Travel

Day 1. Nov 6th.
12kms walked.

Four acts of kindness get me to Cape Reinga, the starting point of the Te Araroa. I wander to the edge of town with trepidation. This is it. I stick my thumb out hoping nobody will stop and I can spend one more day in bed binging fleabag. Within a minute a man in his late 60’s pulls over. Rob , the driver tells me the country is changing, “you be careful which cars you get into Louise, New Zealand isn’t what it used to be”, he says as I jump out on the side of the road 40kms closer to my goal.
Remembering the man who had sat next to me on the bus from Auckland, with an obvious drug habit who asked if he could borrow my bank card, plus an addiction of my own (true crime podcasts), I am suitably on edge.
The next car that stops luckily is only Sue, a social worker who is checking on a property up here.
Her elderly client had been attacked and hospitalised, and Sue is checking the damage to her house. She gets me another 30kms and drops me beside a dairy, with the same warning, “be careful”.
A beekeeper helps me strap my big red backpack in beside boxes of bees in the back of his ute and then a french couple pick me up in their van and get me the rest of the way to Cape Reinga.
I hoist my heavy backpack onto soft and untrained shoulders, grab my brand new walking sticks and wander down to the lighthouse that marks the start of the 3006kms hike I’m embarking on. I’m glad to be getting away from that changing world Rob mentioned and return to the roots of humanity. Becoming a nomad, with everything I need on my back AND no reception.
It only took 12kms to get to my first campsite, but 12kms was enough to make my feet hurt from the extra weight of my bag. My hips itch where my hip straps rub, and a sharp pain between my shoulder blades is starting. I know it’s going to get worse, but I tell myself this pain is bearable. It’s fleeting. I am human and I am made for this, to focus on the physical discomfort of living, rather than the mental anguish of existence.

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To read more about the hike, head to my Instagram.

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