I awoke all of sudden the next morning to the feeling of water dripping on face. My tent was leaking! My feather and down sleepingbag was damp all over and I could see little dropletts of water all over the inside of my tent's inner. I opened the zip and saw that the inside of my outer was also wet and dripping. I checked for items touching the sides, but found none. I couldn't understand how this had happened. It had rained plenty out on the 90 Mile Beach, the first night I'd even had a proper storm with lightening and thunder, wind and buckets of rain and not once had I suffered any wet inside the inner of my tent. This was horrific disaster. My sleepingbag would become damaged if left wet, and I couldn't pack my tent up wet like this or it'd soak through completely and be unusable by the evening. I panicked and called home to speak to Dad. I needed some advice and I couldn't think of anything myself. Fortuntely, Dad was a huge help in calming me down. He offered to call the tent company and see if they knew what kind of error may have occured to cause this leaking and suggested I go back to a main town and check out the possibility of getting a new tent, should the problem be fatal for my current one. There shouldn't be any problem with it, since I had done my research and had bought a proper top of the line Terra Nova tent.
I packed everything up and told the campsite owners about my problem. Without a second thought they instantly offered me a lift into Kaitaia, which I happily accepted. I had thought originally that I'd have to go all the way back to Whangarei, as I didn't think there was a camping store anywhere else up here, but fortunately there was a Hunting 'n' Fishing store in Kaitaia. I booked into a hostel and asked if it was okay to put my tent up to dry and I hung my sleepingbag up to dry as well, and went in to check out new tents, should I need one. I got a call back from Dad saying he couldn't speak to the tent company until Monday (now Friday) but that he'd seen on the troubleshooting page that some people had experienced a condensation problem caused by a lack of airflow. I didn't feel that this was the problem, but also couldn't discount it, as it was actually the most likely cause. It seemed impossible that my tent could be fine for the first days of rain, then suddenly lose its waterproof abilities. I looked in Hunting 'n' Fishing but to my dismay all their tents were over 2 or 3kg and were very bulky. I'd never be able to fit a tent like that in my bag along with everything else, and at this point I was feeling a bit tent-shy (like horse-shy when you've been bucked off) and thought that if my tent wasn't good enough, no tent would be good enough. What I did get from the store was a water-repellant spray, which I used on both the inner and outer of my tent in the hope that it would solve whatever had happened. It was forecast to rain again that night, so I left the tent up and slept in the hostel, nervous to see if it leaked again.
Amazingly, it did not. The inside of the outer layer was damp, but none had leaked onto the inner layer and there was no moisture inside the inner. I felt so relieved and packed up my stuff ready to finally head into the Herekino Forest. I'd been looking forward to getting off the beach and into some more familiar type of terrain all week. I'm much more a forest walker than a beach walker. A nice English girl at the hostel offered to give me a lift back to the start of the track and we set off at 9:30am.

The owner of the 90 Mile Beach Holiday Park told me that rather than walking all the 15km to Ahipara on the beach, I could walk about half the distance through the woods that ran behind the beach, if I should so wish, as there was an actual track there. I looked hard on my map and found that he was indeed right, I could walk the first 6-7km walking parallel to the beach, hiden from the Sun and wind and, more importantly to me, not on the sand! The track was easy to find and a welcome break from the monotony of the 90 Mile Beach. I had been walking quite happily for only perhaps 1km when I met a man with a wheelbarrow coming the other way. He stopped to talk to me and asked where I was heading. I said the bottom of the south island and he couldn't stop laughing! "Oh I'd call ahead now and book your place in the hostel down at The Bluff!" he advised jokingly "They'll keep the light on in the porch for you and expect you before sundown!" he continued howling with laughter and making similar comments about how I'd be there in no time, then stopping to wipe the tears from his eyes he looked at me more seriously, placed a hand on my shoulder and I could tell he was about to give me some real advice. "Now, when you walk down this path, after about 5km you'll get to a sharp left turn, down that way you'll find a lot of pine trees (every tree I could see was a pine tree at this point) as well as a lot of cut down pine trees. Further up that way you'll come to a swamp on the right with a fork in road, now naturally you'll head off to the left, but it doesn't matter if you go right either, d'you know why?" he asked "Beacuse they end up in the same place?" I guessed "That's right. They both go nowhere." he replied with a beaming smile. "Umm, they both go nowhere?" I said "That's right, you don't want to go that way at all. Back at the left turn you wanted to go right!"
