we had citrus fruit salad containing oranges, sweet lemons, sour lemons (the danger lemons) and grapefruit. Delicious!

FONDUE!

Day 27- In the morning we weighed our packs and decided we should lighten them in Auckland. A whole day of road walking, because the Brynderwyn Walkway and the Bream Trail Head were dangerous in the rain or after rain. Apon arriving in Mangawhai village we found out Mangawhai Head was 7km further. At Mangawhai Village we stayed with Sherrill and Murray. Cool little story - Landey got an email from his dad (in Ecuador) who met a nice Kiwi who happened to have parents who lived in Mangawhai Village who were happy to put us up, and it just so happened that we were heading that way today! Sherrill and Murray were incredibly nice and gave us a place to sleep, a shower and an amazing home-cooked meal. Good thing too, we were exhausted!

Tasty Trek with Murray

Day 28- Murray gave us a lift back to where we detoured and we began walking along a dirt road (black swamp rd) to the beach. Nice onshore breezes and we could see where we were going so progress was fast. We climbed Eyers Head which offered awesome views of the beaches. The decent however was steep, and slippy; but so fun! Back on the second stretch of beach we found a couple of logs and stuck them straight up in the sand - Dm informed us that this is called ephemeral art (art with a lifespan) so we took a couple pictures to imortalize them! Later we came to the Pakiri Beach Campsite were we waded through the river to the campsite. A short day. After setting the tents we took off for the beach for a swim in the Pacific. When returning to the camp site we found an enormous 9 foot log we stuck upright in the sand and made it look awesome. See the pictures, it looked like a skeleton hand punching through the ground.

Eyers Head

Day 29- Nice views of the mountains as we walk along the road. But the walk up the mountain is steep, 15 minutes in we were exhausted, sweaty and tired in the middle of the cow field. One bonus is that it offers spectacular views of the coast, kinda cool that you could see where you came from the previous day. Up we climbed to the Te Hikoi O Te Kiri track opened by Sir Edmund Hillary in 2001. This track was not too steep, awesome views, jungle, farmland and a little bit of scrambling, a little slippery in places as well. The track opened up onto the Tamahunga with a little helipad and a trig point. Perfect weather! The walk down was fine but the walk to Matakana along the raod was very dodgy! Once in Matakana we decided ti stay there in a park reserve ontop of a table. At least it was out the way!

Day 30- Sleeping on the kauri table on the pier in Matakana was suprisingly comfortable. A BIG day, about 19.5 miles, so we set off sharpishly after refilling water bottles at the Matakana Toilets. A short 5miles to Warkworth. In Warkworth we refilled some supplies at a handy wholesalers before chilling out with some peanut butter and jam sandwiches. We stopped for lunch on the side of the Moirs Hill track on a little patch of grass and we rested. Already we had come 10 miles! Refreshed and recharged we pushed on upto Moir Hill. The top of Moir Hill gave some beautiful views back northwards. The next rough track from here was only short and we finished up on Ahuroa Road which we followed all the way into Puhoi. In Puhoi we went straight to Puhoi Pub where we sat in the pleasant evening sun, drank some beers and ate chips.We stapled a TastyTrek card to the inside of the pub. It was then that the pub owner approached us and told us of a gentleman sitting outside who regularly took in backpackers. We chatted to the man who turned out to be Campbell the vetinarian. After chatting for a while we all pilled into Campbell's truck and drove to his. His house is awesome (complete with views of rising and setting suns) he made us a delicious dinner with plenty of beer and we chatted for a long time before settling into our beds for the night.

Day 31- We got a lift with Campbell back into Puhoi. He dropped us next to the church and we said our goodbyes. We had planned to canoe down the Puhoi River to Wenderholm Regional Park. However at $50 per person, this was out of our budget. So instead we were left with 4 miles of State Highway 1 and 17. It didn't take us long before we were in Waiwera, we took a break hear and bought some ice creams next to the bay at a huge wooden table. It was at this point Anders' world changed! The Cornetto Caramel Cookie Crumble ice cream is litterally the greatest ice cream ever mass produced at a reasonable price! At least thats what Anders thought...seriously he wouldn't stop going on about it! The rest of the coastal walk from Waiwera to the southern end of Orewa beach was lovely and chilled out and very pretty too. Pohutukawas were in full bloom and the sea was a brilliant blue. We stopped for lunch at Orewa beach. The next obstacle in our way for the day was the crossing of the Karepiro Bay. Te Araroa provided phone numbers for two sailing clubs and a Te Araroa supporter who were located in Whangaparaoa that may be able to ferry us across; however due to christmas being the day after no one was answering the phones, this meant we had to divert our route and skip out the Whangaparaoa Peninsula altogether and condemn ourselves to State Highway 17 again. A few hours later and we left the highway to take the East Coast Road. Our plan for the day was to get as close to Castor Bay as possible and by the time we got Redvale we decided we had had enough. Although we were only about 8 miles from Castor Bay it was now 16.00 and we had already done 16.5 miles. We were picked up by Dave Morton who drove us to Castor Bay where we will predominately stay until after New Years.

What have we learned since last time?
1. Most Kiwis we have met along the way have agreed that New Zealand has a drinking problem especially in the form of drink driving. So what does that mean for us and other trampers? It means stay clear of the roads at night and do not think of walking on them, especially out in the countryside.

2. You will need gaiters or something that will keep your feet from getting wet after it's rained. I know, very basic, but we neglected them because we were sure we could do without them...but 3 days of wet feet does hell for them. Blisters galore!

3. Human kindness should be apprechiated a whole lot more. We have met so many people along the way that have gone above and beyond to help us, either giving us shelter, food, water or advice. In our experience almost all Kiwis (except the angry lady on the beach) we have met have been very willing to help us. Our advice to other trampers: Don't be afraid to ask for help, it is more than likely they will be very excited to hear about what you are doing and help you in some way.

Kerikeri to Whangarei

2011-01-01T23:41:00.003Z

The third leg for us was manly spent on the pretty coastline unfortunately

Day 18 - The day started with iced coffee instead of milk with CEREAL! taste! feeling good, and its a baking hot day. So we started walking again. In anticipation of making it to Russell, the place we left 18 days ago, the place that took around 3 hours to drive to Cape Reinga from. We decided to take a little shortcut along a side road to get back to the official trail and as we were walking along a car pulled up with the Argentinians that we met on 90 Mile Beach! epic! and the funny thing is, they took a wrong turn too! how awesome is that. Hopefully we will see them again. Just before Paihia we stopped at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, the site where the Waitangi Treaty was signed between the Maori and British peoples on February 6th 1840. Unfortunately we had a ferry to catch so we pushed on into town, beautiful place though. Some Speights and some fish and chips go a long way after a full day of hiking, and although it didn't feel that far we were actually pretty tired, as per usual. Nice to have a roof over our heads again (Thanks Geoff and Jane), slept well not surprisingly.

