Legs and Borders

If there was one reason to hike the North Island it would have been this. Going through Tongariro Alpine Crossing was amazing. After yesterday's (almost) day off forced by the weather, I had a surplus energy I decided to spend on an early ascent of the Red Crater (1868m) but first there was few miles of roadwalking to complete. Sunrise was very pretty but most of the sky was still covered by clouds. Around 7:30am I stepped onto Tongariro Alpine Crossing trail, well maintained, very popular with day hikers and people doing few day circuits around this volcanic extravaganza. The area smelled of rotten egg, sulphur being carried by the streams which made them unsuitable to drink and had warning signs to avoid any confusion. Trail went steadily up not revealing anything spectacular yet but the landscape was already much more interesting than on any of the previous sections. Tongariro and Ngauruhoe were still active volcanoes, last eruption happened here in 2011 and it closed the trail ...

"Easily the best/worst section so far" Gregory In the morning I walked down to The Kuiti and sat outside New World supermarket, it was 6:30am, half an hour before it's opening. I hanged the outer layer of the tent on a disabled parking sing to dry it and sat on the bench, workers were looking at me funny but no one said anything. I logged in to New Worlds wifi and went through the messages, there was one from Nil saying: "I'm staying at a trail angel at Te Kuiti, she told the next section is very bad and people are skipping it and going directly to the mountain" I was quite confused at first but after exchanging few messages I worked it out. Next 10 miles after The Kuiti were quite overgrown (because people were skipping it all the time), Nil was trying to warn me about it and asked me if I'm also skipping. I told him that I might hitch it if it's really that bad. New World opened and I resupplied for four days, it was a bit on a low side...

The tidal navigation adventures continued today with Taiharuru river, walkable only at low tide which happened to be really early in the morning. I've woke up ten past four in the morning to the sounds of Ollie and Arthur already stuffing their backpacks. I've joined their efforts and after twenty minutes I was ready to go, since they were still wrestling with their tents in the dark I left our trail angels backyard and proceeded towards the river. I've got there an hour later. I begun walking through the muddy bank of the river and soon after I said goodbye to my freshly washed, dry socks and shoes as the trail was going through a knee deep water. I was waving my walking sticks in front of me trying to chase away any eventual sting rays which were populating these waters. After ten minutes I was back on the mud path, following Topo signs left in the water by DOC rangers. One more walk in the water and after completely submerging my shoes in the mud of the other river bank ...

"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. ...

This day didn't work out the way it should have, but that's the joys of hiking! I woke up just before 6am with cows still crying in pain in the field across the campsite. When I was walking next to it, it became obvious that all of them decided to give birth that night and they were still carrying on (it was a large herd). It was cute to see all those newborn calves barely standing on their feet so I had to forgive their mother's my sleepless night. I didn't check the GPS for half an hour and that was my first crucial mistake, instead of turning I went straight ahead (TA is not great with markers sometimes) I looked at the map and noticed that the road I was walking on rejoins the alternative trail in few kilometers so I made a decision to push on even though I will miss one of the "highlights of the entire trail" as someone called walking along the Waipaia river. Hiking can be like this sometimes, you make one wrong decision and it cha...

As a preparation before the next adventure I'm trying different format of documenting the journey.  I've decided to walk around Canterbury, the city I live in and shoot it on an old Samsung EX1 camera I had for many years now.  Not the greatest of trails, but it's always interesting to see your surroundings!

[Warrenton to Gearhart] Out of the few options I was considering to take like hiking the Olympics Park, Tahoe Rim Trail or even Colorado Trail, I went for the easiest in many ways the Oregon Coast Trail. First of all this trail didn't require any extra permits or long distance traveling. Resupplying seemed quite easy with many small towns along the way, it was also completely different to the PCT. Another good thing about it is that I don't really care all that much about thru hiking it and if I don't it won't be a problem. I'll just see how and if I enjoy it, hike for a week or so and then perhaps go to sightsee few more cities before going back to Europe. It seems like the most budget friendly option as well. So did I like the trail so far? Not really, turns out that walking log distances on a beach is not particularly enjoyable, I'm hoping that next few days will bring some variance. There's so many cars on the beach, people living around here love to dri...