5 days down.

i have just completed 5 of the most miserable days of my life. please remind me never to do that again. while we're incredibly proud to have walked the length of ninety mile beach (again, remember it's just 60 miles) and are pleased to see the looks on peoples' faces when we tell them where we have walked from, my feet HATE me for having done so, and so we are spending an extra day at the adorable Endless Summer Lodge in ahipara to rest up. here's the day-by-day of our last week:

wednesday, august 26
cape reinga to twilight beach - 5 miles
we ditched the rest of the bus tour group at the cape and at 12:31 pm officially began our hike. unfortunately, the thick and mysterious fog prevented us from seeing the clashing of the tasman sea and pacific ocean, so no pictures for you guys there. sorry. there were, however, some beautiful views as we climbed down from cape reinga to the beach, a grand start to the hike that made us overly excited for the days to come. in the first half hour of the hike, we met a german guy (everyone we meet is german - the three others with us in the current hostel, the hostel owner, two girls on the bus with us, 4 people in the auckland hostel...) who was just finishing his walk of ninety mile beach from the south, giving us hope that it wasn't completely insane to try it. after a long wait for a receding tide to make one point passable and an extremely frustrating accidental detour through what felt like a post-apocalyptical wasteland, we made it to the "campsite" (just a flat area right off the beach) and set up the tent minutes before it started pouring.

thursday, august 27
twilight beach to the bluff - 18.25 miles
this was a long day, leaving my feet aching and blistered from walking on the compacted sand. we consolidated what we had planned as 2 days into 1, but now i understand what i've been reading about beach walking being hard on the feet and am second guessing our decision. we had a short spell of hiking off the beach, across the steep and muddy scott point, an enjoyable monotony breaker even if it did come early in the day. so far we've seen 2 dead seals on the beach :(
we stopped about 3/4 of a mile short of our goal, the bluff, as the sun was already sliding under the waves and we didn't have a clue where on the bluff the campsite was located. we climbed over the sand dunes and found a decent spot out of the wind. we wasted lots of time trying to start our stove during what turned into a 2 hour lunch break.

friday, august 28
the bluff to "the nest" - 14 miles
we initially wanted to hike 20 miles today in order to get off the beach by saturday night, but my miserable feet wouldn't allow it, and we had to be satisfied with 14 miles. the highlight of the day was in the morning (low tide) when the tour buses stream up the beach and we get to wave victoriously at the faces pressed against the windows. one van stopped and the driver chatted with us for a vit about wher we were coming from and where we were headed. spent the night on the sand dunes again, in a bowl that i dubbed "the nest". we're beginning to get tired of our supply of muesli bars, which bryan has accidentally but humorously been referring to as "mussolini bars"

saturday, august 29
"the nest" to waipapakauri - 15 miles
another painful day of walking :( towards the end of each day, i am literally hobbling along, often with one hand on my walking stick and the other in bryan's hand - out of love, but mostly for support :) the hostel in ahipara was constantly in our thoughts. we could have stayed at a motor lodge at waipapakauri tonight (just 1/2 mile farther), but we don't want to spend the money and it feels a bit like giving up early. saw more dead creatures today - another seal (but also 2 live ones), a number of pufferfish and birds, and, most interestingly, a small hammerhead shark. we had a wonderful morning break with a can of coca-cola, courtesy of a friendly family that was spending their saturday morning dirt biking on the beach and sand dunes. also experienced our first cadbury crunchies - honeycomb coated in chocolate. a bit strange, but it's chocolate, so there's no real problem there :)

sunday, august 30
waipapakauri to ahipara, 11 miles
had a longer day than we were expecting, as our hostel turned out to be a mile and a half out of town. it was worth it, though - the hostel is in an adorable restored old villa that's so cozy, we've decided to spend a second night here. it's right ont he beach, but we don't plan to do any more beach walking for the next 20 years or so, and will have to be satisfied enough with the beautiful view. we have contented ourselves with hot showers, beds, and reading australian gossip mgaazines (that's my vice, not bryan's). my favorite is the column in women's weekly, in which a curly-haired thirtysomething shows the public how to make ugly crafts. her latest featured a sparkly jewelry box - she didn't make the box; she just spray-painted it silver and added self-adhesive rhinestones in a floral pattern to the knobs. gross. dad, you'd be glad to hear that we've been playing some uno, though it's just not the same without you. looking forward to a meal at the fish and chips shop in town.

