Day 26: Puhoi to Stillwater

Distance Covered: 32 km

We woke up this morning to the drip, drip, drip of cold water on our heads. The tent seems impervious to the heaviest of rains. Condensation is its weakness, though. The tent’s fly was already wet from the previous night’s condensation and we camped in a river valley. The morning was cold too. Nothing to do except get up. I bet the tent weighed twice as much with all the water on it when we packed it up.

 
Then across the street for breakfast at the general store. And early morning talking with residents and fellow hikers. On our mind today was the river kayaking section. You can kayak for 7 km today from this point, or you can road walk. We wanted to do the kayak, but the tide needed to be transitioning from high to low and that didn’t happen until 3:30 in the afternoon. We decided to road walk it instead while one person decided to wait it out. Tough call. However, there is a six day kayak near the end of the north island to look forward too.

So on to the road. Huzzah. There was one mini adventure where we followed what looked like a path along the highway that ended up leading us astray. It ended at nothing and the highway was 100 meters or so above us on the hill. We bushwhacked up, pushing through tall grasses and trees.

Then it was down to the beach. The first 3 km of beach was on rocky tidal flats. The rocks twisted and rolled our ankles as we picked our way around. The reward was many little hidden gems such as shallow caves, interesting geology, and good views of secret bays. That's Emily in the lower right!

Then it was up and over a cliff section where we walked through a neighborhood. A nice woman helped us navigate the roads to follow a pedestrian walkway more or less back to the beach. You can see that we're starting to get into serious city stuff

And then it was another 3 km of beach walking. This beach was flat and many sunbathers and kids were out. We took the opportunity to eat lunch and dry things. While scantily clad men and women lounged around us, we wore long sleeve shirts and pants with our gear all over trying to catch as much of the sun as possible. Yes, we were “those” people on the beach. No shame!

We laid upside down on the berm in the sun, laughing at ourselves. Reluctantly, we got up and packed things away that were now much drier and lighter. We next pointed inland and towards a cement trail that followed the contours of an estuary.

We ended up in the middle of a suburban business district. The good news was there were delicious things to eat. The bad news is that this was straight city walking. A mall and fast food joints (like KFC) were all around. After weeks of tramping through nature and small settlements, this was a little jarring. So much chaos and people rushing around.

The roads took us through the business district and then through the transition to more rural areas. The shoulder to walk on was narrow and people didn’t give us as much room. There was quite a bit of this road section and we didn’t much enjoy it. Noisy, somewhat risky, minimal reward, long… not good times.

Eventually, we made it down to a quieter neighborhood. A car pulled over and waited for us to walk up. A woman named Maxine got out as we approached. Turns out she and her husband, Peter, run the local campground in Stillwater.  She said we were welcome to stay for free in the rec room and said we were almost there. We had heard a rumor that they would let us stay there. So nice to have her stop and confirm it! She also recommended the local boating club for good burgers. Okay!

The boating club was glad to see us. They had a real salesman of a proprietor invite us in. Everyone waved and several people were trying to upsell us to the steak over the burger. However, they were up to $50 each so we stuck with the $10 burgers and chips. Emily and I both thought the burger patties reminded us of meatloaf, which means I thought it was delicious. The proprietor checked in on us often, winking and slapping our backs, encouraging us to buy more food. I think salesmanship is an art and I enjoy a good artist. Emily bought an ice cream for dessert and I enjoyed the show.
Then it was on to the campground. We chatted with Peter and Maxine about their motorcycle adventures around the US. He loved San Antonio and the surrounding hill country. I got a kick out of this since that’s where I mostly grew up.

The rec room was a work in progress, but it was both free and had mattresses on the floor for us to sleep on. And we didn’t have to setup our tent! Great!

We chatted with a few fellow hikers. We caught just about everyone, including our Cyprus friend, because there’s an estuary crossing tomorrow that you can only do within an hour of low tide and even then it’s at least waist high. We’ll leave here at about 9 AM to time the crossing. And enjoy a real mattress with friends around us tonight!