Day 19 - We aimed to walk 18 miles today, the furthest yet. It transpired though that no one took the initiative to motivate everyone to leave and we took another rest day. We did a lot though, spent most of the time uploading blogs and adding bits to the website etc. Landey also spent some time on excel making a budget table which will help us keep track of our money to make sure we dont spend too much, and the same thing goes for the miles walked - We've walked 8.43 miles per day since we left and we need to walk 11.25 so we are a little behind but dont worry about that... we arent!
For dinner we treated ourselves, and Geoff and Jane, to dinner at the Duke or Marlborough. As Jane mentioned this really is a place that needs to be visited if you are in Russell. Not just because it is the oldest pub in New Zealand or that it's under new management and has been totally refurbished but because the food is delicious and it offers amazing beach front views. It's also a hotel if you need somewhere to stay. Needless to say it was a totally awesome night.

Day 20 - After saying our goodbyes to Jane and Geoff we left Russell swiftly. We had a slow walking start, probably due to our two days of rest, but we had no aches or pains. As we came from Russell we skipped the Paihia-Opua coastal walkway and met the trail again over the further up from Okiato. The road walk was pretty mundane, passing mangroves and oyster farms along the way but we finally started making good speed. In fact Landey was so in the zone (listening to some In Flames on his Ipod no doubt) he blazed right past the gravel road turn off of the Russell-Whakapara Rd. We even managed to walk 13 miles before 1pm which in our books so far is awesome! Damn we're good! haha.

The forest however is more difficult and it killed our pace and our stamina upon reaching the summit of Te Ranga sooo steep and soooo humid. The triangulation point was cool though, huge views (you could see Russell!) until the clouds moved in and, AND, Anders spotted a Geocache (the treasure hunt game played by GPS users worldwide). Unfortunately, the kids who found it last didn't leave us any presents. But we aren't ones to spoil the fun (and we are all having fun, a lot) so we left Landey's harmonica. Hopefully someone will be overjoyed to find a musical instrument for them in the Russell Forest! (it should be in working order too - we double bagged it to make sure!). Anyway, the still air in the forest and the 100% humidity meant that we were getting really hot and I (Landey) couldn't see. So we stopped whilst I dug around for my contacts and put away my glasses (such a pain in the forest). Got to our stop for the night though (the hut at the Papakauri stream) 18 miles YEEEHAA. Then it started raining again.

Day 21 - We tried something different for breakfast this time, Porridge with cinnamon and sugar - WAY WAY BETTER! We will be using this from now on. It was raining again so after a quick look at the maps (the next section is really steep and Nicky, Cookie and the girls mentioned that there were landslides (we think)) we decided to turn around and take the road - better safe than sorry. The road to Oakura was fast, made good time but we were getting sore. The dairy were we were meant to be eating lunch turned out to be a little further than the turn off which angered us, but after eating a bit more couscous on the side of the road we were ok again. Anders and DM napped and Landey did some more doodleing. Started raining hard after lunch on our way into Helena Bay (our scheduled stop) so our Eagle Creek raincovers went on for the first time (pretty quick and snazzy - they pull out from the bottom in a hidden pouch) and we were waterproof!

NO CAMPING - what is this?! apparently you can't camp at these coastal scenic reserves... we aren't used to this - it seemed that in NZ you can camp anywhere. After a group meeting - "should we ask someone or carry on." "carry on." "I think we should carry on." "Ok lets carry on." "Just to the next bay." "Cool beans." we carried on to Teal Bay which offered amazing views of the turquoise water next to the scenic reserve which had NO CAMPING. Dammit. Landey asked some people who said that it should be ok considering it was raining and there are 8 full-time residents! Set up our tent under a Pohutukawa tree and went for a swim. Awesome. Everything is wet though.

Day 22 - Northland Finished! AND 10 days to Christmas. sweet. Rained all night though so everything was wet making it very hard to get out of our tents. The sun came out and burnt off the clouds though so we could walk in comfort to the top of the hill before heading back down to the beach. Pretty uneventful dirt roads, maybe a few cows wandering around on the road but mostly boring until we got to the Mimiwhangata Coastal Walk. Getting onto the beach was uplifting, thankfully it is completely different to 90 Mile Beach - it's more like a stereotypical Caribbean beach. A pleasure to walk on needless to say. So nice in fact that we took an extra long lunch break - 1.5 hrs. We climbed around onto a rock headland and then swam back to our base through a sheltered inlet. After lunch we got back to walking following Cookie's alternate route along the beach until we came to a small track up a hill. A small, old woman was sitting on her porch. As we approached Landey said Hi to which she replied "you know you aren't on DOC land." We weren't too prepared for this kind of response but we eventually turned back to the beach which anyone can be on. From the beach we decided what to do. If we were forced to walk back it would make for a really long day - a 16 miles detour. So we werent about to do that and we didnt want to chance running past the lady in case she had a gun or something. So we walked around the headland, but with the tide coming in it was becoming more and more dangerous. No problem though. On the other side we met an awesome guy who let us walk up his drive to the road. Moods lifted again as we had beaten the mean lady we made good time uneventfully to Motutara Farm Campsite. This campsite is incredible. Helen Barron was really nice and even gifted us a block of cheese since the Whananaki store was shut. We had loads of space to pitch our tents and an amazing view of the sea. In fact we were essentially right on the beach but with nice green grass without sand flies or spiky things! Anyway this was probably the best campsite we've been to so far. Relaxed and recharged we were ready for day 23!

