Day 4: Cya Later, Beach

October 14, 2019

Kilometers: 69.4-101.4

Utea Park to Ahipara Holiday Park

Learning the weather was gonna be bad today we woke up an hour earlier than usual, at 6am, and we’re off just after 7. Five of us left Utea Park together: us two, Toby from Canada, Phillip from Switzerland, and Nicholas from France. Sure enough as soon as we started walking the weather turned bad. It began to rain, not hard but steadily, and the wind picked up. I walked out in front with Ethan trailing a few hundred meters behind. We were both plugged into our music, walking with our heads down to avoid the rain. Ethan is in the black dot in these two pics.

After a few hours of walking the wind picked up significantly. It pushed us around multiple times. Ethan said he was almost completely knocked over by one gust. The worst part was the wind whipping the loose sand around. This didn’t hurt Ethan because he was wearing pants but it stung me a bit as I was only wearing shorts. The rain soon intensified and we got soaked.

I passed a few cars parked on the beach to find that they were surfers. It was miserable weather and it’s hard to imagine it was that fun to surf in but they were out there.

Soon after that we passed a sealion. I unfortunately didn’t see it cause I was walking with my head down to avoid the rain and wind. Luckily Ethan snagged a picture. Super upset at my myself for missing it.

After another hour or so we reached the town of Ahipara, our destination for the night. We went 31 km in five and a half hours, not bad for the weather conditions.

We arrived at the Holiday park and booked a dorm style room. Ethan and I have a private room with a bunk bed, private bathroom with hot shower, shared kitchen area, below average WiFi and access to laundry. After working to get the last few days blogs posted and eating lunch in our room we went to do laundry. We found most of the rest of the group we’ve been with since day 1 in the main lodge. Although I didn’t mind the walk today everyone else seemed to categorize it as miserable. I do have some blisters but I’m not bothered by them too much. Though, I have never seen my hands look like this.

Most of our original crew is staying in the same building as us tonight. We made rice with salami and a pita for dinner to go with soda and beer Ethan and I purchased at the main lodge. We are off to bed early as tomorrow could very well be our first marathon day on top of a needed resupply in Kaitaia.

-Alex