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**Due to an issue with phone backups at this point of the trail I lost many of my photos from the section up to Auckland. Photos are limited in this post, but I have shared the ones that I managed to recover, albeit some of them were damaged in the import process.**
After a night spent sleeping on the floor (rather uncomfortably) at the Stillwater Motor Camp I was a little tired, but naturally woke up at around 7AM.
It had been incredibly hard to get comfortable last night. I kept falling off my mat, and we were all sleeping so closely together that I was conscious of moving too much so as not to wake the others with the rustling of my sleeping pad. Julia and I got up to use the toilet during the night, but apart from that I did eventually get some sleep.
It must have been about 7AM when I finally got out of my makeshift bed. I was hoping to sit outside for a little while on my own before everyone else woke up, but there was a gentleman outside who was staying at the camp and seemed to want to chat. Originally from Newcastle, he told me that he spends the summers out here in New Zealand every year.
Signing my name to the trail register at Stillwater Motor Camp. Take a look at the other hikers on this page… the kiwis Nick & Simon, Austin, Michael (Einstein) and Haley from the USA had been through in the past few days, as well as Paul and Zac who I would hike with at later dates.
As the rest of the hikers started to wake I made some breakfast and a cup of tea. We lounged at the outdoor table for a good hour or so enjoying each others company.
Peter (the campsite owner) had given us a very helpful talk the previous night, and shown us a diagram of the upcoming Okura estuary crossing at Dacre Point today. The estuary was only a short walk (less than an hour) from our current location, and its reputation preceded us. A week or so previously, a picture had been posted on the Te Araroa Facebook page of a group of hikers, in up to their necks (or deeper) on the crossing. Peter, however, politely informed us that the group had not followed his instructions for where to cross, and instead had ended up crossing at one of the deepest point.
Based on the tide timetable we’d been shown, the crossing was not possible until 1.23PM, so we had some time to kill. We planned to leave about 12.30PM to give us enough time before the low tide mark. Unfortunately there wasn’t a particularly good internet connection at the Stillwater Motor Camp (even on phone data), so instead we busied ourselves with other tasks.
John makes the final preparations outside the Stillwater Motor Camp pool hall before we leave for the Okura Bay estuary crossing.
I washed and dressed in smelly clothes (they were really ponging from yesterday and a few days of hiking in stinking hot weather) and we slowly readied ourselves to leave. The pool house we’d slept in last night had an old piano in the corner which was fairly out of tune. Having given up my piano lessons just before I’d left home, I enjoyed a small play on it yesterday, but this morning John had spent some time tickling its keys. Whatever it was he was playing sounded completely improvised, but thoroughly lovely.
At just after 12PM we made our way out of the camp. Kevin had left slightly before us, and we’d decided there wouldn’t be a lot of difference in the tide by leaving half an hour earlier.
After a long morning’s rest, Julia is itching to get started on the Okura Bush Walkway towards the estuary crossing.
We found ourselves immediately on the Okura Bush Walkway, a lovely little walk along the bush at the edges of the river. It came out onto a large flat estuary which we walked across before heading up and over the point. There were stairs here and they climbed up and up and up. I quickly dropped to the back of the pack. My calves were going to need some warming up… they’d been aching even walking on the flat this morning.
There were some nice viewpoints along the way, and the bushwalking was nice but again I noticed how hot and humid it was. I was starting to sweat already and I’d only been on the trail for half an hour!
Taking a quick look back towards the maw of the Okura Bay Estuary at Stillwater, the biggest estuary crossing on Te Araroa.
We emerged onto the other side of the estuary and this time could see almost all the way to where we needed to cross.
Hiking alongside the Dacre Cottage Historical reserve before the Okura estuary crossing.
We thought we could barely make out a shadowy figure in the water trying to cross up ahead of us. We watched very closely and deduced it must have been Kevin. We tried to see how far in he’d gone, and at some points it looked like he was up to his neck!
