Walk 12 - Karangahake Gorge

A brave archaeologist once said, "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?”. Swap the word 'snakes' with 'bridges', replace 'brave' with 'timid' and 'archaeologist' with 'writer' and you would capture beautifully my adventure last Saturday in the Karangahake Gorge for walk number 12.

It's a sad fact that the adventurous gene that is raging within my camping/sky-diving/tramping parents is rather recessive in me. I've had moments where I've mistakenly thought I was brave that have ended in near disaster - Being tossed from an over turning kayak going down a set of rapids, while alone on a river in the South of France, is top of that list – but it’s something I’ve come to accept and that my friends accept about me. Part of the plan with these hikes is to test my ‘bravery boundaries’ a bit. Go into forests where spiders live, walk along trails which are a little high, get my hands dirty and some sun on my nose. Try and tap into the Folwell/Hawthorn spirit a little more, and the walk through Karangahake Gorge has helped do that.

I had been looking forward to this walk since the planning stages.  Mainly as it was the spot my afore mentioned adventurous parents used to camp at with their friends in the 1970s, long before the maintained paths and nicely graded steps that we used on the weekend were put in. Also we are starting to head out of Auckland more now, with the gorge just over 2 hours away it felt like a proper day out.

Karangahake Gorge is near Thames in the Coromandel Peninsula and is steeped in gold mining history. Although we found no lucky nuggets along the way, the remains of the old battery, the rail tracks and a lonely mine cart help you to believe you stumbled across an abandoned moment in time and made the hike tremendously enjoyable. After getting us only slightly lost we snagged the last spot in the relatively small car park, nearly emptied our can of bug spray on all exposed limbs and were on our way.

 A bridge. A long bridge. This is your first stop out of the car park. Like a test to see if you really deserve to enjoy the spoils on the other side. Mum and Nikki didn’t miss a beat - they were out and across it before I had time to say “I think I’ve left the kettle on at home.” No going back now, I couldn’t really leave them here...wait, could I?...no it had to be done, and so out I stepped. It felt like it took me longer to walk across then it had to drive down from Auckland. My knees lost all structural integrity and it was as if I was walking on bands of licorice. I managed to stop (no, not just to hold on to the sides) and take a photo of the view from the bridge, which looking back on it now is really rather pretty and not like the swirling vortex of doom I thought I had seen while I was standing there.

You see the fun thing with the bridges in the Karangahake Gorge is they move. Bridges shouldn’t be allowed to move. They should be strong, silent and very, very still. That’s what it says in ‘Eileen’s Guide to How All Things Should Be’ (coming to all good book stores).

So straight out of the gate the limits of my bravery were tested and although initially nervous (read, terrified) I made it across and was rewarded with heckles and jibes from my annoyingly courageous family. Once across there’s the remains of the old Battery once used for mining, a small area for picnics by the river and a spot  to have your photo with wooden cut-outs of gold miners. The tracks then split and you choose your adventure.

We were there for the 'Windows Walk' which had promises of tunnels and amazing views, so we found our path and headed towards.....another bridge!! Eileen is so far, unimpressed.....

With bridge number two behind us and a few sailor-like swear words shared between myself and nature we were properly on our way.

A far grander prize awaits you here as through a crumbling stone archway is an amazing tree with grand, exposed roots. You can't help but imagine yourself, very briefly in a Elfish land.

To get to the tunnels you have to climb a well graded set of stairs alongside a set of old cart tracks which is when you really start to feel immersed in the spirit of the walk.

At the top of the stairs we took a left turn to the lookout where we could see the car park and the bridges just crossed. The gorge was already offering amazing views and with the hard part behind us we were able to relax and just slowly make our way back along the track.

The track takes you past a couple of locked tunnels which offer a crisp blast of air with just one step off the track towards them.

But it doesn’t take long to reach the first tunnel which lies ominously at the end of the track. Torches really are a must as even though the first one is fairly short and retainss a little bit of light, the second one gets very dark and even a small light is a comfort.

The ‘windows’ refer to the holes in the tunnel where you can stop and look out, at not only the surrounding gorge but the return walk built into the opposite wall. They provide some moments of relief for the claustrophobic one in the group (me), those wanting a break from the ceiling drips which may or may not be spiders (me) and for those needing to see that the tunnel did in fact end (do I really need to say it).