tomorrow, we'll head out for 8 or so miles of road walking before heading into the forest. wish us luck!

rachel

greetings from kaitaia!

if you remember our map from a few posts ago, you can find us in kaitaia, at the base of ninety mile beach in nz's northland region. the hostel that we're staying in is MUCH nicer than the auckland one - it's cleaner, roomier, quieter, and it even has a tv with a dvd selection. makes us feel like home :) we watched whale rider last night, a film made locally that new zealanders are quite proud of, and for good reason. besides the lord of the rings, new zealand also boasts about the piano and once were warriors, neither of which we have yet seen.

sunday was our last full day in auckland. we visited a presbyterian church a block from our hostel and met a nice family that took us home with them for lunch (our first experience with meat pies!) and then out to a gorgeous beach on auckland's west coast. the husband has recently started working in the chapel on auckland university's campus, trying to restart a fledgling christian community there. we had a great time with them and their 4 kids, and bryan is now in love with the word "jandals" (flip-flops) after hearing them use it so frequently.

yesterday morning we hopped a bus up to kaitaia, a 7-hour trip that made bryan feel pretty queasy on its steep serpentine roads, and tomorrow morning we will take a tour bus to cape reinga. it takes the paved road one way and the beach road (literally just the hard-packed sand) the other, and we're hoping that the tides allow us to take the paved road up so that we can see the sights along the way, as we will be hiking back down the beach for the next 5 days or so and don't feel the night to drive that route. cape reinga is where the tasman sea and the pacific ocean meet, and on good days you can, apparently, actually see the two bodies of water collide at a point below the cape's lighthouse. it also has a spiritual significance for the maori, as legend calls cape reinga the spot where spirits depart for hawaiiki, their homeland.

we're off to swing by the local a/g church and to send off our bounce box, which is filled with extra supplies (powdered milk, dry socks, hand sanitizer, etc) and will "bounce" ahead of us to a town a week or two away. sorry there are still no pictures - unfortunately, it will probably have to be from kerikeri, 12 days away.

later, gators!

-rachel

going broke in auckland.

hello all! just wanted to let you know that we're alive and well in auckland. "well" might be a bit of an overstatement - i picked up a cold somewhere on the flight between LA and Auckland (stress? lack of sleep?) and the cool weather here is not helping matters. while the hostel works just fine for us, we're sleeping in a mixed dorm with 4 other guys (yes, all males) and we're both antsy to be alone on the trail, in our cozy tent-home.

we've done some exploring of downtown auckland - yesterday we wandered through the beautiful auckland domain (a huge public park not far from the city center), visiting the on-site auckland museum and taking a nap in the grass on the top of the hill afterwards. the museum used to be dedicated solely to NZ's involvement in the wars, but when the auckland city museum closed, their extensive displays were moved to this building as well. bryan especially enjoyed the exhibits on the weapons of pacific islanders, and i believe he's trying to find an excuse to carry a shark-tooth-tipped spear. i'm finding that it's almost comforting to do things that are purely touristy (please don't tell anyone i'm saying this!) because i can acknowledge that i'm completely out of my element. i feel very "green" among the others in our hostel, since it caters to long-termers who've already spent months exploring and working in nz.

i came very near to some tear-shedding this morning, when we realized that our chosen mapping method would only work if we had a computer to download the mapping software to. since internet cafes obviously won't let us do this, we gave in and bought a gps, spending about $500 more than we'd planned on. fantastic. everything is adding up so quickly! we've been surviving on a diet of sandwiches (pb & jelly for lunch, pb & banana for dinner) and leftover plane snacks, so trail food might even be a bit of a luxury for us :)

speaking of the plane - we are in love with qantas. as soon we boarded, we started acting like giddy little children, giggling about everything - the two free meals ("dinner" was served at the equivalent of 4 am eastern time, but you can bet i ate it anyway), the impressive variety of movies and tv shows to watch, the after-dinner hot chocolate served with a single marshmallow, the hot towel to freshen ourselves with, the snack bag...it justified the cost of the flight a bit. the 12 hours rushed by, since only the last hour of the flight was in the daytime. leaving LAX at midnight, we chased the night on its westward path, letting the sun rise just in time to watch our descent.

