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Road Trip: The Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon
This post is the first part of a two month road trip I took around The States. September 2017 I got the family discount, even though I wasn’t exactly family. Ross and I had known each other since we were ten, having moved to Big Bear the same year, and given each other shit for our entire acquaintance…so in a way we were absolutely family. I hadn’t been to the Grand Canyon since I was three and didn’t have the keenest memory of the experience. In fact, I remembered absolutely nothing other than a story mum told about how I nearly gave her a heart attack by climbing up the…
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Te Araroa: The Storm That Ends All
Te Araroa: The Storm That Ends All 22.03.2020 Day 146 (16km) Thank goodness it was a short day, because the wind was howling as we walked a pebbly beach towards coastal farmland. One of my gaiters came loose, allowing the tiny rocks to fling themselves into my shoe. With the temperamental weather, I wasn’t keen to stop and remove them. After our final climb of the TA, which was only a couple hundred meters up to a viewpoint, we descended into Riverton’s residential neighborhoods. Alex had booked us an AirBnb, which was so lovely that within a few minutes we decided to reserve it for another day. The weather was…
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Te Araroa: Over the Saddle
18.02.2020 Day 113 (27km) I’ve sat here for five minutes staring at my journal, smiling, and vainly attempting to conjure the words to describe today. It began with an overbooked shuttle, which resulted in us having to be dropped off 10km shy of the trailhead and forced to take an “alternate route.” The driver assured us, “Oh, it’s faster and better than the normal TA route.” Then I heard him mutter under his breath, “I think it’s still a marked track.” After a few hours of walking along an ugly, rocky riverbed, we came to a jumble of trees marking the alternate trail. To say the track went straight up…
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Te Araroa: Tongariro Crossing
19.12.2019 Day 60 (33km) Although the majority of the day was along a road, it was definitely a very special and worthwhile strip of road. For starters, there was a dancing ostrich…I mean come on, who doesn’t like dancing animals? As soon as it saw us coming, it rushed to the fenceline, throwing its wings up in its wake. Trev, Robyn, and I snapped photos and videos while it continued to strut and toss its feathers up. Little did we know, our animal encounters had just begun. Farther along, where the sealed road turned to gravel, we got roped into assisting a farmer with herding his sheep 3km down the…
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Te Araroa: The Whanganui River Journey
03.12.2019 Day 44 (5km) Due to a very rainy and miserable weather forecast, I spent today changing all my plans. I didn’t see the point in hiking through thick mud and climbing a mountain I’ve been dying to see, only to not be able to see it. So, I elected to do the canoeing portion of the TA first, then backtrack to do the Tongariro crossing. I did make a point of walking to the canoe hire, which is part of the trail, so it wasn’t a complete rest day. Day’s Highlights: Awesome hitch back to the Holiday Park 04.12.2019 Day 45 (33km kayak) Today was an absolute blast! In…
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Te Araroa: Pushing Past Hamilton
20.11.2019 Day 31 (23km) Some mornings prove difficult to get out of bed. Lately, I’ve found myself questioning why I’m putting myself through this hike. This morning was one of those days, fortunately the feeling was fleeting. After a 6km stretch of road (no I didn’t skip all the roads), I was immersed in a rooty forest. Drizzle drifted through the ferns, landing in soft kisses on my face. The scent of fresh earth fueled my steps as I climbed higher into the hills. Despite the damp weather, the mud was nothing compared to Puketi and Raetea. There was, however, a slight disagreement between my toes and one of the…
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Te Araroa: Ninety Mile Beach
21.10.2019 Day 1 (12km) The mild weather and gentle breeze made it the perfect day for hiking. After a quick photo at the iconic Cape Reinga marker we followed the dirt path through knee-high bushes and down the cliffs overlooking the place where the Pacific and the Tasman Sea intermingle. My smile was as wide as my face, and if my face had been larger, the smile would have grown to accommodate it. Everything I had heard about the beach was bad. People dreaded it as much as the plague, or so it seemed. From where I was standing, however, I couldn’t conceive why. The earlier tides had…
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Unsealed Roads
2WD accessible, unsealed road, that’s what the map said. It had neglected to mention, bumpiest ride of your life, will destroy bookshelf and rip down most of your ceiling. Kakadu had been one of the top spots on my places to visit. Per person it was forty dollars for a seven-day park pass or forty dollars for a fourteen-day pass (not a typo), and in the dry season most of the sites were accessible by van…in theory. We had spent the previous night at Nitmiluk, a neighboring National Park, in a place called Leliyn (Edith Falls). Leliyn was one of the last havens to swim safely, as most of the…
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Solo Hikes in the Jungle
If a cassowary attacked, I would be ready! At least that’s what I kept telling myself as I walked through the Wooroonooran rainforest. The Goldsborough trail was 19 kilometers and wove its way between two mountains, all the way from Babinda Boulders to Goldsborough Valley. Solo hiking is something I don’t think twice about back home. I mean there are mountain lions, bears, snakes, and potentially crazy mountain people, but other than that it’s perfect safe. But in Australia they have snakes, crocodiles, cassowaries, snakes, spiders, paralysis ticks, and snakes. Funnily enough most of my Aussie friends have said they would take the risks of Australia any day over bears…
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El Oceanario
Spoiler: my next post is going to be about diving in the Great Barrier Reef. However, I think it’s important to give a bit of back story regarding my diving experience prior to the GBR trip. Hopefully you enjoy the chaos, stress, and emotion to follow in this blog. April 2014 Normally, I write my blogs in past tense, retelling events how they once happened. However, when I first arrived on the island I was very stressed and wrote to escape some of the anxiety. I feel that these “in the moment” entries provide a more accurate representation of everything. Night 1 I feel like crying. When I arrived, no…
Insights and Stories Through the Eyes of a Wanderer
