3 November 2026

Nikau Bay Eco Camp to Treasure Island Holiday Park

16 mi/25.9 km

I am so loathe to leave this wonderful camp this morning that, despite getting up before 6, I’m still not ready to go when it’s just before 8 and Ben and Sam are standing around chatting to James while I finish up all the annoying last minute morning things. Why am I so behind, you ask? Well, I had to have my first coffee, then a second when James offered it, I read a few pages of the book I’ve been carrying since the start and haven’t made any progress on, then, finally, I had to jump on the trampoline (wholly excellent experience, 10/10 would recommend). But this place is just so beautiful, and the day is just not that long or interesting, so I feel no real sense or rush… until I realize how behind I am.

Eventually, after popping a new blister on my right big toe that appeared yesterday and refilled overnight, I put on my socks and shoes and am ready to hit the trail. We thank James profusely and head up the gravel driveway and onto a gravel road.

We walk with Sam for basically the whole day, and it’s very enjoyable to chat with him. He’s from London, lived in Canada for a while, and is now in Aotearoa hoping, like us, to stick around after the thru hike. Ben and Sam occasionally swap experiences of being British, such as the ubiquity of the song “Baggy Trousers” at school growing up. Ah, I’d forgotten this feeling. Of being American surrounded by Brits, mystified at their customs. Feels like home.

After a few miles the trail takes a sharp left turn and transforms into actual, beautiful trail for a while. There are a couple of water crossings that result in wet shoes, but the cool water actually feels good on my feet, which are already sore from the repetitive pounding of walking on the road. The trees alternate between tropical-looking tree ferns and Appalachian-looking deciduous (I think?) and pine forests. There’s even the occasional meadow with horses roaming beyond the creek. Kentucky? Is that you?

After a steep ascent that forces me to break out my uphill 100 step trick many times over, the road walk begins again. We’re nearly halfway, but it’s still far from midday so it’s not a lunch stop yet, just a sit down snack break. Then it’s road. The same road, for the rest of the day. Road road road. Just road.

There are interesting things to look at though. For example, there’s what might be a bus stop covered in graffiti. “Want to eat lunch in the murder shack?” I ask.

“Nah, I think I’d rather get murdered in there,” Sam quips.

I lose the two of them for a while. Road walks just make the bottoms of my feet ache. I can’t sustain a morning pace all day. I pull out my headphones and listen to the audiobook I started a couple of days ago—Theo of Golden. It’s kind of just fine. I’m a little disappointed. I thought I was going to love it, but I’m just finding it a bit emotionally heavy-handed. I don’t have much left though, so I have to finish it.

The road passes over some mangrove estuary and then, around a curve, and then just before noon I see Ben and Sam pulled over in a layby under a tree. Yay, lunch time! We make wraps and then fry them in our frying pan that we keep forgetting about. Pretty nice to have a hot lunch, even if the contents are still exactly the same: salami, cheese, crushed up chips.

The three of us walk together for pretty much the rest of the day after that. At one point we come across some trail magic: a box that looks like a little lending library filled with $5 bags of cookies! There’s also a logbook, which I sign while Ben puts the cash in the jar.

Before long we’re rolling into town. Jack, Sibylle, and two other hikers we’ve met recently, Jasper and Feather, are stretched out beneath a tree by the shore. They hitchhiked some and walked some today, but they didn’t make it quickly enough to get to the estuary before the morning low tide, so they’re waiting for the later one, which is at 9:45 PM. Thijs made it across the same route early by getting a super early start and getting lucky with a hitch, but everyone else was left behind to wait.

Instead of tackling the estuary today, Ben and I are opting to camp on the north side of the estuary route tonight and then tomorrow do a big day to cross it, or maybe even take an alternate on roads to avoid having to wait around for low tide. The idea of hiking 9 more miles tonight, over 1 of which is through potentially hip-deep water and mud in the estuary, is the least palatable thing I can imagine. But we wish the group best of luck. Then Ben, Sam, and I cross the footbridge (smaller than yesterday,’s but still impressive) into Pataua South and walk the half mile to Treasure Island Holiday Park. It’s an average holiday park. We’ve become quite acquainted with these sorts of places recently. Lots of camping space, bathroom, kitchen, and a small takeaway restaurant.

There aren’t very many hikers here, and Sam, after having a look around, decides to join the others in their nighttime sojourn. Then it’s even quieter. We set up and get some fried foods from the takeaway counter, and in the meantime we have a bit of a chat with another hiker, Denise, who is originally from Las Vegas but who has lived in Auckland for 32 years (“because of a handsome man,” she offered this morning, by way of explanation). After eating our food, we head up the hill to the kitchen and common space to do some charging and planning.

There’s a whole bunch of logistics. Do we do the estuary route or take the road tomorrow? If we do the estuary, we’re bound by the tide times, but if we take the road, we can leave however early we want. Then the next issue is the water crossing over to Marsden Point. There’s only one guy who does it, he’s only available tomorrow, not the day after like we had originally planned, and he charges $100 per ride even though it’s a tiny waterway. You can split that however many ways, but if it’s just the two of us, that’s a hell of a price for a couple of minutes on a boat—but there’s no road walk alternate and hitching would be a pain in the ass. This kind of planning just is not something I’ve ever had to deal with on a hike before, and it’s a bit frustrating. In the end, we opt to get up ridiculously early, skip the estuary and take the roads, then hop onto the beach and finish the day as planned as early as we possibly can.

Once that’s sorted, I can write. But I’m at a loss for what to call this one.

“What should I call today?” I ask Ben.

“Hmmm. Do you have titles for all the other days?”

“Yes.”

“I dunno. It’s just a road walk.”

And boom, there’s my title. And that’s the day.