I took a good couple of minutes extra to confirm with him what he had and hadn't told me and established that most of what he'd told me was irrelevant information, but that I did need to go right at the first sharp left in about 5km. I thanked him for his words of advice and carried on my way. It turns out I was rather lucky to have met him, since when the sharp left appeared, I realised that without his advice I would never have gone right and would in fact have gone about 3-4km in the wrong direction. The right hand turn lead me back onto the 90 Mile Beach and I instantly remembered what I had come to hate about the beach with its unending Sun, sea and sand. My pack felt heavier, my shoes felt sandy and gritty and my enthusiasm went way down. I was listening to my iPod at the time, and just as I was about to put the pack down and rest unprecedentedly early, a song by The Beatles came blasting on "Boooyy! Your're gonna carry that weeiigghhhtttt. Carry that weight, a looooonngg tiiiiiiimme!" So carry that weight I did, inspired by the lyrics I carried that weight for another two hours before stopping for lunch. To my absolute joy, I saw Ahipara appear round the beach within a few minutes of starting to walk again. I knew from my track notes that once in Ahipara, it was about two hours to the start of the next track into Herekino Forest, which was an eight hour hike in itself, so I decided I'd stay in Ahipara and set off for Herekino in the morning.
I stayed at the Ahipara Campsite, but this time just rented a tent space instead of a room and was pleased to hear there was a rugby game on in the evening, New Zealand's All Blacks versus Japan. I asked the lady at the office how far to the shops. She sucked the air through her teeth in a way that would have put most plumbers to shame and told me they were about 15km away. This I just could not believe, my track notes said there were full ammenities here, how big could this tiny town be if the shops were 15km away? She showed me on a map and pointed to Kaitaia indicating that this was where the shops were. I said surely there's a shop here in town somewhere. "Oh yes" she replied "There is a shop and burger bar at the end of the road. I thought you meant the big shops, like a supermarket!" I told her all I was after was some more porridge and maybe a steak for dinner. I was only joking about the steak but she then very kindly told me that she had a spare t-bone steak if I wanted it. No charge. Well this blew me away, of course Iäd love a t-bone steak! I went to the shop and got some muesli since they had no porridge (surprisingly nice with just water) and made a note of the burger bar's takeaway facility, I'd come back and get some chips to go with my steak and cook it up in time for the rugby game. I was absolutely divine! Never has steak and chips tasted so beautiful! The All Blacks beat Japan by an embarrassingly long way, but it made for a great atmosphere in the lounge (which, by the way, had the biggest most roaring fire I've ever seen by a long way). All in all, a fantastic night had by all and I went to sleep happy.

After much more walking and much more Sun, sea and sand, I eventually make it to the 90 Mile Beach Holiday Park. I treated myself to a room with a bed, rather than simply renting a tent space (the dunes round there are not possible to camp on due to the thick scrub that lines them for miles back). It was absolute heaven to step in out of the wind and Sun and collapse on a bed. My aching legs instantly began to seize up, pouring all of their complaints from the past few days into my body in one go. I lay on the bed for over an hour, just relishing in the feeling of soft duvet and mattresses, but it was only when I went to stand up again that I realised the extent of the punishment my legs had dealt with. I toppled over back onto the bed like a man who's legs were in splints, unable to bend or support their own weight. I stayed on the bed for another hour, carefully massaging my calves until I could stand and walk (well, hobble is a more appropriate word). I took advantage of the laundry facilities, and although I didn't have any washing powder it was a relief to know the hot water would wash out the sand and sweat that I could feel accumulating in every item of clothing I had.
I went to relax in the TV room and got chatting to a few of the other guests. I lovely couple from Australia (although the man was origianlly from France) shared their bottle of wine, which tasted like it could only have been crafted by the hand of a supreme being, and even their pasta dish with me. I discovered upon tasting that the pasta dish actually had tuna in too, but I just didn't care. It wasn't noodles and it wasn't porridge, so I ate the whole thing no complaints. I also met a guy and girl who were biking around New Zealand, who had grown up in Uckfield and had been living in Tunbridge Wells for the last 9 months. Not only did they know some of the people I know, but actually used to live with one of my friends! Such a small world it seems!
