Day 68 - snap, collapse
Waikanae —> Paekakariki holiday park 22km
After a rather interrupted nights sleep thanks to paranoia that there were mice running around, I had only one thing on my mind - laundry. It had been ten days since I’d properly washed anything and I was starting to gross myself out. Wearing just my waterproofs, I walked the kilometre into Waikanae town centre and headed straight for the laundrette. 90 minutes later, I walked out with a wonderfully smelling bag of clean clothes and after a quick stop at the public toilets, I was dressed as a lovely clean backpacker again. Ohhhhh how glamorous this thru-hiking malarky is.
The morning’s walk was flat and easy, a very welcome relief after the past few days. The trail left Waikanae and headed along the banks of the Waikanae river, towards the Kapiti coast and the beaches of northern Wellington.
When I reached Paraparaumu, it was clear the coastline had taken a beating over the last week. The path into the beach was flooded and the beach itself near eroded away; driftwood and gunk piled up on the sand that remained.
My route was supposed to follow the beach around into Paraparaumu town but seeing how angry the sea looked and how little room I’d have to avoid it, I instead walked the backstreets into the village.
I was now pretty much in civilisation for the rest of the north island, so I was hardly carrying any food, I’d be able to buy bits every day on the journey through to Wellington. I stopped at a lovely cafe just off the beach called The Lockup and got some early afternoon admin for the next section done whilst I ate lunch.
I spent the afternoon on and off the beach, from Paraparaumu into Raumati beach, Raumati South and then finally into Paekākāriki.
I arrived at Paekākāriki holiday park around 5pm and set up the tent as carefully as I could, it only needed to last two more nights before I could pick up the new poles.
12am I woke up to the wind howling. Even though I had the tent up against a hedge, it was clearly providing zero shelter whatsoever. The whole tent was blowing every which way, the poles bending so much they brought the fabric down low enough to touch my nose as I lay there watching anxiously. An hour went by and it showed no sign of slowing down. I was holding onto the tent at this point, my arms outstretched pushing against either side hoping to stop it collapsing in. I realised I hadn’t guy roped the sides out, so after packing my bag just in case I had to make a run for it, I snuck outside and pinned the sides in the hope it would keep the walls away from me. When I climbed back into the tent however something seemed very different, more compact, claustrophobic. My head was now touching the roof of the tent and as I looked up I saw that another pole had snapped causing the roof to collapse. I chose to bail at this point, I’d rather sleep in the holiday park kitchen than try to fix it at 2am! I ran all my stuff across the park, dumped it inside and then ran back to unpeg the tent.
With everything safely inside the kitchen, I set up my sleeping mat underneath the table and hoped that no one would come in until daylight…