Day 23 - Super happy to get up early knowing we were going to see an awesome sunrise. No dice Jim Rice. It was overcast but we were up and ready to go in record time. We figured we could get loads of miles behind us before lunch so we started at pace. But then the rain started and we were soaked through. Due to the rain we couldn't wade the estuary and we had to cross the longest footbridge in the southern hemisphere - the Whananaki footbridge. Oh joy! can't wait. Seriously though we want to do it but just as we got there it started pouring and well it's just a long wooden bridge, I guess it's a lot cooler in the sun. Anyway the disappointment continued as we got lost. The markers just disappeared as we walked through long grass in the rain after the turn off from the road. Climbing up and down through the soaking wet grass got our boots filled with water but eventually we found the track. Happy to be going the right way again but pissed that we are soaking wet again we actually made good time to Sandy Bay and on to Matapouri where we finally stopped for lunch outside the town store. Best lunch yet - sat in the parking lot under the concrete shade and ate chilli beans with bread and cheese! with afgan cookies for desert. More damn road. All the way through Tutukaka and on to Ngunguru. We dried out a little on our way down with the break in the clouds and found our selves in this awesome little town searching for the kayak guy Cookie had mentioned in his map. Then our story got awesome! I won't tell the whole story but basically there aren't any campsites in Ngunguru any more and we were at a loss to find a place we could pitch our tent when Roger Jones came to the rescue. One of the most generous people we've met so far Roger went out of his way to help us find a place to sleep, and then, invited us to dinner! and he is a well decorated chef from the UK! AMAZING. Thanks so much Roger and Amanda, and thank you to Miela and Ross for letting us camp in their field.

Day 24 - We cheated again, a little. Roger said that the road around the estuary is boring and dangerous and he offered us a lift to the start of the next track. Thanks again! So we started at the Mackerel Forest track which began with so much promise. There was a wide track which started quickly until we got lost again! Dammit. When you cross the river don't follow the track. Turn left instead of right along the unkemptPatua where we stayed at Treasure Island Campsite. Arrived early and we set up in their TV room to dry out our stuff. Then the rain got heavy - thankfully we were inside so not getting soaked tonight! although our tents are keeping us dry most of the time. On top of that we had bacon! YES!

Day 25 - When we woke up it was pouring with rain. There was thunder and lightning, in fact so much thunder that the roof was shaking. We had another group meeting and mutually decided that it was too dangerous to start walking at least until it cleared up! hurray! Luckily though it cleared up and we could start walking. We also rerouted our path along roads to Parua Bay skipping out the coastline which wouldn't be that exciting with all the rain. Walking to Parua Bay would mean that we could meet up with Robyn and Judith East - Anders and Damien's second cousins. The road again was boring but quick and we made good time even in the rain. Easily into Parua but Parua is NOT the same as Parua Bay! ARGH 3 more miles over a hill when you think that you've reached your destination is hard. At Parua Bay we ate some chips from the Springtides Cafe Whangarei - awesome! and then beer! what a great day. Robyn drove us into Whangarei so Anders could get new boots! DM and I bought gaiters as well so now we have more gear to carry! Back in Onerahi we finished out 3rd section of the walk with a home cooked roast dinner! thank you so much Robyn and Judith!

This section is pretty populated and full of little townships so you needn't carry too much food, as for water, it is bountiful so don't stress too much about it

Ahipara to Kerikeri

2010-12-18T09:15:00.002Z

And so the second leg of our epic Te Araroa journey is complete. We were all very happy to finally be off the beach and very excited with the prospects of seeing some of the other flora and fauna (appart from sand and shellfish) that New Zealand has hiding in the deep, dark, dense bush.

Day 9 - After a very late start at the Ahipara YHA with our fully restocked backpacks we set off toward Ahipara center and toward the Herekino Forest. We found restocking in Ahipara was satisfactory for the next leg to Kerikeri. The store has many assorted dried items and methylated spirits can be bought from BIDZ (takeaway/store/fish and tackle). The road walk to the beginnning of the Herikino Forest is a little boring but nessesary. Being in the forest is refreshing and fun...the first 15 minutes in the Herekino, however, is neither. It is steep and ehausting. Having left late we didnt get far before setting up a cozy little camp, complete with dead leaf cushioned flooring :) It's exciting being in the forest, eerily quite, that is until it gets really dark, then it just seems to come alive! We lay there that night just listening.

Day 10 - Had a lot of fun walking the rst of the way through the Herekino Forest. The forest has some really awesome kauri trees (well we thought so anyway...possibly because we had spent the last week on a beach where the trees are non-existant or small). It wasn't long before we had finished the forest and were onto the next track of the day, the Takahue Connection track. This was a pleasant track that took us through some nice forestry sections, apparently owned by The Crown. Upon reaching the road again a man, a car and his dog were noisily trying to guide some escapee cows back home. We chatted to him for a bit and he bid us farewell on our way towards Takahue. The road section was quite boring but it wasn't very long till we reached Takahue Hall, the end of the Takahue Connection. There is not a lot in Takahue. A man called Timothy (a hippy, possum catcher and sustainable builder) with Jah the dog, pulled up and offered us a place to camp for the night, only 5km down the road and incidentaly along the track we needed to take tomorrow. He was a little excentric but very nice, he shared what he could and was a great story teller. We learnt a lt aboput possums that night...but not before shooting some arrows with his composite bow and drinking some nice bourbon & colas. Best thing to hapen that day: Timothy gifted us a mini crossbow to help us with our own possum catching! AWESOME!

Day 11 - We left lateish that morning accompanied with Timothy, his rifle and Jah. He wanted to come part of the way to catch some rabbit for us (he was was a nice guy). After missing a few rabbits we finally parted ways. Him back home and us into the Raetea Forest. This is when it got HARD. Along with it being very steep for the first few miles it is also very very dense. The floor is a mat of tripping roots, there are choking vines hanging everywhere and it's very very muddy. This was one of the low points of our journey so far. Even when we finally reached its peak (and peak exhaustion) our only views were totally obscured by cloud. Wonderful. On top of that the weather started to worsen so we quickly decided to make camp on the trail (because nowhere else is clear or flat enough!). We ended the day in sour moods.

Day 12 - As soon as we could we broke camp and hot footed it out of the Raetea Forest ('See ya...hope i see you never!'). The walk out was thankfully quite tame and it wasn't long before reaching Mangamuka Gorge Rd. Along this road there is the Mangamuka Gorge Picnic Area, this is a place that anyone on the Te Araroa should either goto or even camp at. It is really really nice! We rested, made lunch here, washed and played in the stream(s) and tested out our new toy (the crossbow!). 3 hours went by much too quickly and we finished the rest of the mundane walk to Mangamuka Bridge. First things first: a cold Speights at the pub. Second things second: three more than delicious burgers and chips at the Mangamuka Bridge Store (this is my second recomondation to anyone on the Te Araroa. Go get a burger here. It will brighten ANY day). Some people have said that this is a poor resupply point, but we found it satisfactory, at least enough to get to Kerikeri (3 days away). It was getting dark and we ad no where to stay yet. We walked up a hill and ended up camping in a road margin hidden by some trees.