Once through the last tunnel you need to cross the river for the return journey via the third bridge. By this stage of the walk I had started to feel I had faced some tests and passed them so ‘Brave Eileen’ was starting to peak out from the shadows and I managed to not only stop on the bridge for photos, but smile as well! Not as genuinely though as in this picture of Mum crossing in 1977.

Once across you can play ‘Spot the Windows’ on the hike back and occasionally the little heads of fellow-adventurers pop out, or you get a quick flash of a more professional walker, with no time for holes in the wall, whooshing by.

 There are more little side tunnels on the walk back, which Nikki had no hesitation in dashing inside of to investigate. The cries of “Wow look at all the spiders” meant she didn’t have to share them with anyone else.

The colours of the gorge are just amazing! From bursts of orange rock, to the lush trees and the very fast river you feel lost in a bubble of ancient time that’s really a shame to leave, and not just because you have to cross that bridge to get back to the car. A walk I would happily do again and would recommend to all.

I wrap up this week by sending a huge thank you to the wonderful team at Kathmandu who this week, have offered me support through some of their gear as sponsorship. I have tried to fit myself out so far with their product as it’s the best for outdoor adventures so I’m overwhelmed by their generosity. This will enable me to be properly ready for some of the colder climates and rougher treks ahead.

Walk 11 - Hunua Falls

Hello friends and readers from around the corner and across the seas! It's been too long. I know that, you know that and my password reset definitely knows that. But with the injuries and frustrating distractions of last year behind me it's time to start walking again, and we have!

I'm entering an exciting new stage with the walks as I'm very quickly crossing all the Auckland based ones off the list which means some serious exploring is about to start happening, which was one of my smaller goals of this exercise. My view of New Zealand is very city-centric and being able to visit not just some of the other larger towns but the nooks and crannies in between is going to be great fun.

I've eased back in with one of the shorter hikes - Hunua Falls which is about 45 minutes away from us and part of the Hunua Ranges.  Rain was threatening and the wet weather gear took up almost as much space as the humans in the car but we were happy in our confidence that at least the rain would mean the park would be nice and quiet. Well it didn't rain (while we were there) and the park was packed! There were food trucks and walking club buses filling the standard parking area and a field to the left had been opened for additional cars. Tents were up, deck chairs were out and the summer hum thick in the air. So to sum up I was annoyed. Not that I don't love people out enjoying the weekend. I just have a bad reaction to being wrong.

There were a couple of different track options available to us here. The Massey Loop which would have taken us up into the ranges more and the Cossey Gorge Track which was a smaller loop taking us away from the waterfalls, to a reservoir and back which is the one we went with.

The walk immediately begins with a stream crossing and a lovely view of the falls.

And if you look to the left as you're crossing, there's a view of the ranges we were heading in to.

The track was really well maintained and nice to walk. Some of the hikes we've done so far have said "easy" and almost killed me so I'm skeptical now of the track descriptions but aside from a couple of slopes closer to the reservoir this was very pleasant.

I hope nobody's getting too bored of the tree lined paths yet, because *spoiler alert* this is New Zealand and this is what we offer.

Very early on we passed a private property on the left which had a strange collection of trees where the tops and bottoms were a lush green but the middle sections looked either burnt or dead.

I thought it was the strangest thing and if anyone knows why or how this would happen I'd love to know.

You head down into the bush before turning up towards the reservoir and there's a lovely, quiet stream you have to step across to continue. When we reached it there was a couple with their dog who was perfectly happy to stand in the water and not walk any further. If we had brought a picnic this would have been the spot to enjoy it.

Once we had finished our loop we popped down to the waterfalls to have a closer look just as it was starting to rain (YES I was right!!) It seems a popular spot for locals to spend the day as pockets of people had staked their claims around the pool with families, gaggles of teens and visitors like us happily sharing the space. One of the first clues that you've taken a tiny little step out of Auckland.

Our next walk is not so small and not so "easy" as we head to the Karangahape Gorge which is about 2hrs out of Auckland and a proper day out. So keep sunny thoughts in your head for us, though I'm happy to take a car load of rain jackets and be wrong again.

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A little stumble along the path

So once again I find myself apologising for the lack of updates. After readjusting to a busy new schedule I damaged my foot a fortnight ago which led to a fun Mothers Day, spent at the hospital getting scans.