Once we arrived at the estuary, it took us just about 45 minutes all up to get across. We’d already all forgotten the instructions Peter had given us the night before, and spent some considerable time deducing where exactly we needed to enter and the route we needed to take.
At the water’s edge, there was nowhere to put our packs down to take off our shoes so I had to carry them in my hand. We wandered upstream a little way to see if our memories would be jogged and then eventually Kevin stood on the other side and shouted across where to go. His suggestion was to follow the exact line on The Trail App. I was surprised at this because even though I’d noticed the App has been quite accurate before, this wasn’t the opinion of the others.
Sure enough we followed the line and managed to get across without the water getting much past the top of our thighs. I’d made sure this time to move my tent up to sit on the top of my pack. I’d noticed a white residue building up around the zippers on my tent, and after a week or so of wondering what it could be, eventually realised that on the estuary crossings my tent had most likely been dipping into the water leaving salt residue behind when it dried.
The last little bit of the crossing was quite shelly underfoot and it was like that all the way to the other bank which was still a little way away. My feet were covered in mud and I was looking for somewhere to rinse them off when I spied a little bit of water flowing from a small stream near a big tree. I rinsed my feet off and put my shoes back on.
Julia and John already well ahead of me on the other side of Dacre Point, in the Long Bay Regional Reserve.
We climbed up from the beach to a grassy walkway in the Long Bay Regional Reserve. It was quite hot at this point and there was only the slightest hint of a breeze. There was nowhere really to get out of the shade, and the walkway meandered around the edges of a paddock. The reserve walkway offered spectacular views out towards Rangitoto Island and the vast expanse of the North Auckland coastline stretching out before us.
On the other side of Dacre Point, a short climb to this spot reveals sweeping views along the east coast trek into Auckland, with the dim shadow of Rangitoto Island viewable clearly and easily for the first time.
At the top of the walkway we came down to a small beach at Pōhutakawa Bay. This is the male nudist beach which is referred to in the trail notes. I only saw two people in the nude, the rest were clothed. We managed to avoid any awkward confrontations by deciding not to walk along the beach, but instead follow a nearby pathway that went up and over the hill down to Long Bay Beach on the other side. We weren’t 100% sure if we would be able to get back down onto the beach, but were happy to risk it, cutting the corners as much as possible along the way.
This was obviously a relatively new pathway, and there were workers out doing some construction work to bring it up to standard. Thankfully we could still skirt around them easily without having to deviate from our position too much.
At the top of the path there was a boot cleaning station, from which we descended down through some more lovely walking track until we were actually on Long Bay beach. We walked along it for a little while and then hooked back up off the beach to start heading up and over the headlands into the suburbs of North Auckland.
This brought us out onto the North Shore Coastal Walk. The tide was now coming in (it was now after 3PM) and we weren’t sure if we could successfully skirt around the rocks to the various bays at this time of day.
Hiking along one of the many beaches that pepper this section of trail between Stillwater and Devonport.
So instead we had to keep walking inland, climbing up and over headlands on roads and pathways until we reached the next bay, where we’d walk along the beach for a little way before repeating.
One of the many road walk sections up and over headlands on the North Shore bay-hop, the only alternative at high tide.
The first little bay we came to was Waiake Beach (also known as Torbay). We’d been walking for a little while with no real break and my pack was starting to pull on my shoulders. I’d also spied a Movenpick shop (selling delicious Swiss ice cream) so I called a good reason to stop and the others didn’t argue. With my two scoops of ice cream and some cheese and crackers in my hand I felt content for a little while.
But I couldn’t believe it when I checked my map and realised it was still 10 kilometres from here to Takapuna where we would stay for the night. I’d received a message from a contact I’d made via a local hiking group I’d set up the previous year. Jo and her family had kindly offered both me and Julia a bed at her home for however long we wished to stay, and we were quick to take up the offer. We’d been invited for tea at 6.30PM tonight, so we had a deadline to keep, and it was looking more and more likely we’d be late.