Day 13 - We woke up early and left our camp before having breakfast just in case we hadn't actually been allowed to camp where we did. Further along the road we stopped for breakfast. Recharged and full of porridge we blazed a trail of dust and rubble as we made record pace along the road. What a great day! That is until we sat down for a water break, broke out the good ol' GPS and 'What do you mean we're NOT ON THE MAP?!' That's right, we burned rubber 5 miles down the wrong road and off our map. Worst day ever! Only thing to do was to go back. It turns out that we had actually missed the road we needed (Omahuta Forest Rd) th night before when looking for a campsite. After not scoring a hitch we were back in Mangamuka Bridge, severely demoralised. We need more burgers. So back to Mangamuka Bridge Store we went and more delicious burgers we did eat. At least we felt a little bit better. We chatted to the owner (Tye) and told him our story. He found it quite amusing but then offered us a lift to where we would have been, had we taken the right road (i dont think that's cheating...do you?). He drove us into the Omahuta Forest and dropped us just before the Kauri Sactuary. The day had been saved and we were back on track. After having done a 10 mile detour we didn't walk for much longer before stopping at the Apple Dam campsite. A nice campsite with a small lake and nice clean water but also the scariest toilets.

Day 14 - After a relaxed start we continued along the track that took us into the Omahuta Forest. The trail soon started thickening with tall cutting grasses (that hurt like hell!) until we came to a logging skid, this is where we lost the trail. It's very very dense here and there aren't any orange markers to help you. We HIGHLY recommend having a GPS for this section, you will use it often, it is very easy to stray from the track. After busting out our GPS, finding where we were and checking which direction the Mangapukahukaha Stream was in, we were off...straight down the face of the gorge. For 30 mins we hacked and pushed and fell down the gorge towards the stream but we did finally get there. The track then followed down stream until we came to Waipapa River. The river being quite wide and deep left us only one option, to swim. We took our packs off and bagged all our belongings to make them as waterproof as possible then waded in. A little chilly but very fun. And the packs do actually float very well. On the othe side we lit a small fire to dry ourselves and eat snacks then continued on the trail along the Waipapa River Track. This track is a lot of fun but actually quite challenging with a steep left hand slant the whole way. Shortly we stopped for the day on a pebbled stream. Before bed we lit a fire andsmothered it with pebbles to make a hot rock bed, we used this to dry some of our clothes and boots over night.

Day 15 - Worst morning ever! Woke up to find that our hot rock clothes/boots drying bed had infact singed a bunch of our clothes and infact burned a huge hole in the side of Anders' walking boots (he is so so angry :D), he will have to buy some in Kerikeri. The rest of the day was spent finishing the Puketi Forest along the Pukatea Ridge Route that dropped us off at the Puketi Forest DOC Hut. A short detour was made enroute a short distance along the unmaintained Takapau track to see a huge 40m tall Kauri simply called 'Takapau No.2'. At the hut we were geeted by a school trip load of children (really the last thing you want at the end of a long day). To finish the day we each carved some wood and ate a very very bland dinner.

Day 16 - To date today was our longest day, 15 miles (I know not a huge distance...but hey! were still training!). We left Puketi Hut earlyish and made super-fast-pace toward Kerikeri at about 4mph! and had covered about 8 miles before having lunch. Lunch was forced on us more than anything else due to us coming across a sign reading "Chicken and Duck eggs for sale" we stopped and bought 15 eggs for $4.50! from a nice old lady and went straight to eating lunch. You better believe we ate those eggs. We mixed them in with some noodles and boiled some others, whatever we didnt eat we saved for breakfast the next day. For the rest of the day we followed the very pleasant Kerikeri River track (although quite short and not challenging at all it is actually one of our favourite tracks...it was just very calming and a joy to walk). Before reaching Kerikeri we took a short but awesome detour under the Rainbow Waterfall. Recomended, but beware it's very slippery, we took our shoes off. In town we stayed at Aranga Backpackers before storming the town for some dinner. To our good fortune we found the 'Asian & Kiwi Buffet' ($17 ALL YOU CAN EAT!) If you are in Kerikeri and are hungry...GO HERE!

Day 17 - Today was our long awaited rest day where at camp we washed clothes, blogged, hung out, emailed, phone called and such. Later on we went into Kerikeri. Here we got some business cards made (which we're very excited about (designed by Damienmarc)), re-supplied at the supermarket. Verdict: Kerikeri is a very excellent re-supply point. We also bought some bolts for the crossbow and enquired about new boots for Anders. He decided not to get any in the end and wait till Auckland. Back to the camp again and we spent the rest of the nice sunny day hanging around on the grass and swinging on the rope swing over the river. Again this is campsite that we definately recommend.

So after our second leg, what did we learn?

1.You NEED a GPS to do the Te Araroa. You will use it more often than you think. And check your map often to avoid 10 mile detours in the wrong direction :)

2. If you get lost and can't find the next trail marker. Go back to the last one and double check which direction it is pointing. If you DO get seriously lost in the bush up here. Don't worry! Walk in one direction and you will eventually reach a road or a village. This piece of info was given to us by a local in the area. I tend to believe him.

3. Carry quite a bit of cash with you on this section. There aren't any cash machines and many shops won't take cards.

4. Try your hand at collecting bush food. There is soo much to get from the NZ bush. Big grubs in decaying logs, eels from most streams and lots of wild animals like possums and pigs. Ask any locals about hunting in the bush and he/she will usually be very keen on divulging information.

For this section we used with 15.3kg of food between the 3 of us (including what we had leftover from 90 Mile Beach and including the few things extra we bought in Mangamuka Bridge) and we had completely ran out by the time we reached Kerikeri. Perfect. In terms of water, there is plenty along this route, so there is no great need to carry lots with you.

90 Mile Beach Summary

2010-12-01T22:39:00.000Z

We all set out with high hopes and spirits ready to tackle arguably one of the most difficult sections of the trail. No long distance hiking experience, unfit from summer deskjobs and heavy packs... couldn't wait. After Abe Witana dropped us off at Cape Reinga we walked down to the Lighthouse. Signposted along the way were tid bits of Maori religious beliefs and customs, which we had already read about, however being there hightens its significance. The coolest thing, in my honest opinion, was the lone Pahutakauwi tree that grows out of the hillside at the point. This tree, unlike all the other Pahutakauwis, doesnt bloom in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Quite poinent no?

