25 October 2026
Krishna Sanctuary to Makene Road Campsite
13.7 mi/22.1km
Did you know that they make backpacking frying pans? Well, they do, and we have one. We got it in Auckland and have been carrying it since the start but just got a chance to use it today. More specifically, Mash uses it to make fried eggs for breakfast. What a treat to finish packing up the tent and come down to the cabin and have fresh hot coffee and fried eggs. Such luxury.
Then follows the typical morning scurry of packing, managing blisters, brushing teeth, filling water etc etc until we’re all ready to go. We’re tackling the Raetea Forest in a big group today: Mash and me, plus Hannah, Izzy, Thijs, Sibylle, and Joel. Raetea is notorious for its terrain of mud and roots. It will be more fun (and safer) if we go in together.
Leaving from Krishna, we all walk on the gravel road as it winds up into the woods. We make a stop for water at the last reliable stream, for, counterintuitive as it may seem, there are no available water sources in the forest. Mash and I fall behind for a while after that, and we finish the road up and make a left turn into a break in the trees. It’s immediately exactly how it looks in photos. Where there aren’t roots, there’s mud. Where there’s not mud, there’s roots. Sometimes you get both. Often, actually. It’s a sharp uphill that takes me far too long, then it evens out a little bit and we catch the rest of the group.
When we reach the first waypoint in the climb, marked, simply, “peak” on FarOut, we take a little breather and enjoy the view. It really feels like we’re in the jungle. Green, tropical-looking trees with frond-like leaves even clear from this distance. Hannah asks us all to gather so she can get a photo on her half-frame film camera, then Joel snags one, then I hop in. Then it’s downhill again, a return to the mud and rocks and roots.
We all walk together for a while in a line. There are a few falls, including mine, which is a weird sideways twist that ends with me landing on my butt with my legs bent. My sunglasses go flying, Izzy retrieves them, and I put them away. No need with all this foliage today anyway.
A little while later, my weird blister under my second toe’s toenail makes its presence known so loudly that I can’t ignore it any longer. I pull over and inspect. Filled again. It’s time for a more serious opening in the dead skin. It gushes when cut. On goes another bandaid, another round of tape.
I’m alone for a while until I pass Joel, then catch up to Hannah. We reach the true top of the climb and are confused when our friends aren’t there. We sit down for a break, I text Mash that he went the wrong way, and he comes walking up saying there’s a side trail we’ve missed. It leads to a grassy overlook next to a radio tower, where the whole group is already comfy and eating lunch. Yes! I love lunch, and a grassy knoll, and a view!
Far too little time for my taste goes by before most of the group are packed and ready to go. “How do you guys get ready so fast?” I ask, as I look around at my yard sale on the grass compared to their completely packed packs.
In the afternoon I walk with Mash. When I see what time it is and how much farther we have to do, my brain starts doing math. We’ve only gone five so far, and I’m not moving very fast. I’m starting to feel this little pain on the side of my upper leg, towards the inside but still on the front, almost like a tightness and soreness along a band going from my knee up into my thigh. At first it’s small, ignorable, just a little spot, sore like an overworked calf. Then, over the ups and downs, the roots and mud, it gets worse. It spreads and intensifies until it’s hobbling me and I slow to a crawl.
So weird. I’ve never felt pain here before. It makes me wonder if I pulled something when I fell earlier, or if I’m just pushing too hard. Or both. In any case, were it not for Mash walking with me, cheering me on, offering support and snacks, I don’t know if I would have made it to camp.
But I try to enjoy the scenery as much as I can. For all the mud—and as far as Raetea goes, this is not actually very much mud—and all the effort and pain and struggle, it is objectively a beautiful forest. It’s so lush, like something tropical, and I try to take in all the individual pieces, even as I’m suffering. I wish I knew more about them. I wish I knew more birds. Where’s Hannah when I need her? Tell me more about the fantails I see in the trees! Give me more plant facts!
By the time the forest ends and the downhill farm track begins, I can barely walk. I don’t even want to know how much I’ve slowed down. It feels like someone is stabbing me repeatedly in the side of the thigh every time I bend my right knee and bear weight on it. Ben asks if he can carry my pack for me. I refuse the first time. He offers again a few minutes later, and this time I accept. My knee/thigh/quad still hurts, but it’s much easier to go down the steep hill without the extra weight. Oh great, now I’m crying because of the pain AND because I feel so loved and cared for.
Crawling, even without my pack, I somehow make it to the farm at the end of the steep downhill. There are some cows, including a momma cow and calf, and one of the bulls is looking at us menacingly, so we take a long route through the field to avoid them. Then at the road junction there is a farmer in a digger who stops and asks us if we’re okay before pointing us towards the campsite.
On the road, I muse aloud over our options. If this leg is still bad tomorrow, I could maybe hitch back to Kaitaia and meet Mash in Kerikeri in a couple of days. Or I could walk to the dairy coming up tomorrow morning and see how I feel when I get there. Ideally, it will magically heal by the morning, as these things sometimes do. But we shall see.
When we get to the camp, everyone is either in their tents or finishing up the last tasks of the night. But when they hear us apear, voices emerge and ask after us. “How are you feeling?” “Is the leg okay?” I’m so in pain but so grateful that we stumbled into such a caring group of people. I hope I wake up more okay tomorrow. Let’s see what happens.
