25 Oct. Te Araroa 24
Beach and Mt Tamahunga
Morning was low tide so we pushed on for 4 hours straight so that we would be finished with the beach before midday. We passed a few dead penguins along the way and from a distance we could see a sole walker, couldn’t work out who it was from that distance but assumed that it would be Liz as that’s the only one we knew that was in front of us.
Part two of the track was hard going for the day, climbing into the clouds cover hill wasn’t something we looked forward to doing. Somehow we must have left our brains on the beach as we didn’t put any wet weather gear on and come 4pm, after pushing our way through the forest, we were socked to the skin and mud over our boots and pants. And then we started to feel the cold really settle in and it got really uncomfortable. We exited the forest and with a km walk up hill on the road, it was raining and all Eunhwa wanted to do was find a place to setup our tent and get some warmth and food.
She was happy to door knock, I really wasn’t as I feel uncomfortable with this concept but we agreed to approach this house in the hope they would let us camp on their property.
No answer at first but then a lady come out and after explaining our situation and what we wanted, she thought for a moment and said “follow me”, we went in the rain again to her back yard where obviously they were running a little hobby farm. As we walked down the steps to the area there was a little garden and a green house, we approach a shed and I thought straight away it would be great to setup tent on it’s little veranda. Then as she approached the sliding door and under the outside sink where the key was for the lock for the door. She opened it up and said we were most welcome to sleep in the small sleep out, It was more than what we expected to have, there was a heater we could use to dry every thing and recharge our batteries from the power point and an undercover veranda where i could do the cooking for the night.
The bunks were really small so we used the mattress and placed them on the floor to give us some comfort and with the heater next to us all night, we steeped very nicely that night where it could have been very uncomfortable if it hadn’t been for Eunhwa.
We were told to help ourselves to the lemons on the tree but watch out for their lemons that the possums have eaten. The possums don’t take the lemons away, but what they do is eat the skin of the lemon while its still on the tree and its as if someone had peeled the lemon and left it on the tree without the skin.