Back to walking. Day one. Pumped up on excitement of things to come, went pretty quickly to begin with then Herangi Hill. In retrospect, not that big but considering we over estimated the food allowance are bags weighed around 25kgs which is a bit too much, anyway the hill tired us out mostly because walking on soft sand is, ironically, very hard. Camp 1 was awesome and we slept well.

Day two. Realized we used too much water on Day 1 (5 of 8 ltrs). Ate some taste porridge and walked on to Te Paki to refill our water bottles. More beach. Still excited though. Dinner was awesome. Tuatua (shellfish) are delicious and Anders nearly blew himself up with methylated spirits (if by blew himself up you mean singed the hair on his arm). Our amazing TarpTent fell down (pegs don't hold well in the sand) and our 2C hats lit up the ground to put it back up. Getting sore and a couple of blisters but so far so good.

Day three. The beach is boring. Very hard walking now, quite sore, feet hurt, nothing to look at. Busted on the ipods and walked super fast (3+ mph) and ended up at The Bluff (not Bluff!) super exhausted. Nice Oriental guy brought us BEER! and FISH! YES. moods lifted and we made camp and slept amazingly well.

Day four. Packs are light as a feather after that sleep. Kudos to the LuxuryLite sleeping bags for being sooo comfy. Ran out of water pretty quickly though and the aches and pains returned along with the crushing weight of the backpacks (the EagleCreek Truist 65ltr packs have soo many features, still trying to get a good handle on customizing it to our backs for maximum comfort but getting there, also super easy to pack each morning). Nice oriental guy gave us some apples and crisps to have for lunch so that was a good pick-me-up. Met some Argentinian guys and a French girl at lunch and chatted to them for a bit. They were walking with flipflops or barefoot and had no blisters! We thought we would try it... but thats when the problems began for Landey. After walking an hour or so without boots his Achillies tendon started to feel sore and we were becoming weary from the lack of water. We ended up stopping short of Utea Park campsite which we knew had water.

Day five. Short, hard, walk to Utea Park. Getting there though was amazing! lots of water, comfy sofas and lots of nice grass to pitch our tents. Just an awesome place! Paul and Tania (the owners) are really awesome as well. They run the whole campsite by Koha (donation) and have operated the site for nearly a year now. Truely a godsend after that brutal stretch of partched beach. Days are starting to run together.

Day six. 11 mile walk seems daunting, dont want to get out of bed. Talked about all sorts on the beach and before we knew it we were at Waipapakauri in a deserted campsite. Not too fond of this campsite. Nothing here, and a little bit expensive considering what it is. But there is water! and internet and television, wasnt really expecting that. Feeling very very sore now. Lots of blisters and walking is tough.

Day seven. 9.5 miles to Ahipara. Late start. Boring walk. Went quickly in the morning and slowly in the afternoon, this seems to be the trend.
That's week one done and the first track under our belt, feeling stronger for it and ready to take on the forest, after a rest day though!

90 Mile Beach is hard, not much water, better to come prepared and ready to do it in 4 or 5 days, a week was too long, but considering our experience a good warm up and baptism by fire. Note: From Te Paki to Utea Park there is little to no drinkable water.

We carried 20.48 kgs of food and used ~15kgs of drinking water over this section. (we are going to put up a spreadsheet of the food we use on the planning page soon). This was too much food to carry for this first bit, we had about 4.5 kilos left over food (mainly cous cous and porridge) so we would suggest taking less. A 1.5kg bag of porridge will probably last 10 days...and that's coming from 3 strapping hungry men! In terms of water we each carried about 3 litres. This is probably not enough. Although carrying more is heavy, it will probably be worth it. Also some of the streams on 90 Mile Beach in summer time ARE dried up or are pretty manky, we would also recommend using purification tablets and/or boiling the water should you need to get water from said manky streams.

Herekino Forest here we come!

Russell Onwards

2010-11-29T20:51:00.000Z

Ricky Morton gave us a lift into Auckland in the morning with no complications, like pile-ups etc! After walking around to try and find a few last minute things, we had a kebab and headed down to catch the bus to Paihia. The Naked bus arrived! Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you see it, no one was naked. 3 and a half hours later we were in Paihia waiting for the ferry to arrive. Our personal shuttle (no one else was there) to Russell arrived and we paid $21 (~£10 pounds) to cross. An awesome sunset and moon lit our way across the water where we were met by Jane and Jeff Hindle. Back at their awesome house (complete with half built yacht in the yard) we were given free reign of the downstairs guest house. After a delicious dinner of sausages and potato salad, we all crashed out on the floor (beds were available but we thought we’d try and get used to the sleeping on the ground).

The next day we milled around in the morning, mainly doing website things and building beer can stoves out of cans of Speights (Anders’ new favorite beer!). After breakfast we thought we’d give our legs a stretch on a short walk. We walked down into Russell to get some food for the day then continued on to Long Beach. We ate our lunch on some rocks, in the audience of 20 or so really annoying seagulls and then attempted to fish for whatever we could catch. After not catching anything we went exploring. All the way along Long Beach, around the headland, over more rocks, along another small beach and finally up some small track at the back of the beach. We didn’t really know where it would take us but the sun was up and the weather looked good, so we didn’t fear. And BEHOLD what it provided!

After an early start on the 23^rd, if by early you mean 8am, we wandered down to the wharf where a Tall ship was waiting. If you don’t know what a tall ship is, it’s a pirate ship.

This particular Tall ship is called the R. Tucker Thompson and it is run under a charitable trust, taking tourists out for day sails to pay for berthing costs and in the winter months running week-long leadership and teambuilding cruises for less fortunate children. Greeting us was Tom (the first mate) a legend hailing from Canada who fell in love with Tall ships after climbing around on the rigging a couple of years back. Skipper Beast, destined to be a farmer turned to boat building and then discovered that he could get paid for sailing Tall ships, a lifestyle choice that is serving him well. Both awesome guys that handle the ship well and gave us a great day out, jumping from the rigging, swimming to shore and handling the ropes. Gotta say that this is a wicked thing to do if you’re around Russell, we just had the best day!

