It doesn't look that far on the map....

I opted against all of the prepacked tours that abound in Paihia and decided to spend the day hiking.  The visitors center had provided me with a little brochure map of hiking trails and I thought I would link them all together for a big circle hike.   Estimate time per the brochure was 5 hours.   Since estimated time are invariably long I thought with lunch and plenty of rests I would be back in 5 hours easily.   So at 10 am I set off.

The first leg was inland up to a scenic lookout.  I Followed by a 2 hr trek along the ridge parallel to the coast.  The forest was lovely, but the trail was ridiculously hilly.  I don't mind a little effort while I'm hiking, but this trail went straight up only to come straight back down.  After 30 mins of this it tends to get a little aggravating.  Still no big deal.

Then the trail ended on the road and I noticed my first problem.  On my brochure, the road portion of the trip was included in the 2 1/2 hr estimate.  Based on the trail signs, the road was clearly not included.  I didn't think this was an issue since based on the map I estimated the road to add in an additional 30 mins.

After 30 mins on this gravel forest road I still hadn't even seen a house and I started to worry I'd turned in the wrong direction (wouldn't have been the first time).  After another 15 mins I really started to worry and thought to expand the brochure and looks at the bigger regional map.  That's when I realized that the road on the trail map was definitely not to scale.  Based on the larger map the road was as long as the trail!   Sure enough it took an hour and half to reach the end. By this point it was after 2pm and I was really hungry and pretty unhappy.  Unfortunately I had a long way to go.

The map wasn't too helpful in located the next trailhead either but I finally found it by the big sign that said "Warning. Slips Ahead."  Slip is Kiwi for land slide.  The area had major flooding about a month prior and everyone had been talking about the landslides.  Some of the other trails around town were closed and I figured since this one wasn't it probably wasn't too bad.  I should have stopped to consider that if the Kiwis are going to warn you about something it is probably a big deal.  Sure enough about 10 mins into this little nature trail (complete with information signs about the trees) I ran into a 25m wide very steep river of mud and trees with my trail on the other side.   Since there was no way in hell I was going back to the road I trudged through.  It took some maneuvering and a lot of crawling over trees but I eventually made it.  True to my usual form, 10 mins after gracefully maneuvering the difficult area I hit a slick piece of wood and ended up on my ass in the mud.  The trail was dark, empty and there was a lot of trail damage.  I could picture myself wandering off the trail never to be found again.   I had only seen 2 groups of folks all day on the trails and didn't consider that I'd have high odds of running into anyone.  Really I just wanted to be done and eating lunch.  (Of course, in my warped travel style I still stopped to read all of the informative signs....very interesting trees in NZ).

So I finally made it to the coast facing another long hike back up to my place.  The trail was gorgeous with a ton of scenic viewing of the Bay, mangrove forests, pine forests, and tropical areas.  Unfortunately, I was a bit over the hiking thing.  After over 6 hours of hiking and no lunch I stumbled into my hostel.  Very muddy, very tired and very cranky.   Turns out that sitting on my butt at the office doesn't get me in great hiking shape.....

At least on future hikes I'll have Haven along to drag into the adventure and keep my company!

To respond to comments....

(1) Matt sandboard was very cool and you really just hike up a hill and fly down it.  No skill required.   Apparently there are folks that actually surf and I'm sure that is difficult....seems to be a broken collar bone calling me if I attempted it.

(2) Erica, I'm the executive that decided against the digital camera.  I have a nice Cannon SLR that I love and I didn't want to buy a digital camera that would take worse pictures.  Plus I figured the hassle of recharging wasn't worth it.   I didn't think of the film I would be required to pack though.  I have a huge gallon ziplock bag and that's probably only 2/3 of what I'll need.  Oh well....