Trail - What Trail?

Okay. So here it is. It's not all pretty. It's not all gloriously sparkling days of endless sunshine and grinning faces. It's not us (Alex and me) skipping along a trail lined with daises and other beautiful things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It's not us lazy around in the afternoons laughing at the the rest of the world that has to endure the regular, mundane ways of life. Or at least it hasn't been that way the last week or so.



Hunua Ranges

 And so I write about the nitty gritty. The down and dirty. The true sweat, tears and pain that we have been enduring to get to where we are today. Simply because sometimes, sometimes - it is not all it's cracked up to be. And sometimes it is okay to be real about it. This trail is hard. Tough. More recently I have had the extreme thought kick into my brain questioning my very decision to take on such an adventure. I mean - really - there aren't too many people out there that would consider walking across a country as something seriously worth doing. And yet here I am.

So now, nearly 60 days into our journey - I am feeling the pains of everything. I no longer recognize my feet. Blisters upon blisters. Pain in places I never knew existed. Sores and marks that can only be described as looking as though I have shoved my feet in a fire and then tried to buff the burned areas into a lovely red, shiny surface. Tendons around my ankle have developed a protective bump of scar tissue over areas that my boots constantly rub, making them look as though there is a growth protruding out the front of my ankle. Not to mention that I am now on the point of losing a second toenail. The dirt from endless days of walking and limited access to water has left me wonder if this it the way my feet will always be.

Up past the severe sock tan lines, my legs scream of relief from the countless times they have been scratched by prickly bush, cutty grass, branches, twigs, logs, vines, leaves, rocks and pretty much anything and everything that comes within contact with my skin. The amount of times I have banged them against things and scraped the skin leaves me dreading the next time I reach civilization and have to shave. And then there is the bites. Endless amounts of bites. Mosquitoe bites. Sandfly bites. Horsefly bites. Ant bites. Any little critter that bites - does. I have lost track of the number of nights that I have woken up in a frantic furry in need to somehow access my ankles at the bottom of my mummy-shaped sleeping bag in order to relieve the itch that screams out in agony. Only then to try and roll over to go back to sleep on my mattress that has a hole I can't find, slowly depleting it's air over the dark hours.

Every day is the same. To wake up at 5 a.m. by an alarm that I fumble around in the dark to find above my head in a tent pocket. Switching it off, I lay back down to let my mind catch up with the fact that my body has just jolted straight upwards out of sleep. I greet Alex good morning and ask how she slept. She tells me (usually) that she hasn't and that she's been awake for hours. I tell her of the crazy (and incredibly pointless) dream I had over the night hours. She tells me of what I said in my sleep, of how I kicked her in the face or the number of farts I did while she lay awake trying to sleep. While sleeping in the space smaller than a double-sized bed it's a wonder that we can even look each other in the eye come morning time. Usually we don't even try.



Camping in Hunua Ranges

 Most mornings consist of dousing the arms in bugspray just to reach outside the tent in order to set up the gas cooker for our breakky. We anxiously fill our rubber collapsible camp bowls with our choosings of the morning - oatmeal or muesli. Fresh fruit to top it is a luxary and fresh milk is a thing of our past lives. Powdered milk covers our cereal like a blanket of snow. Everything is accurately measured out. Too much means we can't digest quick enough and means we won't have enough to last us to the next town. Too little means not enough energy and our motivation for even continuing another hour of our journey. And so it becomes a science, one we hope we'll be able to perfect before the end of our journey - but each day we dream of the ability to open the fridge door and choose what we want to eat. Instead we get excited to have dried cranberries instead of sultanas on top our oatmeal. This is our life.

The joys of our adventure continue when our next mission is to pack up everything to go. This means changing back into our trekking outfits - the same ones as the day before. The same as the day before that. And the one before that. The same trekking outfits we have worn every day since we've begun our journey. Two months of wearing the same t-shirt. The same shorts. A choice of 2 pairs of underwear - but the same sportsbra. Our t-shirts have been used so often that when we put them on in the morning, they are stiff like cardboard from the sweat and grime of the day before.



End of the day

 There is no standing in front of the mirror to see how we look. There is no critical moment of when we figure out if our shorts make our butts look big. There is no comparison of our clothes to the fashion magazines. There is no alternative "fat day" outfit. There isn't a selection of jewellery to put on in order to make the outfit feel different. My socks get pulled up to the same tan line every day and I vainly try to pull my t-shirt down further than the day before in hopes that it might turn into a different shape. I slap on the sunscreen and bugspray in a layered effect. Deoderant is the only form of "normal people" smell I have and I can no longer smell it above the "au natural" odor my body emits by the end of each trek portion. My hair goes up in the same way it does every day and I add the favored Bivouac Buff headband in hopes that it may cover up any grease in my hair from lack of showering. All that takes about 2 minutes for me to do.