Jane became even more awesome by driving us all the way… to Kaitaia, which definitely had a Pak-N-Save. Tank I need food, lots of food. After shopping we were introduced to Jane’s friend Bronwyn Hunt (a regional counselor for Northland) which was cool. Re-structuring our backpacks to handle so much taste took a while and just as we finished Abe Witana pulled in. We threw our backpacks in the trunk said thank you to Jane and Abe drove us Northward. We were all pretty excited to talk to Abe because he was the first Maori that we had the time to get to know and from what we heard he knew. Abe has an amazing knowledge of bushcraft and tucker, of which we absorbed as much as we could. Saying bye to Abe at the Cape was pretty crazy, we were now ‘unsupported’ – everything is carried by us. Lucky we are more prepared than some kitted out with great gear from our sponsors which up until this point we haven’t really used.

A quick chicken later and we walked down to the Lighthouse. It was getting late and as we walked down it began to hit home that we were walking 1800 miles and are packs are HEAVY. (Landey) "I think we took way too much food but Anders insisted on butter etc. needless!" An inaccurate estimation put our packs at around 25kgs. Lots of spiritual-ness on the Cape which we paid more attention to this time, which has nothing to do with our walk but was awesome to learn a bit about Maori’s religious beliefs (the Cape is protected land because that is where the Maori dead enter the afterlife, there is also a Pohutukawa tree that never blooms). Anyway got a picture of the Signpost and we took off towards Bluff… TASTY TREK GO!

Kia Ora!

2010-11-20T21:19:00.135Z

First off we apologize for not writing in ages, but we've been so busy that there has been no time to write.
Secondly let me tell you the purpose of this blog. We have re-thought our ideas for the website, and this blog is going to have shorter, day-based, entries whilst the interactive map will have more points designed to pin point points of interest and longer, track based posts. Having said that I think we'll just write whatever and see what happens (i think we all are starting to feel that loads of videos and pictures are a better way to tell our stories).

Soooo. Auckland.
Oh and I forgot to say that we are going to try and write our blogs as close to how we would say it as possible, in an effort to make it less dull. So there will be bits of our slang mixed in, but we have done our best to remove any swearing or potentially offensive words (if taken the wrong way).

What has happened? Saxon Tint and Caia Dominicus drove Anders and I to the airport where we got on a ridiculously long flight. 25 hours flying and we are in Auckland. Chilled on the grass in the parking lot for 5 hours and met up with DM, who flew from Dubai via Singapore. Unfortunately he had a gruelling 14 hour wait in the airport before continuing onto Auckland.

Ricky Morton (old friend of the Fords) showed up and drove us to his house in Castor Bay, which is sickness. Quick trip to the supermarket and we were eating some choice cuts and let me tell you, Stephan (an adventurous, traveller) and Dave (Ricky's brother) know how to cook a steak, super taste.

Day 2 and we cruized into Auckland to spend money and take it all in, still kinda jaded bout being in NZ. Spent a load of money but got most of the shiz we needed.

Day 3 and we headed back into Auckland to get the DOC hutpasses setting us back $92 dollars each (better be worth it!). Then, back in Castor Bay, Dave drove us to a volcanic lake which the locals use for cliff diving. Totally sweet. havent lept off a rock in some time and that was the business. cliff jumping video

Motivation to get stuff done kicked in on the 20th and we packed a little and headed with Ricky on a trip to Piha beach. One car crash later... no seriously we were in a 6-car pileup. Ricky though, has the skills and avoided the crash only to have some guy slam into the back of us. Unfortunately he's gunna have to have the back bumper and maybe door replaced but thankfully no one was hurt, at all. Carried on to Piha beach which was taste.

It was low tide so we could walk out to Lion Rock - a massive rock which was a local hangout for spiritual Maori's, or something... there was a Pou (wooden totem, a guardian) and some plaques and stuff. Should've probably learnt a little more about the significance of it but there was some sweet volcanics and rock pools to pay attention to. On the scenic drive back we managed to miss our turn by 50 miles or so... still the vegetation (lots of ferns and palms and huge trees (still cant wait to see a Kauri tree though) here makes drives that much more fun. Back at home we had a sick party and...well, you know...

In between all that stuff happening we've been getting the tents prepped for some serious rain (which actually came on Saturday night) by 'sealing' the seams with a silicone paste mixed with petrol, smells pretty terrible but now the tents are fully watertight and have grippy bases (thicker silicone).

Everyone here is pretty awesome. Massive huge thank you to Helen, Ricky and Dave Morton for putting us up for 4 days!

On the bus now to Paihia to catch the ferry to Russell and stay with Jane Hindle (an old friend of Anders and DM's mum) for a day or two, where we will pack up some food and water before finally starting the TASTYTREK!

- Landey

Te Araroa maps & info

2010-10-21T21:20:00.017+01:00

Maps

For a long time we were debating how we were going to navigate ourselves throughout New Zealand on the Te Araroa trail. There are a few ways of doing this:

1) You can buy all the maps you need. I have read that the 1:50,000 Topomap 260 series is best for tramping, and it covers New Zealand in 295 sheets. The 1:250,000 Topomap 262 series covers the counrty in 18 sheets, however, for tramping they lack the detail required and only really useful for us to get some scope of the trail ahead. Paper maps are expensive, to purchase every map for New Zealand would cost you about $3000. Going digital is an inexpensive way of obtaining a lot of TOPOs. A good place to get this is Map Toaster TOPO where you can buy all the maps for the country for just $199-$289. They are GPS compatible, have integrated aerial photography and has a road name and place search tool.

2) If you dont feel you want to buy any maps, you can get them all for free from the Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) website. They say "LINZ will provide digital files free of charge. Send us a portable hard drive and a list of the files you require, the format you require them in and a self-addressed postage paid return envelope...". You can also download them to your computer from the webiste.

3) Alternatively, and also what TastyTrek will be doing is this - An englishman named Simon 'Cookie' Cook has saved a lot of people, a lot of time. He has very nicely and impressively put together a whole set of 1:50,000 TOPOs (the ones freely available from the LINZ website) complete with the Te Araroa trail overlayed with handy notes to boot, and all in an easy to handle and print A4 size .gif files.

There are 103 maps altogether, so you can print off all of them on 52 sheets of A4 paper. We'll be doing this and binding them to make a small book. As we finish one to move to the next map, just rip it off and use it to light some fires :) For some sections that we feel we need actual maps, we'll probably be buying some TOPOs from time to time.

