Wellington and Walking

An early morning flight - which I nearly missed - took me from Gold Coast, Australia to New Zealand's capital. I was excited to be reunited with some friends I had made in Auckland before starting a month long hitchhiking adventure with Marion. Marion and I met up with Keven, our German Kamerad as well as Abigail - a friend from a long long time ago. We also ran into Romina, our Uruguayan amiga from the first week in New Zealand.Finally, we cruised back to our flatmate, Leighton's house for the night. We spent the weekend catching up on some much needed Zzzs and getting a taste of Wellington.

REUNIONS! Clockwise from top left: Marion and Keven; Abigail; Sleepy Leighton; Romina

Monday came, and we boarded an early morning ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton. Absolutely gorgeous day and stunning views. Marion slept through all of it though, I'm sure. We hadn't really planned anything out... maybe just decided in the general direction we wanted to go - so after lunch we formulated a plan;  let's walk the Heaphy track. So, my little hitchhiking apprentice and I got our first lift south-west-ish after less than half an hour. Marion was very excited about getting picked up! A few more lifts gave us

Lars makes three

another friend, in the form of the heavy-laden Lars from Germany, who was to become a long-term fixture. By the following morning, we were a trio on the way to the four-day Heaphy track. Actually for about three
hours we were a quartet. It took us eight hours that day to get to the start of the track. On the way we rode in a post van! So we walked about three hours - until it got dark and set up camp.
     Over the next three days we walked the remaining 70 km (50ish miles) through forest, Savannah, jungle and seashore, sleeping in our tent and trying to eating enough to replenish the calories we'd lost. It was beautiful and actually an easy walk by all accounts, but made exceedingly difficult by the weight of our packs. I have no idea how Lars did it with his 35 kg (77 lb), ill-fitting bag. The Weka were ever-present - greedy, cheeky little birds. We finished, exhausted and sand-fly bitten on the afternoon of the final day and a Dutch lady named Kathline took us to the thriving metropolis of Karamea, where some crazy hippy did a weird light treatment thing on my Chacras. I'm not sure whether it was the pseudo-science or the 6 bananas I ate that gave me bundles of energy.

Various faces of the Heaphy track.

    To end the walking chapter, we made it to the next bit of civilisation called Westport where it began to rain and we sought shelter in a hostel that charged us far too much to pitch a tent. Tomorrow was to be a new day, but tonight was to be for sleeping.