A manmade causeway forms part of the beach walk section along the Auckland North Shore beaches.
The tide was now very high at this time of day, and the suggested high tide trail route kept taking us up and over the headlands, a mammoth effort which added hours to our time. Each time we had to climb up steps or a steep pathway, just to come down again the other side. It was hot and sticky, and generally hard walking. John tried to distract me a couple of times by talking about other things, which worked for a little while but soon became tiresome in itself.
A cute penguin statue at the end of Campbell’s Bay and (unbeknown to me at that point) the last steps I’d take on trail today).
When we got to Campbell’s Bay, John went off to the toilet whilst I took a photo of a penguin statue. When I looked up, Julia was chatting to a lady on the bench who was out walking her dog. Her name was Jenny and she’d asked Julia if we were trail walkers. When she found out what we were doing, and that we were heading to Takapuna tonight, she insisted we take a ride with her.
I was apprehensive about skipping more sections of trail and asked Julia how far we had to go. She said it was still 7 kilometres! It was over an hour since we’d left Brown’s Bay, so we weren’t making good time at all. We both decided it would be a good idea to get a ride to Jo’s place with Jenny.
We already knew what the answer would be, but we asked John if he also wanted a ride. As predicted, he declined, so we hastily bid John goodbye, hopped in Jenny’s car with her aged dog and caught a ride further up trail.
It was a strange kind of feeling leaving John behind. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to offer up beds at Jo’s place to him. When she had contacted me to ask if I wanted to stay I’d only been with Julia at the time so only had permission for her to stay. It turned out it would be the last time Julia would see John, although I would end up bumping into him again further down the trail.
Jenny needed to drop her dog off at home first. The poor thing was quite old and needed to be driven down the road for its walk everyday.
Even in the car, the journey to Jo’s place took nearly 15 minutes. We were happy to pull into Jo’s driveway at the end of it! We thanked Jenny very much for her kind service (she’s done a bit of tramping and some of the Great Walks, so she had a fair inkling of what we’d been through already) and waved her a hearty goodbye.
We struggled trying to get in the gate to Jo’s house for a good couple of minutes before she saw us and came out to greet us. Rosie, her beautiful border collie, was there also and it was nice for me to see a familiar face after so long of being away from family and friends.
Once inside, we took off our shoes and apologised for the smell. Not one to beat around the bush, and a very practical person, the first thing Jo offered us was a nice hot shower! Followed swiftly by a washing machine to do our laundry. I was blown away by her immediate attention to detail for what we needed, and even more so when she showed us to our room, which I think must have been her and her partner Rob’s own bedroom.
Once showered, with our laundry tumbling earnestly in her washing machine, we chatted to Jo and her children whilst she put the remaining touches on dinner.
Jo had prepared us a sumptuous meal of some kind of baked chicken, a lovely red cabbage coleslaw and both kumara and normal fries. We were told to help ourselves, as there was plenty to go around, and we weren’t to hold back. We didn’t.
After dinner we joined Jo and Rob on the balcony outside their bedroom with a platter of cheeses and crackers, and a decent sized glass of wine. It was a fitting bookend to what had been an incredibly difficult day. Jo had sprained her ankle that day at work, but she still ran up and down the stairs fetching fruit and cheese platters, and sent her youngest (Jeremy) out to buy chocolate for us also! All the stops were pulled out, and we felt like royalty.
After moving back inside and enjoying more of a chat around the television, Julia took her weary body off to bed, and after a little more chatting I followed soon after.
Although we were having to share a bed again, it was a massive king size bed so there was plenty of room for both of us to sleep in it without disturbing the other. It was so very comfortable and I enjoyed sinking back into its depths with the lights of Auckland twinkling outside the ranch slider beneath the small balcony.
I’d made it. I was here, in Auckland. The first big milestone! And for the first time, I had no doubt that I could continue for many more.
prefer to watch?
Watch the full video from this section of Te Araroa below.