That night I slept right through until 9:45am. Check out time was supposed to be 10am, but I knew as I tried to walk on my exhausted legs that I was going to stay another day. The owners of the campsite were a little dismayed that I wasn't getting straight back out there, but I wouldn't have made it even 5km the whole day had I left then. So a whole extra day of sleeping, stretching, massaging and relaxing later, I was back in the TV room in the evening and yet again, having a bottle of wine shared with me, this time by three lovely Irish people. By the next morning I was fit and well enough again to be back on the road. With only 15km until Ahipara and the end of the 90 Mile Beach, I was keen to be underway.

A very friendly Irish fellow has let me use the remaining 20 minutes of his internet time so I can write a little more.
I helped Peter move a few large items around his land in thanks for his incredible hospitality then he and I walked the first couple of kilometers together down the beach. He was looking for ambergris to sell in town and giving his dogs some exercise and it was nice to have company for the first hour. I saw the beach come out to a point in the distance and I asked him if that was The Bluff (about 75km from Ahipara) but he laughed and said no, he thought it would take me about 4 hours to get to The Bluff. I found this quite disheartening as on my maps The Bluff was only half way down the second page, and the end of the 90 Mile Beach was at the bottom of page 5 of my maps.
Taking Peter's advice, I tied my boots to my hiking staff and hung both over my pack and walked in bare feet with my trousers zipped off to shorts, making it possible for me to walk the beach even though it was high tide. I walked for 4 hours as Peter had said, and came to The Bluff. I stopped for lunch and dried my feet (now feeling the effect of walking on bare, hard sand) and kept on going. I walked for another maybe 4 hours before the feelings of despair stated to creep in. This was now the third day of walking the beach, and I was sick and tired of Sun, sea and sand. Wind also. I had to be thankful for the wind, it was the only thing keeping me cool and drying my sweaty clothes, but it also made me not notice the sunburn on my face, arms and especially the back of my neck. Thoughts of giving up started to enter my mind as I calculated three more days of beach walking before reaching Ahipara. I did not want to walk the beach anymore. Once you've seen 1 miles of the 90 Mile Beach, you've seen it all, believe me. There are 4 buses that do tours in the area and I heard them all approaching so I turned to watch them come and go, I held my staff high and waved to the tourists, imagining what the tour guide would be saying about this crazy man walking where the only other person around was a local tribesman. The first 3 buses gave me a wide berth and I saw some of the passengers wave enthusiastically back. It wasn't until around 4:30 that I saw the Harrisons Cape Runner in the distance. I waved as I had with the others, but this time the bus came towards me and pulled up the its door open. Like a portal to another world I looked inside to see people looking at me in wonder, it might as well have been another world inside that bus from where I was standing. The driver was Simon, the same guy that had taken me to Cape Reinga 3 days ago. He asked if I was alright and whether I had enough water, which I did. I then asked how far to Ahipara, maybe 40km I guessed. He said no chance, 65km at least! That's 4 days walking at the pace I'd been going. My time is nearly out so I'll have to finish this when I get to Ahipara.

After staying with Kerstin for a week, I went off to meet my old flat mate, Paul. He was working at Shed 5 down on the waterfront and I sat there enjoying the sea until he finished at about 3:30pm. Now, Paul is the hardest worker I've ever met, so when he came off shift and said the work was too hard, I believed him! He'd only done three shifts but it was long enough to know it was too much. Eight chefs to keep happy in a small kitchen, and being told you'll be working until 11pm at the latest, then not finishing until 3 in the morning, I can understand why he looked hard done by when I met him. My back pack was feeling unusually heavy for some reason so we both happily got the bus back to his place in Brooklyn. I discovered the house he was staying in was affectionately referred to as 'The Bruce' after the name of the road its on, and what a place it is! Five people were staying there and it had a great student feel to it, despite no one actually being a student. Joe looked after all the admin side of the house, bills etc, and he works in Bio-security. A great all round fun guy with a cool attitude, he and his girlfriend Lauren both made me feel instantly welcome. They'd been off at the botanical gardens all day, looking around and playing with a giant hula-hoop. We started a fire in a metal drum in the garden (hobo style) and Lauren did some hula for us. I had no idea you could move hula-hoops in such ways! To me, you try and swing it round your hips, if you're good, it stays up. Lauren, however, was able to flip and turn and spin this thing in ways I didn't even know existed. It was very cool to watch! 
