23 October 2026

Hukatere Lodge to Kaitaia

45km/28.5 mi

Up early again and one of the last to leave. It’s worth it for the cozy kitchen vibes. Coffee in a French press, sitting at the table, watching as the world grows light. It sounds like most of us are going all the way to Ahipara today. Some are then hitching to Kaitaia, and others are just staying at the holiday park. Our plan is the holiday park, but as we walk, this evolves. If we could get to Kaitaia today, we’d have a better shot of getting through all or most of the two forest sections, Raetea and Puketī, before the worst of the predicted rain.

Mash and I take a faint path through the dunes to get back to the beach. It’s a new environment! New things to look at for a few minutes! Plants! But then it’s back to the beach, and the world is the same again. We catch up to Thijs, Izzy, and Sibylle, chat for a second, and then pass them. A little while later they pass us again when we pull over, then we do the same to them, repeat. Leapfrog on the beach.

We wait until just past noon to have lunch. We go hard on this one, eating up all the rest of the cheese, salami, and wraps since we’re heading into town today. This is one of my favorite things about hiking. Just being an absolute trash can. A bin of a human. 

I walk with Mash in the afternoon. We are getting ever closer to that ridge of mountains in the distance that signals the end of the beach. At one point we notice seagulls flying up a few meters, dropping something, then returning back to the ground. We realize that they must be dropping clams onto the beach to open them, then eating them. At least this is our hypothesis. Genius, if so! Good job, seagulls. That’s raven-level smarts. 

I start getting loopy. It’s incredibly sunny. Feet screaming. Now my right calf is tight. Really tight. I’m probably overcompensating for the relentlessly blistered bottom of my left foot. I’ve never had blisters that stubborn. I lanced and drained the offending blister twice yesterday and still had to wake up in the middle of the night to thread it so it wouldn’t refill. That’s what you get for not stopping to take care of your hot spots, kids. 

The beach ends unceremoniously. Just like that. There’s a left hand turn up some soft sand into the beachside town of Ahipara. Exiting the beach through it is like one last sick joke, but once I’ve wobbled through town to a public park and shaken the sand out, I’m over it. 

After the park we walk a few blocks to the local superette for snacks. We decide to take it in turns, and the moment Mash walks in, I see a covered four-wheeler pull up and Izzy, Thijs, and Sibylle jump out of it. They’ve gotten a ride through the town here and are very giddy over the cat that the driver had in the vehicle with him. Their plans is to hitchhike all the way to Kaitaia rather than walk the 14km on the road. By now we’ve committed to the idea of doing the road walk, making the day a whopping 45(ish) kilometers. They say we’re crazy, which is correct. 

Then it’s my turn to go into the shop. It’s exactly what I dreamed of. They have four pristine, fully stocked chest freezers full of ice cream bars. At least six different types of Magnum bars. Multiple Cadbury bars. A New Zealand brand with a boysenberry swirl that looks interesting. My mouth is watering and the gears in my brain are spinning trying to make a decision. I compromise with a Magnum boysenberry. It’s a dream.

After eating our snacks on a bench next to the shop, we heave our (now much lighter) packs on our back and get walking. Check-in is until 8, and we only have three hours to walk about 8 miles. For Mash this is nothing, but for me, with how I’m feeling, I know it will take me much longer. He gets ahead very quickly, and I tell him to just keep going at his pace. 

It doesn’t take long until I’m fully alone on the road. It’s not bad for the first couple of miles. I’ve popped some more ibuprofen, I have a Coke Zero, and I have cell service, so I splurge some data on listening to music. I dance and sing along for a while until that gets too tiring and I focus all my energy on walking and not getting hit by a car. 

It is objectively a beautiful evening. It’s so nice to have a change of scenery. There are farms with so many cows. At one point I pass through a couple of towns back to back that each have a marae, a Māori communal complex with a fenced-in yard. There are what I take to be Māori flags everywhere. 

Coming down a hill and going around a bend, it suddenly hits me that I have to pee very, very badly, and the moment I think it, that’s it, I have to go. I drop my pack and wander through some piles of hay to a little nook behind the guardrail that is a couple of meters up on an embankment. I’m pretty sure the only beings I flashed were cows. Sorry, cows. It had to be done.

Mash texts me advice on walking. There’s an area coming up that has a dirt path on the left hand side, then a sidewalk on the right into town after that. I keep waiting and waiting for the dirt track zone to appear. I’m dragging and the evening is wearing on. Then, there it is! It’s faint at first but then becomes wider and more traveled. At some points there are even little bridges over waterways. It’s fully sunset now and I turn back to look at the sun glowing over the fields. I have to turn on my AT brain. Pay attention to the small details that are beautiful. Look at the flowers, the way people have decorated their houses. I play the alphabet game with myself: find every letter, in A-Z order, on license plates and signs. I get to Z right before the approach to Kaitaia begins in earnest. 

I am dragging, probably limping, when I finish the walk through a neighborhood and cross the street to Beachcomber hostel, the same one we stayed in at the start. I trudge into the familiar space and everyone immediately greets me, saying they’re glad I’m okay. Izzy says they saw me walking and tried to wave but I seemed really out of it. “I was like, is she okay?” Yeah, didn’t even clock that. But I’m glad I made it.

I know that I won’t get back up again if I sit down, so I immediately throw all my stuff I need for a shower in a bag and head in so that I can be washed of sand and road walk. I’m so proud of this decision. I come out still waddling but in significantly less despair. I place my stuff in our allotted dorm room and set to lancing blisters—both Old Leftie and a new one on the side of my big toe. Big toe is particularly juicy. By the time this joyous task is done, Mash is back! He’d gone to Pakn’Save for snacks and drinks for the morning and then to McDonald’s to get me the cheeseburger I’d been craving. I throw my arms around him. This hiking together thing is amazing so far. 

After some stretching, because I know I’ll feel ten times worse if I don’t stretch, we sit on the couch inside and eat our terribly delicious and unhealthy feast. Immediately after that, I fall asleep, and we get shooed out of the kitchen building and into the dorms. Very kindly, one of the guys in the dorm had volunteered to switch beds with me since he saw the way I was walking and didn’t want to make me take a top bunk. Bless you, sir.

Lying down in a bed feels incredible. Mash sends me a message saying his bed, a top bunk across the room, feels like a marshmallow. I’m all comfy cozy in the sheets and duvet. My legs are in literal agony and I have no idea how I’m going to hike tomorrow, but that’s a tomorrow problem. For now, I’m just happy to be here.