An unexpected hike
Had a fun time on Great Barrier Island over the weekend, but not quite as relaxing as normal.
This is the view from the house Squatter Girl and I stayed at in Whangaparapara. The sunrises and sunsets are amazing.
On the Saturday decided to do the trek to the Hot Springs. It’s only a couple of kms in and the DOC track is really well maintained. It had been raining the day before but this track isn’t much affected by the rain.
This is one of the two natural hot pools. The overall water is very pleasant and warm, and at some parts very very hot. Well worth doing, if you are ever on Barrier.
This is by the lower hot pool. Do you see that path on the right heading up? That’s where we diverted from plans, and things went wrong.
It said it was 15 minutes up to the Tramline Track and we thought it would be nice to go up just to see the view from up there. So we carried on. The problem was that the track was fucking steep. And fucking muddy. So steep and muddy that you had to use tree roots to pull yourself up and even then at one stage I started sliding down on my knees. Eventually we got to the top, having concluded it is called the tramline track as you need a bloody tram to get up it.
Looking back down the near vertical muddy track from the top, it looked a good way to commit suicide by heading back down it. The chances of doing a 30 metre slide into the river was non-trivial.
Having studied the maps of GBI many times, I knew that the track would join up with another track which would take us back to Whangaparapara, so we decided it was the safer option to do basically a loop, rather than reverse out. So we headed down the other side of the hill (which was also fairly steep and muddy but not as lethally).
At the bottom of the hill was another stream. Unlike the previous ones which you could do without getting wet, this one required wet feet. Being a boy, I just decided to get my shoes and socks wet and went straight through.
SG though didn’t want wet shoes. So she carefully removed her shoes and socks and waded over to the other side. After drying her feet, she put the socks and shoes back on. Then we went 10 metres along the track to look at the sign post. The route to Whangaparapara was sign-posted as being 45 degrees from the route we came in on, which meant re-crossing the river 10 metres up-stream to get back onto the side we started on.
I couldn’t hold my laughter in, and just started pissing myself. The more I laughed, the more icy the stares got, with the ominous “I’m glad you think this is funny” retort. That of course just made me laugh louder, and be glad SG did not have a gun with her.
Anyway we carried along the Tramway Track, and found out the hard way there were two more hills and valley to go through, before finally one big ascent to the summit of the road. We were both very glad when we finally hit the road. Of course we came out around three kms away from where we left the car, so in total I reckon we did around 12 kms or so, including four hill climbs. It is fair to say I was pretty sore the next day!
We recovered that night with a mixture of champagne, red wine and whiskey. The following day explored a bit more around the island – but by car. Above is a photo of Blind Bay I took.
It’s been a fair while since I had been to the GBI. There is now a proper airport terminal, and they even have an office now for the GBI Local Board. Definitely going to go back during summer, and maybe even before then.