Te Araroa (day 9) - Helena Bay to Pataua North / mile 223

"Possums, rats, rabbits pigs and goats are all considered pests in New Zealand. I get 10$ per possum, can catch 40 per day, gives me 2000$ a week" Steve, pest control guy

Tuesday, 28th of November 2023

Day of hitchhikes around the trail closures and river crossings.

I woke up early and left Dave's and Alex place while they were still sleeping. I've walked back to the beach and then up through Helena Ridge, beautiful but overgrown forest section. At about 11am I came out to the gravel road where a cyclist looking like Santa informed me that I will have to take 20 kilometres long detour around the closed section of the trail. The land owners here didn't want TA hikers to walk through their land and denied access - it was part of 'Kauri dieback' disease dispute, causing one of New Zealand's most iconic trees to decay, I encountered measures to stop it before, like disinfecting and brushing shoes along certain sections of the trail.

I decided to hitchhike around the closure as the entirety of it was a road and I didn't want to waste time on it. I got picked up by first passing car, couple of Maori DOC rangers who were taking their son to school and were an hour late gave me a lift. Second leg of the ride was offered to me by Tom, an architect from Auckland who was travelling to Whananaki to discuss his next project, he was also running late for his meeting.

Once at Whananaki I did a small resupply and proceeded to cross "the longest footbridge in the southern hemisphere" or the "shit bridge" as the hikers were calling it. At this point I have contacted James, trail angel responsible for taking people across Ngunguru river, he called me back and said that at this pace I won't be able to get to Ngunguru in time, the next crossing was in 24 hours. He texted me the list of trail angels willing to host people in the area but they were all on the other side of the river. My only option was to find way up and down the estuary, back to the hitchhiking it was.

I've got the first ride fairly quickly with Ian and Ellie going towards Wharangei, they dropped me off after 15 minutes at Kiripaka the furthest point I had to go up the river, half of the job was in the bag. I jumped the intersection and stuck my finger up on the neighbouring road, not long after I got picked up by Steve, pest control worker from the area, he and his dog Yozer were cleaning entire farms of animals considered here a nuisance, mainly possums. Fur of the caught animals was going to textile industry to make merino wool socks, meat and bones were grinded to animal feed. Steve took me to another section I needed to hike through to get to yet another road! This time it was a pleasant forrest walk with two shallow river crossings along the way.

Once on the other side I queued for my last, 6th hitchhike of the day, soon after Richard a landowner from Pataua North stopped by and offered me a ride, after 20 minutes we arrived at the final destination. Richard's ancestor was a surveyor and arrived in this area 140 years ago gaining possession of majority of Pataua's land, most of which has now been sold out, but Richard was still owning a sizable farmland, he said that I could pitch a tent at his property in case my other plan didn't work out.

I had a short break by the beach, Maori guy with wine bottle in his hand approached me and started a conversation, his name was Bunny. He was waiting for his mother while she was collecting cockles on the beach for dinner, he said that he wasn't working and was living on social benefits adding to about 400$ per week. He wasn't unhappy about it but thought he could do better, he asked me about the hike, and what was my reason and planning behind it.

In the meantime I contacted Gretchen my trail angel host for tonight using the number James gave me. She texted me her address and soon after I've pitched the tent in her garden. Gretchen was super nice, she and her husband Jon moved here from California few years ago. She was a primary school teacher for children with special needs and her husband worked in the office, taking his hobby of meticulously crafting surfboards to another level, two workshops behind their house were full of them!

I had a shower and washed my clothes, soon after two other hikers, Ollie from Israel and Arthur from Netherlands arrived, they managed to catch James's ferry across Ngunguru and hiked the remaining section to Pataua. Arthur informed me that because of the tides in the area we will have to start walking at 5am tomorrow to be able to go through the next (and luckily last) tide affected crossing.

Today has officially surpassed my record of hitchhikes in one day, previous one was five, unsurprisingly also around a river estuary while hiking Oregon Coast Trail last year. Today Ngunguru took the candle!