TA 65: Nero Out of Waikanae
Date: January 11, 2020
Starting kilometer: 1602.6
Ending kilometer: 1608.6
Kms tramped today: 6.0
Kms to Bluff: 1396.7
Elevation at camp: 10 m
I have trouble sleeping in the big cluttered echoy church. Thus I sleep in. When I wake, J gives me some of his oatmeal bc I ate all of the contents of my foodbag and we didn’t get anything in town last night.
The last time we stayed at a holiday park, we bought a single serving packet of laundry detergent just in case. It comes in handy today as this place doesn’t have any and we’re a good walk from town. As the clothes get clean I call home and call my bank bc my cards got locked. I order new Trail Glove 5s from Torpedo7 for in-store pickup in Wellington. Torpedo7, that sounds intense. When my clothes are dry, I shower. I borrow some little dishrags from a drawer in the kitchen and use them as towels. As I’m waiting for J and using the internet, some little girl who lives here at the church/commune thing comes to talk to me. She’s probably like 4. Don’t they know about stranger danger? Kids scare me--they’re weird, man. My shirt is falling apart. Hang in there till Wellington please.
We gather our things and head out towards the coast around 3:00. We pass a building called the Waikanae Arts and Crafts Centre. The schedule is posted on a sign outside. Example: Mondays 5:00-7:00 crochet, first Wednesday: watercolors. How wholesome. I wish I lived somewhere with an arts and crafts centre.
J wants fried chicken and I want kumara chips. We wander around town till we find something, then we go into Countdown where it takes us far too long to do such a short resupply. I buy way more than I need--crackers, cheese, hummus, pastries for breakfast, Puhoi yogurt for now, immunity juice that better work for how gross it is, Avalanche, gummies, and CookieTime. J is starting to feel sick and we try to decide what to do. He says he feels ok enough to make it to the holiday park today. Both nights we stayed in the huts, an American woman was coughing--J prob caught something from her. Earlier, I made him drink some Emergen-C that I’ve been carrying this whole time.
It’s nearly 5:00 when we get out of Waikanae. The holiday park is like 20 kms away but it’s flat all the way and our packs are light. The track is a little neighborhood greenway along a river--water flowing out of the Tararuas into the sea. I listen to a new audiobook. We stop for a pee break at some public toilets with a nice big swingset nearby. I have to swing for a bit before I can hike again. I will be 30 in a few weeks.
J is lagging and we’re not going as fast as we should be. We’re not gonna make it to the holiday park in Paekakariki, I already know. I’m thinking we can stealth camp at a picnic area along the way when I see some tents in the woods. I pull out my maps and see that it’s El Rancho, a holiday park. J says he feels done so we decide to call it there at 6:30. We get closer and find the back entrance. There is a tree with a bunch of old shoes tacked to the trunk. A Duplex is set up among the monster tents and the trampers tell us how to get to the office. We set up near the other trampers in the shadows of tall trees. In the tent I learn that I can use J’s buff as a tube top--new laundry shirt! Jesse is such a boney-maloney now--I can feel his ribs and everyone on FaceTime says he’s getting skinnier. I’m sad that we didn’t get farther but at least we made it out of town. Hopefully J will sleep it off.
