TA Day 126
TA Day 126: Wednesday 23 April 2025
Bluff Campsite - Cape Reinga
3:00 The alarm rang. Today we had a big day in front of us, in two senses. A long way to walk, and today was our last day on trail for this time.
We groggily got up and took down our tent and got going in the dark. While walking on the beach we turned off our headlamps because we could actually see better without them. While walking we listened to some creepy story podcast. It was fun doing it in the dark, but also scary.
Slowly, eventually, it got brighter.
When the sun was about to go above the horizon we stopped for breakfast. A big one now! Super nice with a longer break too.
Not much happened for a long time as we just walked, walked, walked on the beach. But finally we reached a hill that we needed to cross, Pukekarea. It was very warm and our legs complained as we moved them up the stairs. Walking on anything else than completely flat ground now felt weird.
We crossed an area that was full of wet parts that we couldn’t exactly walk around, so now our shoes got completely soaked again… It was so nice when they were dry!
After walking up and down and around some small grass hills, we reached Twilight Beach Campsite. Here we took another nice break, used the longdrops, ate our last lunch etc. We tried to be as effective as possible as we didn’t have too much time today to reach Cape Reing before sunset.
After Twilight Campsite we walked down on another beach, Twilight Beach. Up again over small hill before Herangi Hill and now we could see the lighthouse! Passed some grassy areas before it all turned to sand. But this sand was different to anything we’d seen before. The sand looked and felt more like rock, and had an interesting shape to it. In a way it felt like we were suddenly on Mars.
We talked to Kim’s parents on the phone while making our way down to the next beach. But Te Werahi Stream was in between us and the beach, and now we had to take our shoes off because we had just spent time at Twilight Campsite trying to dry everything a little. We crossed the stream, then Lukas went for a swim on the beach while Kim walked off to find a geocache. Lukas was quick though, quicker than Kim, so he soon caught up to her.
We didn’t have much daylight left now, and dark clouds hovered in the background, threatening us with their presence. We started hurrying up the stars that would take us to the top. The rain eventually came, so we had to throw on poncho and the umbrella, but luckily it soon stopped again.
Now we saw the lighthouse, and Lukas stopped briefly to soak it all in, but Kim was ready to just finish. On our way down towards the lighthouse we passed a man, and Lukas asked him if he could film us walking the last bit, which he could. We got a nice woman to take photos of us, and then we found out that she had also filmed us finishing. So nice of her!
We didn’t spend too much time there as another rain shower came, and daylight was disappearing fast. But Kim managed to get some geocaches and then we had to head to the car park, quickly.
While Kim went to the bathroom in the dark, Lukas asked a younger woman if we could ride with her, which we luckily could. We were so thankful! She could only drive us to Awanui, about 10 minutes with car from Kaitaia, where we needed to go because we had booked a stay with a trail angel. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to hitch in the dark and might have to walk the last 8 km, but luckily very soon a car picked us up and were nice enough to drive us all the way to the doorstep of the trail angel. After a shower we crashed in the bed, and were so happy and thankful that this long adventure was finally over.
But only the walking part of the adventure was over already, which we were also very happy about. We still had 2 more weeks left in New Zealand, so where one adventure ended, another one began.
Today's:
Distance: 42.57 km
Ascent: 611 m
Descent: 460 m
Tent nights: 60/126
Weather: Cloudy morning with some rain, mostly sunny early afternoon and then some rain showers and overcast