Packing. No one gets a huge amount of thrill out of it. And yet Alex and I do it nearly every day. Each and every morning - before the sun has even pushed its top over the horizon - we pack up all our belongings. We roll up our sleeping bags. We squish all our clothes into our compression sacks and try to get everything smaller than the day before. We let what little air remains in our sleeping mats out and then do a neat trick of rolling them up while both of us are still in the tent the size of a pea pod. And then we chuck everything outside to begin the process of fitting it all into our packs.

But not before we do the tent.

Sunset over farmland

That has become a sad routine of sorts. We both zip up our doors and then each take out 4 pegs from the ground. There are 8 pegs. Got to make things fair. Then I take the fly and fold that up as Alex shakes the tent free of any dirt pieces, bugs, leaves and freeflying feathers from our sleeping bags before we work together to take it all apart from the poles. Alex folds the poles. I fold the tent. Every. Single. Morning. We have accomplished this routine so often that we can no longer remember much past ouf 5th campspot of where we stayed. It's great fun.

Once packing is done - our internal organs have fully woken up and so we take turns heading out our staked out bush to do our buisness. People may laugh at the commercials on TV advertising for the latest fiber-related product that allows people to be "regular." Don't laugh. This is our life.

And then we walk. Over mountains. Across streams. Along roads. On roads. Trails. Pavement. Asphalt. Dirt. Rocks. Fields. Ditches. Logs. Vines. Bushes. Dead ends. Long routes. Short cuts. We walk it all. Nothing gets past us. We see those street signs a KM ahead and walk each step to get to it. We see the mountain in the horizon all day and take all day just to get to the base of it and have to face going up and over it. We enjoy views of the river rushing alongside of us and then the trail veers sharply and we discover that this is where we are meant to cross it. We look at the map and see us needing to follow the State Highway for the next "X" KM and we don't believe it until our feet hit the pavement and the big semi trucks are rushing past us. Sometimes I relish in the experiences we get to have in the journey and sometimes it's just hard to get through the day. The hour. The next minute.

Until we get to our desired destination. And sometimes we don't even make it there. Sometimes we have to frustratingly backtrack. Sometimes we decide to stop and we both collapse in a piled heap of sweaty mess. Sometimes it is all we can do just to set up the tent, cook (and hungrily eat) dinner and then go to sleep. But one things for sure, each and every day we stop to sit down and assess our bodies of new, old and all other forms of injuries. We critically examine each toe. Each sore spot. Each bump and bruise. We stretch out sore muscles, but usually even that is a chore for me. Mostly we just relish the fact that we have made it further than the day before.

And now we have made it to Hamilton. And yet I don't feel the same thrill inside me as what I did when we reached Auckland. Sure - being here means we are about halfway down the north island. Sure - being here means we have gotten that much further in our journey. Sure - I love that we are here. But right now, in this moment, all I can think about is the tough stuff we have had to go through to get here. And it exhausts me to see of what we have yet to do.



Looking back on the last few days we walked

 This is not a journey for the fainthearted. Te Araroa is not built for the casual person to just decide to walk it. One can not even "walk" it - it is tramped. It takes focus. It takes planning. It takes perseverence. It takes sweat, blood and tears. Literally. It takes all of you and then some. It makes me look deep inside and question why I decided to do this in the first place. It makes me wonder if I can continue on tomorrow. It makes me realize that anything is possible - that one more step means one more step forward. It makes me appreciate everything and all things - even if its just about finding the perfect bush to pee behind. It makes me push myself to my limits and just when I think I've mastered it, Te Araroa will throw something my way I never expected to get.

This bit from Auckland to Hamilton was one of the most difficult bits to date. And not for the terrain. Most of it was flat. Most of it was on some sort of road - even if only a dirt one. There wasn't as many amazing views that made the mountain climbs worth it. There wasn't as many obstacles to overcome that made me think of how lucky I am to get to do such an adventure. But it was long. It was draining. It was hot and heavy with the smells and sounds of State Highway 1. It was lacking of water and the one river that was there was largely inaccessible as I once found when going to fill up waterbottles and ending up past my knees in mud before even reaching the waterline. It was a section lacking in Te Araroa signage, making me doubt which way we were going, how long we'd have to go for or if anything was right.

And now we have made it to Hamilton. We have walked here - overcoming everything that has stood in our way and I am proud. We have done it for us. We have done it to see New Zealand. We have done it for Solomon Islands - as everyone deserves the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. My feet hurt every night I go to sleep so that some child in Solomon Islands may have the chance to grow up and become what they dream to be. My muscles get tired so that I might inspire someone else to go out there and live life to the full. I do what I am doing - putting all that I have (physically, mentally, spiritually, financially) - so that I might make a difference, no matter how small, in this great and amazing world that we live in.