hopefully we'll be able to post pictures soon - we weren't planning to stop in the internet cafe this morning, so we don't have the camera cord with us.

miss you guys. really. a lot.

rachel

one day left.

one day left in the U.S. - here's what we've been up to:

-visited south county church , a church plant in lorton, va, where many of my friends from high school are now on staff. the lovely complimentary breakfast spread would definitely keep me coming back :)

-got tricked into seeing district 9, a movie that only boys could possibly enjoy, about alien refugees living in slums in johannesburg (jo, you would hate it). i usually enjoy watching the trailers before the feature, especially with oscar season so quickly approaching, but this movie's trailers included the vampire boy-hating film jennifer's body, cirque du freak: the vampire's assistant, and zombieland. gross.

-we hiked up bull run mountain here in virginia with my parents. it's only a 4-mile loop, but there's rocky outcropping at the top, from which you can see shenandoah national park and the appalachian trail. there's some good hiking to be had on the east coast. our white oak trail hike with chris and daniela last year introduced us to some of the wonders of backcountry travel - the highlight was a series of natural waterslides and pools hidden back in the shenandoah mountains. fantastic. wish us luck - the next post should be from new zealand! - rachel

love/hate

today i loved: exploring auckland via google street maps. we planned the route from our hostel to the nearest supermarket and "walked it" in advance.

today i hated: this quote from nzbackpack.com
"who is the typical backpacker? you no longer need to carry a backpack to be a backpacker! being a backpacker is an attitude, not a stereotype."

not that i can really consider myself a "real" backpacker yet, considering that i've only really done a few weekend trips, but i'm still taking offense at the idea that you can be a backpacker without actually carrying the weight. in new zealand, it's popular to travel via backpacker buses, which, as far as i can tell, are just party buses for the 18-30 crowd who may or may not be doing any hiking.

i thought i'd leave you with a picture of a kiwi, new zealand's national bird, which i happen to think are adorable. images of kiwi birds, kiwi fruit, and the silver fern (the symbol of the national rugby team, the all-blacks) are found on everything that a tourist could possibly want to buy.




-rachel

a week at the beach

this post is coming to you from corolla, north carolina, a beach town on the northern tip of the outer banks where our family has rented a beach house for the week. in the two days that we've been here, i got my first sunburn of the season, played my fair share of pool and ping-pong, and have started and finished two books - an out-of-date book about basic backpacking (not worth a read), and "the lost explorer", about the finding of george mallory's body on everest in 1999. mallory and his partner, sandy irvine, made an attempt on everest's summit in 1924, 29 years before the official recorded summit by sir edmund hillary, but never returned to camp the night of their attempt. since they were alone on the day of their deaths with no witnesses but the Vestpocket camera they were rumored to be carrying (it has yet to be found), the likelihood of their having reached the top has been debated for years. the discovery of his body rekindled the conversation and added some important information. conrad anker, a member of the 1999 expedition and one of the book's authors, seems like a bit of a jerk, but the book is worth a read anyway. (sorry, amazon, for stealing your graphic.)


we just booked 4 nights at the city groove backpackers (hostel) in auckland, another step in making the trip seem more like it's actually happening. we arrive on a thursday morning, and plan to spend at least the weekend in auckland to make final purchases and arrangements for the beginning of the hiking portion.


we're encountering some frustration with the very first part of the plan - what we'd like to do is take a basic coach from auckland (bottom of this map) to cape reinga (unmarked, but the far northern tip) in one day. unfortunately, the stretch above kaitaia, which is called ninety mile beach but is actually only sixty miles long, is accessible only by driving along the hard-packed sand on the beach and is not serviced by the intercity buses that serve the rest of the islands. we can take an intercity bus to kaitaia, but then would have to stay there for the night and hop on a tour bus the next morning for the remaining stretch, adding more cost and time than we'd really like. the planning is fun, though - this is what traveling is really about. in the end, the bus issue will probably end up as another "figure it out when we get there" item.

