Day 32: Totara Park to Wairora River

Distance Covered: 28 km

We slept pretty well last night in the park. No one bothered us and no cars zipped by so it was a pretty good stealth camping spot. We saw one gentleman early in the morning while we were tearing down and he smiled and waved at us.

We started the day by walking backwards a km or so to the gardens. The walk was worth it! The entire gardens are free and spectacular. Roses, magnolia forests, a kids garden with hidden secrets, edible garden, and more. Kind of unbelievable how great it was considering that everything, even the special dinosaur and plants of that era exhibition, were free.

We stopped at their cafe for a late breakfast. A local named Ron asked if he could join us. He’s an expatriate from California who married a local woman. He had all sorts of insights about the area, the gardens and such. He explained that there are main tribes and sub tribes and that they have generational memories where a given tribe attacked another 150 years ago and it still influences some. He also talked about the housing crisis. We probably chatted for an hour.

Then we were off… for road walking! Many, many kilometers of it, much of it on busy roads. It just kills the feet.

We did get a surprise when one of the guys we had thought left the trail walked up to us while we were eating lunch on the side of the highway. He had time off in Auckland and thought about it and decided to come back. Good for him.

Then more road walking. Zooooom go the semis. After some time, the road ended at a T junction. To the right was the shortest route to the town, to the left was the longer “scenic” route. We already knew which way we were headed!

The scenic route, though, ended up being the worst road we’ve been on and that’s saying a lot. It was the road to the quarry and it was highly active. We didn’t know what scenery we were supposed to look at and wouldn’t have been able to see much anyway as a constant stream of empty quarry trucks roared up the road and a stream of full trucks blew past us going the other way on the narrow back road. One driver even stopped to ask us, essentially, what the hell we were doing on the road and why weren’t we wearing high-viz vests? Beats us. The scenery?

The road finally ended, both of us very glad to be past it. Then it was up a dirt road into the mountains above Clevedon. We stopped for a break and a couple of experienced hikers walked past. We chatted for a little bit, hearing their stories. We also ran into them later in the day. They once did 100+ km in a day on the Pacific Crest Trail as part of a 24-hour challenge. On this trail, they did a 53 km day on 90 mile beach. Blows our mind. They assure us one day we’ll have conditioned our bodies to do the same.

The trail left the road a short time later. It went right back to its old tricks of 50 degree or greater slopes through prickly, spiky gorse that hadn’t been trimmed back in years. We pushed and pulled our way through the grasping branches as we struggled up the hill. You can just see the trail in the "clearing" we found to get the picture. Have we mentioned there are no snakes or poisonous spides in the area? Some of this stuff would give us pause otherwise!

We could not figure out why the path would take us via dangerous roads to this ridiculous “trail”.  After some time, we found the answer: a lookout back to Auckland. The city was way off in the distance. It’s there in the picture, on the horizon on the right.

The view back brought home how far we’ve come, through some difficult walking. It felt good. The quarry road wasn’t great and neither was the overgrown trail. The feeling of working together to get past rough patches felt pretty good, though.

Then it was down several hundred steps and out of the mountains into the valley. We stopped in Clevedon for some groceries and take-out food before steeling ourselves for more road walking. Fortunately, this road (while still a road) had very little traffic.

Along we walked, not sure where we were going to camp. We were headed for the mountains on the other side of the valley and felt that maybe we would find something there. An hour or so later, nearing the end of the road, a middle-aged couple stopped to ask us if we’d like a ride. They already knew what we were up to and where we were headed. We politely declined and they said they’d see us at the next trailhead.

We found the guy there picking up trash. The guy said this was their favorite trail and so they want to protect it. He just had a surgery so she was walking the trail while he cleaned up leading to it. They are from Florida and living here on a religious ministry visa. He gave us some camping pointers for the area.

The Wairora river trail truly was great. It has a river flowing through a tropical canyon/gorge. The trail itself is on private land… the owner uses the trail to move cattle. This meant it was muddy, rutted, and full of cow patties. Even still, quite impressive.

It was getting late and it had been a long day. We just wanted to find a place to setup so we could crash. Just when we were wondering how much longer we would have to go, we came up onto a saddle and split in the trail. The sunset streamed in pink and orange beams through the large pine trees. It was magical. Neither of our cameras could really capture the total effect. It was kind of like trail magic.

Now we are in bed, a long day behind us. Tomorrow we will be heading up and over to the Hunua Ranges for some more mountain hiking.