Day 31: Auckland to Totara Park

Distance Covered: 24 km

We spent a lot to stay at the hostel last night. The silver lining was that we got real towels for the shower. It’s been a month since we used a towel more than a 12″x12″ camp towel that doesn’t quite get you dry. A real towel was a mind-blowing experience. Now onto road walking!

Actually, we started by going back to the bay walk. It was quite nice trail. 

There was some confusion as the nice trail continued at one point while the Te Araroa sign said to go through a locked gate. After some consideration, we went over the gate, which was the right call.

We next went by some lava stone mounds that the Maori used to store heat to extend their Kumara (like a sweet potato) growing season. And then an avocado plantation. As we came out of that region and onto the road, I mentioned how nice it would be to live near the bay walk. Just then we came across a collection of tents on the side of the road.

The tents were owned by Maori protesters. It turns out the many acres of land just off the bay walk is owned by an elderly white woman. She is under a lot of pressure to sell to a developer that wants to build 480 houses on it. The area used to be a conservation district, but Auckland politicians changed it to allow housing recently. Since then, people have been making offers. First at 2 million, now at 20 million. Meanwhile, the Maori believe the land is important to their heritage as the first landing site of their people and the burial grounds of many ancient people. So they setup camp to protest it all.

We set our packs down and listened to a woman named Tepora share their story. We donated the change in our pockets and they shared bread with us. They had registers and have Facebook pages. They’ve been trying to model themselves after the Dakota pipeline protests in the states. They were quite professional too with pamphlets and such. They have a tough fight ahead of them (way too much money to be made). We wished them all the best. It was clear that the developers want that land because they can charge a premium for such a luxury resource like the nearby bird sanctuary.

Then back to road walking. To the airport! It was busy, drivers didn’t want us there, we had trouble crossing streets… everything you might expect when walking through a high traffic area. At some point while waiting to cross, I scratched my eye to appease an itch. Minutes later, as we sat down at a restaurant to eat lunch, Emily concernedly asked what was going on with my eye. Hmm…?

Turns out the top and bottom eyelids started swelling. And swelling. They didn’t hurt so I couldn’t tell. I went to a mirror to check it out and was surprised to see that my bottom eyelid looked like it was going to pop from pressure. I quickly flushed it with water. It took about an hour to get closer to normal and we still don’t know what it was. I had touched the ground with my hands so it might have been a pesticide.

And now back to road walking!

After (finally) getting away from the airport area, we started down the Puhinui track. This was surprisingly great with manicured lawns, big flowers, scenic gorges… you could hardly even tell it was wedged in between industrial buildings. It did start rural with cows that followed us through their pasture (nice cow… good cow… you stay over there…) and then it worked its way to the industrial zone. Other than the sound of construction equipment beeping, we could have been in a travel poster.

Then it ended and we were back to road walking. The air was thick with the smell of industrial solvents like acetone and we wandered from sidewalk to sidewalk around factories. The pictures above are handpicked to show greenery, but the majority of the day looked more like the picture below.

We did eventually go through some “parks” in a few neighborhoods. These were the green, grassy strips behind houses where the ditch is, but at least they weren’t roads. And the corner gas store had delicious things.

The end of the day had us going through the south of the Botanical Gardens. We had thought about camping there based on a recommendation, but that seemed like it wouldn’t work. We wanted to check out the gardens in full, but that will have to wait for more time tomorrow. Tonight we headed to Totara Park next door to the gardens. It didn’t say there was no camping…

We found another hiker here in a field. He setup his tent right next to a jogging path and is sitting outside smiling at everyone who passes, waiting to see if he gets asked to move. We decided to walk further in this huge park. We eventually found an empty livestock paddock (still in the park) and camped on a saddle of three hills there. Nobody passed us at all on this spur of the trail so we’ll probably be fine. We really don't want to have an officer come in the middle of the night with a flashlight to wake us up.

A quick dinner was made and now we are in bed, achy and tired from all the road walking. Tomorrow we will check out the gardens and head towards the Hanua Ranges.