We left Art Deco weekend with a serious itch to do another backpacking trip so we headed straight to lake Waikaremoana. The drive was one of those two hour windy dirt roads that likely began as a logging road and dropped us off at a harbor with a holiday park. That night I thought the wind was going to blow our tent into the water with us in it and even after putting the rain fly on at 3:30am to try and soften it, the sound kept us up most of the night. The next morning we boarded a water taxi with all the people that were to be our bunk mates for the next three days and headed to the start of the track. The first day appears to be a short one, only 8km or so, but it is straight up a hill and took us four hours to reach the summit. Once on the top though you are walking along sandstone cliffs looking down on the whole lake, then from the hut you can see the lake on one side and the ocean in Hawks bay -Napier- on the other. It was really spectacular! We stayed in the hut with three girls probably a few years younger than us, a man from Auckland, an Australian couple that avidly hike in retirement, an older pair of ex-palm ladies who left their husbands in the camper van while they took off on this trip, and a lake 20's IT guy from DC on his first overnight tramp. It was quite the crew. All us young ones got up around 9 or 10 the next morning because the second days hike was only supposed to take four hours, and everyone else had gone. It turned out to be almost entirely downhill to the hut in a beautiful bay with a beach, and we ended up reaching it much faster. It rained pretty hard the rest of the afternoon though so it was good we decided not to press on, however that poor group of girls had decided to camp so they were stuck in the rain. Day three was a long one, we decided to finish instead of take four days and pay he extra $50 in hut fees. It was 8 hours of undulating hills- up and over, down to a beach, up and over down to a river crossing etc. with views the whole way, birds everywhere and no other people in sight. We reached our taxi pick up spot an hour and a half ahead of schedule and before we could even think about how to spend the time, a nice retired kiwi couple on a sailboat docked near by and invited us aboard for tea and biscuits. It was one of those moments where nothing better could have possibly happened- hot chocolate with chocolate biscuits, boots off relaxing with great company. Before we knew it our water taxi arrived and we were back to the car and off to Gisbourne for the night.
In Gisbourne we stayed at this hippie compound/holiday park on the beach with community gardens, compost for the pigs and camp sites as close to the beach as you can get with out getting wet. The following day was a driving day- we explored the whole East Cape, the farthest east point, Hicks bay, a whole series of beautiful beaches and hill top views. Somehow that was more exhausting than than the tramp so we headed in early and camped by a lake in Cambridge on the road to Hamilton. As luck would have it this campsite was also NZ National Rowing Headquarters and they were preparing for a high school rowing regatta. Aaron was like a kid in a candy store looking at all the crews, their equipment and watching them practice. I don't think he was very impressed, but it made for a fun evening and following morning.
Saturday morning we drive to Hamilton and met up with Daniel French, a fellow camp councilor who just got to NZ about a week ago for a semester at Waikato University. He showed us around campus and downtown, and we went out for Fish and Chips in the rain. It rained all day really, harder than anything we had seen our whole time in NZ, but for Aaron it meant going back to the dorms and watching an NBA game so it wasn't a total loss. The real fun was that night when we got student $10 tickets for the Waikato Cheifs super 14 game against the SA Sharks. The rain stopped and we got a double rainbow over the field starting right below the tower holding the mascot with a chainsaw. The sharks totally dominated until the Cheifs finally decided to start playing the last fifteen minutes or so to make it a close game, and they really should have at least tied too, but the ref called two of their tries back in the last ten minutes of the game and they just couldn't put in a third.
No camping for us that night, we made it all the way back to Rich and Cassy's in the Newmarket neighborhood of Auckland.