The Bruce also has an amazing balcony that looks over the whole of Wellington harbour, complete with massive comfy armchair to sit in. I spent pretty much every night wrapped up in my layers, looking out over the view with a nice cold beer (or four). It was one the balcony that I first met Danger Cat, or should I say Mr Danger Cat. Danger had been in the house as long if not longer than anyone else there, and it was his house basically. We were all just guests in Danger Cat's house. I discovered why he was called so when I saw him leap from the floor, rebound off my leg and land dangerously on a narrow pole hanging over the edge of the balcony. This cat was a stunt cat if ever I saw one! Although I made the mistake of scratching his belly. He rolled onto his back and looked very much like he wanted me to scratch his belly. His reaction was to sink both set of claws into my arm and then to sink his teeth in too. I told Paul and Joe about this and they laughed at me "Oh you didn't fall for the old 'Tickle my belly' trick did you?". Paul then showed me a David Mitchell clip about cats that summed it up perfectly. "Do you love your dog but hate the space it takes up? Tired of its complete selfless devotion to you? Well try new cat! Small, neat and doesn't care if you live or die".
I had a great time with Paul, it was really good to see him again and I'm happy he's set himself up yet again in a pretty sweet situation. He also lives with Nancy, a girl from Ipswich who I only got to know on the last night, she was quality and spoke with a wonderful English accent that reminded me so much of home, and also a really friendly girl called Sheepii from Hong Kong. As I say, The Bruce is a great place and I really look forward to stopping back in there when I finally walk back down to Wellington.
Now I'm back in Titirangi with Adam and Gill. Cee Cee has insisted I see her too before heading up to Northland, but soon enough I'll actually be starting my walk! Starting almost a month early, but I'm confident the weather is turning more spring-like, and I want to be back in Wellington for some time in November. So, my next update could well be from the track!

I spent a week with Kerstin in Wellington and we had a really great time. She bikes and hikes and runs and is studying to be bio-chemist, but none of her friends want to go hiking so she planned for us to walk the Tararuas as described below, but first we would have a look around Wellington then tackle the Skyline track around the tops of the hills around Wellington from Mount Kaukau to Karori Park. 
On our first full day we walked into town and went to the Te Papa museum on the waterfront. I do love museums when they have interactive parts! Levers to pull and buttons to push, they even had an earthquake simulation house! We found to my surprise an exhibition on one John Saxton, who came over with some of the original settlers and was renowned for his innovations and designs, although it hadn't all been good tidings for him. I asked my grandfather about the family connection, but he said we have our family tree traced back to 1600 and none of our ancestors left England for New Zealand. Oh well. We got a few pics of us with the giant squid (very creepy) and tried to find the huge Moa skeleton with alas, no success. They have a Marae (sacred meeting building of the Maori) on the top floor, and it's a truly peaceful place. You have to take your shoes off as you do in a Marae, but they have seats fixed around the edges, which means you can't Hongi the ancestors as I've learned you're supposed to. All in all it's a fun museum and I'd recommend it if you ever go to Wellington.

While walking around town I started getting a serious pain in my hip. I recognised it as the muscles I'd over-used when I walked away from my last Helpx host. I had rested at Cee Cee's for a week before coming down to Wellington and I was a bit concerned over how it was still hurting. If I rested it would be fine for a little while, but with every step I took the pain became more and more pronounced. Having already planned to do the 3 day hike into the Tararuas, not being able to walk around town was very disconcerting. Kerstin and I decided we'd try to climb Mount Kaukau and see how my hip was, and if that was okay, continue on to do the Skyline track. 
Fortunately, and rather mysteriously, the pain in my hips didn't occur at all while walking up Mount Kaukau, it was very windy but absolutely stunning high up around the edge of Wellington. We decided it was fine to continue walking round and indeed it was. The Skyline track was easy to follow and it felt great to be out walking. It is, after all, the main reason I came to New Zealand. Sure it was only a 4-5 hour hike and I didn't have my huge backpack with me, but it was great to be dipping my toe in at last. I had no further pain in my legs or hips at all, until we came down off the track and started walking along the road. It seems while I'm walking over uneven ground I'm fine, but the muscles used for simple road walking are the ones I've over-stretched.

