Day 3: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

October 13, 2019

Muanganui Bluff to Utea Park

Kilometers: 40.1-69.4

Last night was cold, like really cold. I am a warm sleeper usually and I pulled my sleeping bag over my head to try and preserve every bit of warm air.

I was woken up just before seven by Alex and Charlie talking outside our tents about the horses from last night.

After slowly breaking down camp, I downed a cup of coffee and took my bars for the road. We were able to leave camp by just after eight for the second day in a row. Only Austin left before us.

We reemerged on 90 Mile Beach about 45 minutes before peak high tide. Luckily for us, the stretch ahead of us had few narrow bits and Alex and I only had to rush to get on a dune once to avoid getting wet. The first hours of the morning breezed by with Big Bootie Mix 15 and other music blasting from my phone to keep us energized. We averaged over 6km/h for the first two hours of the day.

One drastic difference between yesterday and today was the amount of people fishing on the beach. It seemed every few minutes we were running into another local with their line out relaxing by their pickup enjoying their Sunday.

We also spotted some crazy jellyfish which I recognized to be the venomous Portuguese Man O’ War.

When walking by one Māori couple, the man got a bite on his line. Immediately his two small dogs went crazy and he rushed down to the pole. After only a few minutes of reeling, he brought in a huge fish! The man was super nice and let us get a picture before he went to the ice chest with it.

At 11:30, with over 20km walked, we stopped for lunch. We had our usual fair of naan, half a meat stick, peanut butter, and we finished the craisins. Peter passed us while we were eating in search of his resupply. As we were leaving the log we had perched up on, Phillip strolled up.

We both plugged our headphones in and tackled the last 10km. After an hour of incredibly straight walking, Utea Park’s green flag appeared over the dunes. Just after that, the blister in my left foot popped. The last few hundred meters were painful but the tramping for the day was done.

Upon arrival at Utea Park, Paul, one of the owners, greeted Alex and I each with a tall glass of cold water. We sat down and talked with him for a while about hikers who had already come through Utea this season and about our Day 0 adventures.

We set up our tents in a nice grassy area sandwiched between the kitchen building and the dunes. It was on slightly elevated ground so there was not total coverage from the wind.

A hiker who arrived late on Day 2 and Phillip were the next to arrive at camp. We introduced ourselves to the new guy only to realize it was Tobias Peters.

We have been following him for a while as this is his 3rd straight year hiking the trail. It was great to get some insight on the TA from him as well as some general hiking tips from a much more seasoned hiker than ourselves.

Once everyone had rolled into camp, Tania, one of the other owners of Utea Park, brought around beers. The beers were only $5 NZD ($3 USD) so almost all of us bought one. After a hard days work, it tasted incredible.

While we were all sitting around enjoying our beers, Paul shared with us that he had a scale for weighing packs and that the record this year was 27kg. Austin was determined to break that record.

He went and filled up his water bottles and put them in the pack. The pack was so heavy the scale would not even register the weight. After removing the water, the pack clocked in at 25kg. With 4 individual liters of water and the canteens to carry them, we estimated Austin’s pack was in fact 30kg, the new record!

Utea Park also offered hot showers. After cold showers the past two days, a few minutes in a warm shower felt incredible.

For dinner, Alex and I had pasta with a soy & honey sauce. Unlike last night, we managed to finish the entire pot. On top of the pasta, a nice kiwi couple staying at Utea, cooked up a bunch of sausages for all the hikers which we enjoyed thoroughly. We all stayed talking around the table until about 7:30 at which point people started trickling out. Tobias, Paul, Tania, the kiwi couple and myself were the last to leave.

Most of us are waking up at 6:00am tomorrow to make sure we are on the beach by 7:00am. There is expected to be a storm tomorrow with a lot of rain and strong winds around 12 or 1. The earlier we can get to Ahipara the better.

-Ethan