-rachel

we've arrived at our second stop of the trip, my parents' house in dc, and have spent the evening celebrating my mom's birthday and listening to classic records (the monkees, the beatles, the beach boys, jesus christ superstar) on her new record player. from the airport, we drove directly to a crabhouse on the potomac that's clearly intended to welcome visitors from the water rather than from land, as guests have to walk across a busy set of train tracks to get to the restaurant when the parking lot is full (which tonight it was). the crab legs that i ordered were certainly well worth the drive. thanks, mom and dad!

we flew through minneapolis this morning, and though we decided not to hop on the light rail for one last visit of the mall of america (by the way, did you know that there are billboards advertising the mall of america in omaha? that's two states away!), our pilot sure gave us a grand farewell tour of the city. we could see the mall (and, therefore, our old apartment) to our left as we took off, following 35w up past the chain of lakes and directly over the city skyline. we could even clearly make out miller hall and the rest of north central down below us. why would anyone choose to live anywhere but minneapolis?

tomorrow we're planning yet another visit to REI to purchase some remaining essentials. we have a surprisingly long list, especially given how heavy our packs felt as we lugged them around the airport today. weight has been a critical factor in the decision-making process for most of our equipment, but as this is our first real backpacking trip, we know that we're still holding onto unnecessary items because we just don't know better yet. hopefully we'll have shed some packweight by the time we hike the PCT with adam and stacy in a year or so :)

after the shopping trip, we're heading straight to the library to secure a stack of reading materials on wilderness first aid, navigation, and general new zealand information. we're leaving on saturday for a week at a beach house in the outer banks, and somehow it just seems more appealing to read about magnetic north from a hammock by the ocean than it did from our apartment in minneapolis. we're embarrassingly underprepared in some areas, and are giving ourselves a crash course during this last week and a half. i've decided to stop stressing myself out about this, and instead try to maximize the time that we do have.

one more note before i go - i now possess actual new zealand dollars, courtesy of my fantastic brothers! this one, as you can see, is a $5 featuring the late sir edmund hillary (just ahead of peter jackson as the most well-known kiwi?), famous for being the first to summit mt. everest along with sherpa tenzing norgay in 1953. the $20 note displays a picture of queen elizabeth II, and the $10 note shows kate sheppard, who, i just learned, was a prominent figure in the woman's suffrage movement. new zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1893, and has a proud social justice history. for those of you who are wondering, as of today, nz$1=us$0.67. it's not a bad exchange rate, but i wouldn't mind if it it dipped back down to the $0.50 rate that we saw in march.

have a wonderful friday!

rachel

traveling on beautiful I-80

heads up, student lifers - you're about to get an amazing postcard in the mail. it's similar to this one, but it makes interstate 80 look even more thrilling. we found this gem at mahoney state park, nebraska's third most visited attraction (the henry doorley zoo is, rightfully, number one and cabela's is, questionably, number two) and the location of a family camping trip this weekend.

the camping was luxurious - the tent had three rooms and was tall enough to stand up in, the fare included some delicious campfire cobbler, and the park featured a mini golf course, paddleboats, and an indoor auditorium. we were treated to a matinee showing of "mr meany goes a-courtin'", which is an intentionally over-the-top experience during which the audience is encouraged to throw popcorn at the villain and cheer whenever the hero enters the room. this is certainly not the kind of camping that we will be doing in new zealand, so we tried to enjoy it while it lasted. our navigational skills were in question, however, when we found ourselves terribly lost somewhere near the one forested trail in the park. i think we discovered a few new species of spider on our way back to civilization.

we spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon planning our meals for the trip in 4-day increments. i'm relieved to have some semblance of a plan in this area, but by our current estimates, we'll be spending upwards of $85 a week on food alone - and backpacking food, at that! once we actually arrive in new zealand, we'll spend some time perusing grocery stores to find out what we can purchase cheaply there, because the budget will certainly not accomodate the current plan.

we'll hop a flight to baltimore on thursday morning to visit my side of the family and spend some time at the outer banks in north carolina. we do have a layover in minneapolis from about 10:30 am-12:45 pm, so give bryan's phone a call (612-865-1643) if you want to meet us for coffee at the starbucks in baggage claim or something. since, you know, none of you work or anything. :)

rachel