Having decided I would be okay to do the Tararuas, we went into the DoC (Department of Conservation) office and asked about getting a map for the track. The guy inside had similar traits to the other DoC officers I'd met so far. He was over 50, spoke softly and slowly and held eye contact firmly, as though looking away would signify the end of our conversation, and he tried to dissuade us from doing any walking at all. He proceeded to tell us that any amount of hiking we'd done anywhere else in the world was irrelevant, and that in New Zealand people go for a 3 hour walk and don't get found for months. Within the last year at least one person had died on the route we were going take, and he was highly experienced and well known. After receiving a good half an hour of warning and advice from the DoC officer, he smiled at us and looked away, thus ending our conversation. At which point I had to re-engage eye contact once more to point out that we still didn't have the maps we'd come in to buy. Finally all equipped we went back to Kerstin's for a good hearty meal and an early night.
The next day we went to Kerstin's friend's house in Te Horo, for she was going to give us a lift to the start of the track first thing in the morning. I met a young girl they look after sometimes called Ursula and she was a true joy to be around. You know that age when children have developed enough confidence to talk about the things they like doing, but aren't old enough to feel self-conscious about whether what they like is a cool thing to talk about? Well she was in that age and talked and joked to her heart's content. A very bright kid, I wish Ursula all the best for the future. The next morning Kerstin's friend drove us to the start of the track, and that adventure you can read below. However, I shall now pick up where the last chapter finished.


After waking in Field Hut, Kerstin and I dined on a breakfast of porridge and some left-over cheese and packed all our wet items into our packs and put on our wet shoes and socks. It only took us about 2 hours to get back down to Otaki Forks where we'd been picked up. All the way down we'd been attempting to find the phone reception that the DoC officer had insisted existed in the Tararuas. I did not. We'd passed two guy on the way down, they were dressed for a day hike and one of them was carrying a rifle, so we didn't think they'd be coming back down anytime soon. There was a caretakers house in the next carpark over and I was confident that was where we should go, since the caretaker would at least have a landline phone that we could use to call Kerstin's friend to see about getting picked up. The caretaker was not home, we were pretty sure we'd heard their car pull out of the carpark as we were approaching through the bush track. There was a phone on the outside of the building, but it would only do local calls. We only had Kerstin's friend's mobile number so we couldn't call her, but then we read that you can do reverse charge calls by following the complicated instructions written in pen on the phone. We tried about three times to make the call before doing it properly, only to receive a voice message informing us that we were only allowed to do reverse charge calls to people on a specific network, which Kerstin's friend was not. We then tried the local taxi number that was also written on the phone, at least to enquire as to how much a taxi would be back to the nearest town of Otaki. The taxi number was no longer in operation. So now we were stuck, and knowing that it was about 20km back to the main road, let alone a town, I wasn't enthusiastic to start road walking.
Just then I heard the sound of wheels on gravel and we ran round to the carpark to see two cars pull in. They were a couple in their late 50's or early 60's who were off to walk a section of the track different to the one we'd done, and from the maps we'd seen, was considerably more challenging than the one we'd done. We explained our predicament to them and they, very graciously, offered to give us a lift back to Otaki. Apparently he used to do bush survival courses and had been in Tararuas for 30 odd years. Our tale of not being able to get to Kime Hut came as no surprise to him, and he told us of a few more people who had died on the track we'd intended to do. He also told me off for calling the tracks 'trails'. He said this was an American-ism and he didn't approve. My mistake! We got to Otaki at about midday and Kerstin tried frantically to get hold of her friend. We managed to make two cups of hot chocolate and an apple slice last about 3-4 hours in a nice warm bakery, but I was keen for us to start making some progress back to Wellington, since Kerstin hasn't managed get hold of her friend. The benefits of waiting around were that we'd get to have another nice night and dinner nearby in Te Horo, and her friend was driving back to Wellington the next day, so we could get a lift and save some money. The downside to waiting was that we didn't know where she was or if we'd get in contact with her at all. We hitched from Otaki to Waikanai (took about 30 seconds to get picked up, hitching with girls must be easier). At around 6pm I managed to convince Kerstin that we should get on the 6:20pm train back to Wellington. At 6:10pm we finally got a call from Kerstin's friend, who had simply left her phone at home all day and was of course happy to have us back again. So after what had felt like a very long day, we ended it nicely with steak, a comfy bed and a free lift back to Wellington the next day.