My poor paw (not the fruit) has settled down thanks to a nice run of anti-inflammatory pills but it's meant the greatest adventures I've been on recently is to the couch and back.

I'll be a good test tomorrow with a shift at the Zoo and hopefully from there I can plan my return to the walks, which I'm really missing. Coming up I have a weekend trip up North scheduled in about 3 weeks to tick a couple off and then in July we're booked in for a trip to Wellington where I will combine attending the Comic-con, visiting Weta Workshop and two hikes over a pretty busy 48 hours.

My hope is that the next update doesn't start with..."I'm sorry.."

Walks 09 and 10....Finally!

So um April has disappeared and I've fallen off the pace. I knew it was coming. A change in jobs, two birthdays, a trip to Rotorua and an upcoming visit to Hamilton meant the month became a challenge for fitting in walks, which doesn't really excuse the fact that this blog is three weeks late and as punishment I shall force myself to eat this chocolate bar which is bad for me....

...ok now that that's been taken care of I shall cast my mind back to the first weekend of April *cue flashback music*

Easter weekend was another great opportunity to check off two walks over the four days so on the Friday I roped in my sister for company once again and we headed to the Whatipu Coast for Walk #9.

Whatipu Coast should be about 40 mins. out of Auckland but the last stretch of road, and I use the word 'road' quite loosely here, is a twisty, mono-lanular (it was that intense I felt the need to create a word) stretch of loose gravel that forces you to drive at about 10 kms an hour, turn off your Elton John CD which keeps trying to jump out of the player, causes your little sister to stop exhaling and extends your trip by about an extra 20 mins. To sum up, it's a bad road.

We arrived later in the day to find the car park full which surprised me, as I assumed that because I hadn't heard of it, that nobody else would know the coast existed. This really has become a journey of knowledge for me. There was a full campsite and lots of families coming and going from the beach track and I was quite overwhelmed by a familiar yet faraway sense of holidays when I was younger, then Nikki reminded me that I hated camping and we were able to move on.

The walks this weekend ended up, by accident, to have a theme...CAVES! The Whatipu Coast has not only a lovely low-tide beach walk, but the track we were following took us past some old sea caves, which varied in size and spookiness. It really was a day were I had to channel my inner nugget of bravery as the walk seemed to take us through the largest collection of Nursery Spider nests I've ever seen. We've encountered their webs on a previous walk, were I think I spotted 2 maybe 3.

Behold the Spiders lair...

Every one of those little white dabs is a nest which closer up looks like this...

Each of which houses many....MANY little spiders. I don't know if they give out awards for braving these sorts of conditions, but they should. Nikki of course, took great joy in my suffering as the numbers of these nests only increased the further along we got.

The walk itself (once you stop thinking about your impending death-by-spider) is lovely. There's a small amount of bush and then you're walking via thin sandy tracks alongside the cliffs with lovely open views towards the sea.

 The caves are quite amazing and vary in size and shape, but being the sensible young ladies we are, we chose not to spend too much time off the path exploring in the dark.

 

It's a one-way track to the caves so we returned back the way we'd come and then took the path down to the beach to continue the hike.

Discovering the joys of walking on sand was an adventure all on its own, but the beach presented a wonderful second half to the walk. A world away from the enclosed trail by the caves, the wide open space leads you to towards a lovely lighthouse with a beautiful view of the coast.

 

 

And then you're spoilt again by the return view of the Waitakere Ranges.

A lovely walk that left us quite exhausted, but happy in all that we'd seen.....except the spiders...

Walk #10 on Sunday was one that I'd been really looking forward to. Not only did I get to enjoy a road trip out of Auckland with two lovely friends, we were joined on the walk by members of the Waikato Parkinson's Committee which had been organised with the help of Dilys Parker who contacted me after my first walk down in Hamilton. Dilys does a lot of great work for people with Parkison's and you can check out her Facebook page here

As much as I'd been looking forward to it, I almost messed up this trip. For some reason my muddled mind thought that Waitomo (our destination for this walk) was on the Auckland side of Hamilton, a leisurely 1 1/2 hours away, but the night before I checked my maps and no, that wasn't quite right. Waitomo is an extra hour on the other side of Hamilton so I had to send panicked messages to my friends Kim and Jill who were travelling with me to break the news that it was going to be an 8.30am start. Luckily they're both wonderful and nothing was a problem so early the next day we headed South.

