Day 18 - up should mean views
Ocean Beach —> Ruakaka holiday park
8km + 6km hitch + 1km boat + 2km + 4km hitch + 4km
There were rumours of a cyclone off the coast but conditions hadn’t really changed much on land just yet. It was still just real windy.
Today we were heading across the Bream Head track; a tough climb up along the exposed hillside, into the forest and down the other side. The TA estimate was between 5-6 hours for just 7km… pretty darn slow. The track started just by our camping spot and before we’d even woken up properly we were climbing. Steep hillside followed by stairs and stairs and stairs. More stairs than should be allowed to exist. We were sheltered from the wind a lot of the time passing through the trees but when we were exposed, thank goodness it was blowing us into the hillside rather than off it!
The forest was muggy and hard going. Tree roots everywhere, rocks to climb over. Just when we thought the up had finished, more would come from round the corner. Jase had told us the previous day how epic the views were from the top so that’s all I was thinking about. Get to the top.
But the trail just kept going and going, we were deep in the forest, nothing but trees, rocks and mud. According to the map, we definitely should have had something to look at by now. I turned around to Josh and he said “yeah the lookout was a while ago, we passed a sign.” Apparently it looked like it would be more up so he didn’t tell me about it. WTF. The only reason I’m happy to go up when we hike is to see the view. Why would we go up, just to go down!?
There was no way we were turning around and willingly repeating what we’d just done so I tried to get over it and kept forging on. There was a slither of a view a little while later, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the slam dunk across the ocean I’d been promised.
The only place there could be more stairs than on the way up, is on the way down. Both mine and Josh’s knees were in agony at this point, and I found the only way I could get down was if I ran. I remember my Dad always doing this with stairs and now I know why! I sat at the bottom waiting for Josh to come down and he toppled into a pile on the grass. At least we finally had a nice view to look at over Urquharts Bay. It started raining.
The forecast for the next couple of days was horrendous. Non stop rain, 40-50km winds - the tail end of a cyclone from off the coast. We were were planning on getting a boat across Whangarei harbour in the morning, but our boat guy text and said if we wanted to get across the water we needed to go that afternoon, else we wouldn’t be able to for another couple of days. After much deliberation we decided to cancel our accomodation in Whangarei Heads and press on to the boat crossing, with the aim of making our way as far south as we could get before the rain came. We trudged along the final part of the track to the roadside, Josh had lost pretty much every ounce of energy and not even a Whittakers chocolate bar could resurrect him. We waited to see if we could hitch a ride to the boat ramp. Amazingly within a few minutes a car pulled up with a couple about our age. Before we’d even told them where we were heading they’d told us to jump in. They’d both hiked the TA last year and could feel every ounce of pain Josh was in! They were going in totally the other direction but happily dropped us at the boat ramp - they were quite keen to see it again and bring back the memories of their trip the year before.
We waited for Blair the boat guy for no more than 15 minutes. He was a log collector by trade. He collects logs out of the water that have fallen off logging ships. He’s on 24 hour call, so when TA walkers want to go across the harbour, he’s there. A pretty cool guy with a pretty cool boat.
We zipped across the harbour and Blair dropped us at at Marsden Point, slap bang in the middle of the oil refinery. It wasn’t somewhere that filled us with inspiration to keep walking… So instead of heading to the beach to follow the trail, we walked along the road with our thumbs out, hoping someone would be happily hanging out at the oil refinery on a public holiday. Luckily we had a ride within 20 mins (apparently it’s really good fishing off the dock at the oil refinery!?) and they dropped us at Ruakaka shops. After downing a Fanta and a Coke we were refreshed enough to walk the final 4km to Ruakaka holiday park.
The receptionist at the holiday park thought we were bonkers when we asked for a tent site, it led to a lot of deliberation amongst her colleagues about which would be the most sheltered spot for us.
We made dinner, the wonderful family in their RV next to us brought us a glass of wine, the other wonderful family across the way told us we could knock on their door anytime of the night if we needed sheltering from the weather, we did washing, and we settled in for the night as the rain came down. The receptionist picked the site so well it was one of the best sleeps we had. What cyclone!?