With this we'll also be taking a Garmin eTrex H GPS and some compasses.

There is one hump, in so far as, these maps dont have grid references. If we're carrying a GPS that gives us grid references, it may not be much use. We haven't quite figured how to remedy this bit yet, save cross checking Google Earth or LINZ'z maps with the trail maps and noting down grid refs on the map for the whole trail (which is too mammoth a task i feel). Still, we'll be taking the little GPS with us for better or worse.

Additionally, I read in a message that with these little Garmin eTrex H's, they dont natively support new New Zealand's Transverse Mercator map grid that’s been officially in use for a year now. But with entering some custom parameters available from the LINZ website it should all work fine.

Track Information

In addition to having all the maps printed off and bound, we thought it would also be quite useful to have all of the track information available to us as well. With all the track information that is available on the Te Araroa website, we will also be printing off a little book of track info. As we're taking a little netbook with us, we have put together an ordered collection of trail information, so that we may be able to view them off-line when on the trail. This will be put up available to everyone that wants it, as a file on our website soon.

People Like Us

2010-10-14T20:18:00.005+01:00

There are other people out there doing cool stuff. I've been trying to keep tabs on a couple of the more interesting websites and blogs whilst teaching myself as to what to expect with long distance, long term walking. I thought I would write a quick post so that you guys can see what I'm thinking about.

Boston to Austin 2000 mile run
These guys are trying to break a record for the most consecutive marathons run as the run from Boston to, well, Austin. Why anyone would run as fast as they could to get to Texas is beyond me though... just kidding, never been to Austin so not gunna judge.
Not really anything to do with walking but pretty awesome and they've raised tonnes of money for charity so good on them.

The Big Walk
Jamie Fitzgerald walked the Te Araroa trail finishing in February 2010. I've been trying to read through his blog posts along the way to get an idea of what NZ is like in the summer time (i've only been in the winter and it was wet and cold) but I suppose if you prepare for the worst then it'll be awesome the whole way.

Te Araroa - On Veg
I've already talked about Paul but he's still updating his blog daily and doing lots of hiking in preparation so there's always interesting stuff to read on his page.

Steve Cleverdon
Steve is attempting to walk the length of New Zealand faster than anyone before. He wants to walk the trek in 100 days which works out at 18 miles a day provided he doesn't stop for a rest! Unfortunately he's leaving before us so I doubt we'll catch him up but good luck to him all the same.

Shalane Hopkins and Alex Ward
Taking off the Te Araroa trail today. Wishing them the best of luck. A month and a half headstart on us so again probably wont run into them but hope they reach their fundraising goals and have a blast doing it.

The Odyssey Expedition
This is an amazing journey by Graham Hughes who is trying to visit every country in the world. And on top of that he's doing it without flying. He's nearly there as well - 6% left to do!

So there you have it. Some of the other people doing cool stuff that i've been reading about and following.

-Landey

Endorsement ideas!

2010-10-11T06:50:00.005+01:00

Hey all!
We've got some big plans in terms of endorsements that we are trying to secure.

I'm in the process of making a montage for 'Flight of the Conchords' from Dubai with love!
This is a plan to try and get the student end of the market to donate to WaterAid and Solar Light for Africa through our website, when we start our TastyTrek across New Zealand on the Te Araroa Trail.

Be sure to keep checking back onto the website to see the montage soon!

Take care and have a nice day!

DM

Massive Update

2010-10-10T18:29:00.000+01:00

Hello all,
Sorry for the long time of silence. Lots of things have been happening and we've all been very busy...so busy that we should have been filling you all in with what we have been doing. Here it goes:

Anders flew over to Dubai 2 weeks ago to visit his family and generally just chill out in the baking sun. He met up with Damien (who if you haven't figured it out yet, is his little brother). We took some trips to the Mussandam and to the desert and wadis where we tried out equipment and did some light hiking and general exploring.
We have made some changes to the website and more videos will be on their way soon, as will our own tv channel. But you'll hear more of that soon.
We have been given tons more sponsorship! A big thank you to all our sponsors so far and our most recent sponsors: Fozzils, Lightloads, Eagle Creek, LuxuryLite and more to be announced soon. Please check out the sponsors page for more information about each of them.
The Solar Light Caps have arrived, we will be reviewing them shortley with a video that will be put up on the sponsors page.
Finally we've got some big plans in terms of endorsements that we are trying to secure so keep your ears to the ground.

Speak soon
-Anders

Latest Sponsorship!

2010-09-01T12:14:00.002+01:00

Our latest sponsor to join TastyTrek has quite an ingenious invention!

At first it may look just like a regular cap. Wrong! By day, it protects us from the sun and recharges its lightweight, long life NiMH batteries. By night, it's a headlight, providing us with ultra bright LED light from it's environmentally friendly solar powered light!

Simon Dyer, CEO of 2C and inventor of the Solar Light Cap has agreed to sponsor TastyTrek with three solar light caps, one for each of us. We think they are brilliant because they combine 3 items into one: Hat, light and batteries. This means a saving on weight and space and a saving on money, as we wont need to keep buying batteries.

As I said, we think they are seriously cool and are very chuffed that 2C have come on board.
Anyway, don't let me ramble on about how cool these caps are. Check out the Solar Light Cap website for yourself.

- Anders

The Kirkland Brothers

2010-08-26T20:40:00.003+01:00

I recently had two long lost friends from my sailing days drop by London on their way back to Bermuda. Jesse and Zander Kirkland are starting out on a campaign to sail in the 2012 Olympics in London sailing in the 49er class. From what I understand from them, 49ers are similar to Australian 18-footers but smaller and lighter and understandably fewer crew members, 2 to be specific. Like the 18-footers they also go incredibly fast and are very hard to manage, apparently they can get up to 25knots (~28mph) or something.

So basically at the moment its just Jesse and Zander against the boat rather than against the rest of the fleet but they're learning fast and are optimistic about their chances. They've just finished a tour of Europe sailing in regattas in Poland, Germany and, for the last two weeks, in Weymouth. Now they are flying back just in time to get hit by Hurricane Danielle before they head out to Cali to do some more training.

So just wanted to wish them luck in all the hard work they have left to do over the next two years up to qualifying in June, 2012. If people are interested they have a blog up: BER 49er Olympic Campaign.

- Landey

I believe

2010-08-26T12:56:00.002+01:00

We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes,

into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running

some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of

life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work

desperately for a moment no matter what.