Waitomo is a tourist hot spot, famous for the glow worm caves which bring visitors by the bus load to the tiny village every day which is only frustrating when you're stuck behind a couple of those buses. Our walk was another 10 minutes down the road after Tourist Central at Ruakuri Caves which was a nice, much quieter spot.

Once there we were joined by Peter and Kelvin and their wives from the committee and we were ready to set off.

This was a beautiful bush walk that took us up and past some fascinating limestone walls, through tunnels, across bridges and ultimately into a massive cavern which I'm told is even more impressive at night but was still amazing.

 

 

 

Sadly my camera (and its operator) are not very good at taking pictures in the dark...in a cave so please enjoy the worst photo you'll ever see of the inside of a cave...

I could have used my flash but didn't want to startle any (read spider) animal that may have been dwelling in there.

I'm finding myself more and more obsessed with trees as we go along these walks and as we followed the loop back to the car park we passed some amazing examples. I'm starting to believe that I must have been a Woodland Elf in a previous life.

 

Once we were back we had a really nice lunch before the journey back and I'm so grateful to the whole group for their company and hope we're able to all meet up again for another walk sometime in the Waikato area....after April ;)

 

Walk 08 - Kawau Island

One of the aspects of this journey that I'm really enjoying is getting to visit places that I've either not been to before, or was so teeny when I did go that it's visit has long been forgotten as was the case with Kawau Island. I have, it's been told to me, been there when I was very little but I had no memory of it until we arrived at Mansion House and I was flooded with the memory of a particularly large Moreton bay Fig Tree which stands on the grounds. I have no other recollection of it, aside from that one tree. It is, to be fair a very big tree.

Kawau Island is one of the bigger islands in the Hauraki Gulf, accessed by a ferry out of Sandspit which is an easy drive of less than an hour North of Auckland. The island was once owned by one of New Zealand's first governors who transformed the existing Copper Mine managers cottage into the extensive Mansion House which still stands today, is the main attraction of the island and will have you yearning for a lottery win as you depart and head back to your standard, normal sized home.

We caught the mail ferry out of Sandspit which makes a stop at a collection of bays around the island on the way to the final drop off point at Mansion House Bay. The weather was looking a little threatening as we headed out but aside from some aggressive wind out on the boat we got lucky again.

The run took us past a lovely collection of old batches and expensive new developments which must have had stunning views. Lovely sailboats sit waiting in the water beside private docks and life just suddenly felt a lot more lazy and relaxed.

 

 

We departed the ferry early on it's first stop at Mansion Bay as we wanted enough time for lunch and the hike before the boat ride back and it was hard for me not to feel like we were involved in a scene from an old Agatha Christie story as we pulled in to the bay, with the beautiful house dominating the view and peacocks patrolling the dock. I was primed and ready to solve a murder using the little grey cells.

 

 Sadly their were no crimes that required our attention so we enjoyed our picnic lunch and the quiet that our early disembarkment had allowed us. As we ate we were visited by the peacocks, a pair of curious (and I would imagine well fed) ducks and some Weka which are a flightless bird about the size of a small chicken.

Our walking track took us up and above Mansion Bay before heading down to Two House Bay and then inland past a large Redwood tree that was planted by governor Sir George Grey, then up to the turning point at a lookout over the remains of the old copper mine before heading back towards Mansion house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

80% of the walk is in amongst the bush and at times the only noise is the wind in the tree tops which is quickly becoming one of my favourite sounds. Mum and Nikki were once again great company and were very supportive and comforting once I realised it was unlikely we were going to see any wild Wallabies bouncing about.

Once we had finished our hike we had just enough time for a quick tour of Mansion House (no photography allowed unfortunately) which I highly recommend if you're visiting Kawau. For only $4 per person you're treated to an extremely well preserved glimpse into the past and it was a wonderful way to end our visit before the quick, 20 minute trip back to Sandspit Wharf.

 

Coming up this week is the start of April and with it, Parkinson's Awareness Month. I'll be doing two walks this weekend including one in Hamilton with some people from the Waikato region who are coming out to support the walks and the Parkinson's community. I'm really looking forward to meeting them and expanding my circle of friends as I hit double digits with walk #10.