Saturday 21 September 2013

Day 22: Pakiri Beach to ?

loitered at the camping ground this morning to see if Team NZ could get a result- sadly it wasn't to be today! On the way out the gate I chatted to a lady in the front office, she gave me the good oil on the next leg, and told me her husband would be walking the trail later in the year or next year, and that there were already a couple of other walkers ahead of me by two weeks. For some reason this surprised me, I'm not sure exactly why as  no doubt people walk the trail without updating me on Facebook! Anyway, the walk out of Pakiri was pleasant...
... And soon enough I was wandering up a farmer's back paddock into the mist, which made it feel like a movie set

The wind and rain picked up as I was walking a fairly exposed ridge... Good fun!
It wasn't long before I found a summit and a trig station, and further along something like proves aliens have landed!
At least it looks like an alien spacecraft to me. I was treated to some lovely native bush to tramp through.
Eventually I was on roads, and got to see a very special fence, which had me singing Fred Dagg's gumboot song as a tribute.
I noticed a DoC sign in one particular block which stated hunting was permissible by permit- and I was glad for my orange hat. I found myself whistling tunes loudly to let any stalking hunter know that the crashing about was human and not a wild pig!

After the stream it was a steep walk through a pine plantation before hitting a lovely podocarp forest, interspersed with tree ferns. I called ahead to the Dome tearooms as my plan is to watch what will hopefully be an Americas Cup result for Team NZ tomorrow morning. They don't have a tv, but I was invited to sit and listen to the race on the radio with the tearoom staff. How very 50s of them! It sounds quite fun actually, so an Early start for me to finish the walk past Dome tomorrow and down to the tearooms by 8 am.
Good luck to Dean and the crew!

1 comment:

  1. I really enjoy the photos you post and it's great to see your ginger beard! what about marae visits? The website talks about part of the journey involving marae stays. Is that part of your plan?

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