- George Santayana, "The Philosophy of Travel"

I particularly like this quote and i feel it is very fitting for what we are about to attempt. I have no doubt that we will definitely taste some hardship along Te Araroa. I believe that we will run into hazards; some probably accidental or unavoidable and some possibly through bad judgement. But I also believe in myself, Landey and Damienmarc. I believe that we all have that spark that makes you push on through whatever poor situation we may possibly be in.

Neither of us have ever attempted anything quite like the Te Araroa trail, but what we lack in experience I think we make up for in common sense, determination and the ability to take any bad situation in a positive light, in order to sharpen the edges of our lives.

- Anders

Guerilla promo in Oz

2010-08-25T15:37:00.005+01:00

A good friend of ours, Patrick Burr, is in Sydney right now staying in some backpacker hostels. Very kindly he has offered to print off and handout/hang up some flyers promoting TastyTrek and the Te Araroa trail.

Anyway, thanks a lot Patrick. Beers are on us next time we see you.
-Anders

If YOU would like to promote TastyTrek and our causes please don't hesitate to contact us at TastyTrekNZ10@gmail.com

Where we all are.

2010-08-24T16:19:00.002+01:00

I just realised that many people will not know where in the world each of us curently are, or what we are doing with all our time when not updating the website or writing around to potential sponsors and magazines. Well let me enligten you.

I (Anders) am in London and will be starting a new job with a removals group, hopefully tomorrow. I also hope that this job will make me enough money to do Te Araroa without having to constantly worry about budgetting for everything...because that would be a pain in the ass and not much fun. I have done some rough calculations and i should be fine.

Landey is also in London and works on the 24th floor of the Canary Wharf building, where he sits all day long typing information off utility bills into a database. He says that it's riveting and he's having the time of his life. Note the sarcasm. No, it's a soul destroying job. But he will persevere. They pay him quite well and this will ensure he has enough funds to do the trek.

Damienmarc is currently in Sri Lanka with some firends but will be back home in Dubai in the next few days, where he will continue to work somewhere, doing something until he comes to London at some point. Very vague i know. Thats just the way he rolls i guess.

So we are all roughly in the same boat at the moment, just working to raise some capital and continuing to spread the word of TastyTrek.

- Anders

WaterAid in Pakistan

2010-08-20T14:26:00.005+01:00

It has been hard to miss the news reports of the devastating floods that have ravaged Pakistan in the last few weeks. United Nations are declaring it the worst humanitarian crisis in recent history with more people being affected than in the Indian Ocean tsunami and recent Kashmir and Haiti earthquakes combined!

The first wave of deaths resulting from the floods themselves stands at 1,384. However, Pakistan's problem are set to get worse as now 3.5 - 6 million people do not have access to clean water and/or are at risk of contracting deadly water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera.

WaterAid is helping. WaterAid have already released funds that will primarily provide relief focusing on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services; and secondarily will continue efforts towards rehabilitation of drinking water sources, hygiene and sanitation facilities. WaterAid are currently supporting local partners in the following activities:
# Hygiene kits
# Dissemination of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) material
# Drinking water tankering
# Drinking water quality testing
# Emergency water purification and hydration
# Assesment and rehabilitation of dinking water supply schemes

For more information, please see what Wateraid is doing for Pakistan.

There is really no better time than NOW to support WaterAid.

Help WaterAid help Pakistan.
Thank you

- Anders and TastyTrek

References:
Pakistan Floods Facts and Figures

You've got mail

2010-08-16T19:06:00.005+01:00

WaterAid fundrasing packs have arrived! Albeit very squashed and mangled after being folded and jammed through my letter box. Anyway, there's tons of literature and information here and a personal message -

"Dear TastyTrek, wish you all the very best. We hope you enjoy your walk and are successful in rasing awareness for WaterAid!"

Thanks WaterAid.

Donations

2010-08-15T15:10:00.001+01:00

We have now raised over £113 or $176...
Just want to say thank you to everyone who has donated so far.
There are alot of changes coming to the site very soon (hopefully).
Have a look at the Charities Page to read up on Solar Light for Africa and WaterAid (to be added soon)

and please make a small donation if you can:
Solar Light for Africa
WaterAid

Te Araroa - On Veg

2010-08-09T21:25:00.004+01:00

I just want to say a quick thank you to Paul Goodsell. Paul is also walking the Te Araroa trail although he is starting a couple weeks before our planned departure date. He has selflessly taken some time to write us an in-depth email with his thoughts on our equipment list. Anyway I have added his page to our Supporters as a thank you for his help.

Paul updates his Blog (Te Araroa - On Veg) daily and has alot of information on vegan trekking. So if your planning on doing any long distance walking on a vegan diet then take a look!

- Landey

Update by Anders

2010-08-09T19:40:00.002+01:00

Another day gone... It's suprising really how much of a day can be used up whilst just sitting on your bed, drinking tea and playing with the website; ironing out all the little mistakes, trying to make it look nice. There's plenty to still do to it, but slowly slowly it's coming along.

Daily the website is being edited by Landey and myself, having stuff added to it (some stuff you haven't even seen yet!). However i'm beginning to feel that im using the 'editing the website' card more and more often as an excuse to not seriously start looking for a job. I hate job searching.

The ball starts to roll...

2010-08-09T18:40:00.008+01:00

Today is a great day! Imperial College's student newspaper 'Felix' are our newest sponsors. Felix have asked to interview us about TastyTrek and our intentions of walking Te Araroa; and to publish an article in the September additions of Felix when the university reopens.

Hopefully this will spread the word of TastyTrek and bring in more donations for Solar Light For Africa and WaterAid.

We also hope that this will inspire others from Imperial College to get out and explore the world. There is more to life than working hard.

Thank you to Felix the cat and Kadhim Shubber (Felix Editor).

TastyTrek Blog

2010-08-08T20:18:00.001+01:00

I have, finally, got around to setting up the Planning Blog (well thats what I'm calling it for now). Updates will be still be posted via the Map/Blog page however we will only start updating it once we start walking since it was designed to allow people to follow our progress (and right now we are miles away from New Zealand and the Te Araroa Trek!). So for right now we will write about the ongoing planning of the trip.

This Blog also has the advantage that users can comment on posts so that we can receive your much appreciated feedback, and you can subscribe to TastyTrek allowing you to follow us easily using the format you want.