The Wilderness Weeks: Tramping the Barrier

Auckland - Tryphena - Medlands - Haratonga - Port Fitzroy - Windy Canyon - Mount Hobson - South Fork - Port Fitzroy - Auckland

Our journey to Great Barrier Island began as every journey should: with a muffin.
For years I’ve considered muffins to be the third lowest form of pudding behind fruit and Petit Filous yoghurts. In the cake stakes they definitely sit at the bottom of the stack. It has been with some disappointment then that I have watched the humble muffin become the fashionable cake of the decade, replacing doughnuts (which are sooo 90’s) as the cake of choice.

However, on the four and three quarter hour ferry journey from Auckland to Great Barrier Island, my enthusiasm for the most boring of all bakery products was greatly lifted by a moist little raspberry and white chocolate number that will forever be engrained in my memory. Kudos to you ferry company; you may be slow, but you are purveyors of extraordinary lifestyle altering muffins.

On the subject of life altering experiences, I should briefly mention the young American guy who travelled on the same ferry as us. From the moment we saw him, there was something quite unusual about him. While the few other passengers on the boat were obviously either locals or tourists preparing for a few days of roughing it, our long fringed American chum arrived wearing skinny jeans, carrying a guitar and generally looking as though he was preparing for a one-man The Cure tribute tour of the island.

Alarm bells for his survival chances on the island began to ring when he asked the hugely helpful Christine and Sue, who run the local bus/taxi/tourist information/postal service on the island, where the nearest ATM was as he didn’t have any cash. It was only much later that we learned of his plan to spend five or six days on the most isolated camp ground on the island with no return ticket and little in the way of food (in fact the only evidence I saw that he had carried sustenance of any kind was a 12 pack of soy milk cartons), which in retrospect made his ambivalent response to being told that the nearest ATM was in Auckland all the more worrying. I hope he realised mobile reception on the island is non-existent.

Survival tactics were also the subject of our own morning routine. At the island’s Medland camp ground, Vikki’s determination to feel fresh for the day ahead involved a daily struggle to stifle gasps, muffle screeches and breathe normally in the ultra cold, open air, rainwater shower. But if the temperature of the water didn’t sting, there was always another opportunity in the form of the highly active wasps nest that hung right above the showerhead at the Akapoua site. And then of course, having cleaned thoroughly, there was the minefield of sheep-poo at the Haratonga site that made the trip back to the tent in flip-flops all the more treacherous (one unfortunate “flip” of a well placed sheep pellet can quite easily turn a “flop” into a “squelch”).

But once you get used to nature involving itself in your everyday routine (wasps in the shower, Kaka (a type of parrot) watching you brush your teeth and rare Brown Teale ducks threatening to peck your toes while you dine) you then have to get used to nature involving itself in your night-time routine.

The problem with tent dwelling is that there is very little between you and the outside world. It also becomes really difficult to tell from which direction a noise is coming or how far away it’s source actually is. I’ve become a greater believer in tents carrying a little sticker on them warning that “sounds from the outside may appear to come from things larger and closer than they actually are”. For example, one night I was kept awake by the steadily approaching sound of tearing and ripping followed by a greedy slow chewing that had me slipping deeper into my sleeping bag. It couldn’t have been a sheep - there were none on the Akapoua site and there were no cows for miles around. It wasn’t long before it was right outside the tent - not 40cm from my head - and I expected to see the beast’s silhouette appear gargantuan and repulsive on the moonlit tent material. But nothing appeared and eventually the sound died away. It was only the next evening that I actually saw the family of rabbits across the field from us.

There is only one road on the island which runs from north to south and covers a distance of 40km. Christine and Sue’s bus service can pick you up and drop you off at various points if you’ve made prior arrangements, but if you haven’t, there’s no mobile service so the only real choice is hitch-hiking.

Our first ride was from the Haratonga camp ground that our American friend had chosen as his base. When we’d first arrived at the site, making our way down the steep 3km rough track that links the site to the main road, we prayed that there would be some passing traffic on our way back up when we left the next day. And as luck would have it our prayers were answered. Faced with the possibility of such a long, steep climb first thing in the morning Vik was on the verge of a breakdown when her knight in… a distinctly filthy van came around the corner. At first he seemed unsure about stopping, but I was showing a lot of leg and he knew there wasn’t likely to be another vehicle going up the track in a long time. “Yeah, I can give you a lift”, he said, “so long as you don’t mind riding with the dead sheep in the back”.

I quickly called the passenger seat upfront, leaving Vik with the bloody remains of the animal in the back. The red stained white sheet he’d quickly pulled over the corpse did little to hide the raw, escaping internal organs. It didn’t seem to phase Vik. If it came to it, I think she’d have got under the sheet with the sheep if it meant avoiding the walk up the hill.

Our second ride was from a guy we’d met a few days before. He was a young labourer from Christchurch working in the mountains on the reconstruction of old Kauri dams. We had a great chat about his work and places we’d been in New Zealand and he very kindly went out of his way to take us all the way to our destination. It was only after we’d been dropped off that I commented on how funny it was that we’d only seen him a few days earlier on our way down from the Kauri dams. Vik looked puzzled and I reminded her of the topless guy that overtook us on our way down the mountain from the dams. Apparently though, despite the usual smiles and greetings that were exchanged, Vik hadn’t noticed the guys face. Odd that.

But we’ll most likely remember Great Barrier Island, not for workmen’s bodies (well, I won’t anyway) - but for the flash flooding we encountered at Haratonga camp ground.

Our journey to the campground involved the bus being towed through flooded roads after unexpectedly heavy overnight rain that we both slept through (yes, munching rabbits keep me awake at night, but dangerously heavy rainfall keeps me slumbering peacefully).

When we arrived at the Haratonga site we were met by a scene of destruction. Four groups of campers who, according to them, were lucky to be alive, were in the process of recovering what they could of their belongings and binning the remains of their tents. Apparently, the banks of the river they had all camped beside had burst in the darkness at 3am following a sudden surge of water from a breaking dam of twigs and branches further up the river. Once the wave had swept over the site (sending half a metre of rushing water ripping through their tents and washing belongings into the sea) the level of the river dropped back to normal fairly quickly meaning that by the time we got there the only evidence that the wave had existed were the dead fish strewn across the site and all the belongings (shoes, towels, ice-boxes and a Sat-Nav(!)) being washed up along the river bank. The search for a missing kayak and several pairs of shoes and items of clothing was continuing.

Our clueless American friend had, as luck would have it, chosen to sleep away from the other campers on the higher ground and had slept right through the drama. Perhaps, I thought, he’s got more of a survival instinct than I gave him credit for. But when I spoke to him he seemed a little distracted and vacant - it became quite apparent that he didn’t have a clue who I was, despite us having met only two days previously! For his sake, I really hope that guitar case is filled with food, cash and an SAS survival guide - but somehow I doubt it.

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