Last Friday Eric and I started our long planned "survival" trip to Cape Reinga. We were accompanied by Mike and Nathan - who is the same age as Eric. The plan was to walk from the top of 90 Mile Beach to Cape Reinga taking 3 days and carrying all our own gear.
The short of the story is that we did it!
The long version could take a while to tell, but here are some of the highlights.
Looking back down 90 Mile beach towards the Hole in the Rock from the top of the cliffs. Taking off a heavy pack at our camping spot. Completing the 10km walk on the first day so that we could explore on the second day. Catching and eating Kahawai and mussels for breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday. Finding alsorts of treasures washed up on the beaches: a whale jawbone on Twilight, a sea horse, life belt. Not seeing any other humans apart from ourselves and a couple of fishing boats on Saturday. Listening to the sound of waves crashing whilst sleeping and dozing. Not being caught by a tsunami - we would have been scuppered as our camp was a few metres above the high tide mark. Being out of cell phone range. Seeing Eric walk and reach the end. Completing the challenge myself. Being stranded on Taupiri Island as the tide came in. Seeing Cape Reinga from Te Werahi beach far below from a completely different perspective than the usual one. Getting picked up by our transport - Marty's Pack and Paddle from the Cape Car Park - just after we arrived there. Having a shower to remove 3 days of grime when we got home. Starting to plan further adventures.
The pictures show various stages of the walk. I was amazed that despite it being a maintained track that is mentioned in the guidebooks, we saw only one other backpacker in the 3 days, despite it being a holiday weekend. Not taht I am complaining too much. The character of the trip would have been different if there had been more people about. I was profoundly grateful that it was so relatively easy to escape from the rat-race for a couple of days to recharge.
I will perhaps post other news in another post.
Monday, October 02, 2006
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