19th Oct
Te Araroa 18: Nikau bay camp site to South side of River crossing (Taiharuru River)
Early start this morning, we were lucky as James offered us a 7km lift to get us back onto the trail which would save us 2 hours walking
As James was giving us a lift, he told us about his previous life while working in the film Industry and naturally I was interested in any tips he could pass onto me while I document our travel on the Te Araroa. The biggest tip he gave me was how to file without to much movement with the video camera, he referred it to a Tai Chi prey mantis walk. After waiting for a passing vehicle to go by as he didn’t want his locals seeing his walking really strangely, he showed how it should be done, basically is was with using your knees as shock absorbers and relaxing your arms and moving in a slow motion, this was going to take some practice but it was definitely better than the jerky movements I was currently using which would make the viewers on our video seasick.
The big goal today was to get to the estuary crossing at Taiharuru River which the low tide was at 5pm.
The last 6 kms to the Estuary was along a road with the odd traffic passing by, at one point two vehicles passed by and one stoped and the driver jumped out and ran up to us. He knew what we were doing, the Big walk and handed us a bag of dried fruit and nuts and said good luck and promptly turned around and drove off.
We arrived early at the crossing and while relaxing on the grass four other hikers like us came to join us. Crossing the Estuary took an hour, it wasn’t straight forward as crossing directly across but instead we had to walk in the sticky mud losing our boots to the mud a number of times around the bay to a point where our red markers indicated it was safe to cross.
We made it to the other side of the bank with enough time to setup camp for the night. It wasn’t an ideal place but we had plenty of water and the ground was level. Eunhwa wanted to keep moving, where she gets her energy sometimes I don’t know. But i persuaded her that it was best to camp here as i was tired of walking until near dark and just wanted to relax. I think she want happy with camping in this spot for the night.
