Te Araroa Trail Blog Day 12: ZERO in Whananaki

When you’re on a long distance trail like Te Araroa, it’s a real comfort to know that you can throw in a day here and there where you don’t have to walk.

Ok, Whananaki isn’t necessarily the best place to zero. There’s no real shops here to resupply or take care of errands, and really nothing to do being a very small northland settlement. But at the campsite there was at least a fantastic internet connection, and really that’s all I needed today!

I spent most of the morning catching up on posts for my Patrons. It took me most of the morning until lunchtime, but I finally got the first week of posts scheduled for slow release. 

Wandering along the Whananaki coastline on our rest day.  

Then it was time to take care of some errands. We showered and did our laundry. I felt like real hiker trash for the first time as I sat around in my rainpants and down jacket for a good hour or two whilst we waited for everything to air dry on the washing line. Luckily, it didn’t take very long as it was very windy.

I repaired the hole in my rainpants with some bright blue duct tape. Julia laughed when she saw them, but there’s not much I could do about it. It was the only thing I had to hand which would remotely keep the water out.

A big lunch at Whananaki on our zero day.  

We had a big lunch to finish off the food we’d bought at the Whananaki Beach Store & Coastal Cafe the previous day. I had two burger patties in some bread with cheese and eggs and tomato sauce that we bought in little packets from the shop. It was very filling, and I almost couldn’t finish it all.

The afternoon was all about sorting my resupply boxes out.

I was starting to stress out again about the weight I’d have to carry through the next section. I got some stuff ready to send on ahead to Waipu Cove and went to the shop to post it. But even though I’d been told the day before that they had courier services from the shop, I was informed that all they had were normal post bags which would take 1-3 working days to arrive at my destination. We were due to reach Waipu Cove in four days, but there was a weekend in between. So I had to change my whole plan. 

This meant that I now had to carry a lot of the stuff I’d sent ahead in my bounce box from Kerikeri. Mainly that consisted of snickers bars and chamomile teabags, but also the rest of my sunscreen, the plunger for my Sawyer Squeeze and my razor. I decided to send some stuff home that I didn’t need, like a handful of snickers bars, my insect repellant and the bandage I’d bought for my knee which didn’t really work. 

This was the last time I tried to use a bounce box on Te Araroa.

Collecting my resupply and bounce boxes in Whananaki.  

I then rang ahead to Camp Waipu Cove to make sure it was ok for Mum to send a resupply box there. The lady on the phone was a bit difficult. She obviously didn’t understand what I was saying to start with, because we ended up having a conversation about where they would store my food in the fridge (?!). She also insisted I book a night’s accommodation before they could accept a parcel. Eventually I managed to get her to understand what I needed and she said it was ok to send the box. So I gave Mum the instructions and carefully calculated how much food I would need. 

I also rang ahead to Ōrewa Beach Holiday Park in Auckland. Unfortunately, they were equally as difficult as Camp Waipu Cove had been, although I think it was more a case of the lady on the desk not having the authority to say yes or no one way or the other. She said she’d ask someone to get back to me.

I found myself getting increasingly upset at my poor planning. Although I’d tried to organise as much as I could before I’d left home, time constraints meant that I’d only sorted out the first two or three resupply locations on the trail. The others, I would have to sort as I went.

The very small general store in Whananaki.  

I’d set out a rough itinerary for myself, so I had a fair idea of where I would be staying every night and how many days it would be between major towns. But now I had to decide in plenty of time where I needed my next box sent to so that Mum could arrange to put it together and send it ahead.

At this end of the trail, I was usually only giving her that information 3 or 4 days before I needed the box, which of course put a lot of pressure on Mum and made my life more stressful than it needed to be.

Being treated to oven baked pizza at Whananaki campsite.  

I unexpectedly ended up working myself into a state about the next two resupply boxes, and spent a good hour sitting in our cabin alone crying and berating myself for not being more prepared (all documented for the world to see in this episode of my Te Araroa North Island series!).

Eventually I managed to pull myself out of it, but it was yet another low point that crept up on me suddenly.

It cheered me up when, for dinner, the campsite proprietor said she’d be putting on the outdoor pizza oven. That sounded like music to my ears, so a little later on in the afternoon we sat around making and eating our own pizzas. I almost finished mine, but not quite. I felt fit to burst after the big lunch. 

Enjoying an entire oven baked pizza to myself.  

Many of the hikers from yesterday had already pushed on. We were expecting more today but only two girls from Latvia turned up.

It seemed to me that for one reason or another, we kept missing these ‘bubbles’ of hikers. I found myself thinking it would be nice to have some more hikers around for once, and wondered if we’d get that opportunity at Nīkau Bay campsite tomorrow, as many people seemed to be headed there or just behind us.

After a quick before-bed chat to Mum and Dad, it was time to ready myself for sleep again, and another day’s hiking tomorrow.

prefer to watch?

Watch the full video from this section of Te Araroa below.