What a beautiful view to wake up to this morning. π
The little box truck motorhome that had been parked on the grass was gone, so it was just me, up early again with the early sunrise.
I headed out about 8:15ish, taking a little gamble as I worked my way toward Kaiate Falls (Google Maps had listed as being closed which is part of the reason I didn’t camp there night before last.
When I got there, there was a sign that said that the track was closed, but the protective gate was no longer closed, so I decided to venture down the track. π
I decided to venture down because every time I’ve come across a sign saying a track was closed, the track was damaged, but not dangerously so.
This track was no different.
The beginning part of the track had no issues whatsoever, and I enjoyed seeing the significant increase in water compared to what I’ve experienced there before.
There were a couple of places where trees had fallen across the path, but 15 minutes with a chainsaw would fix that.
The upper, tri-cascade falls was raging. π
As I continued along the trail, there were definitely a couple of slips (mini landslides), one that took out the cliffside path to the jumping spot, but it didn’t hamper the normal trail at all.
Again, just a handful of minutes with a chainsaw would make the cliff jumping spot accessible again.
Perhaps they closed the trail because two of the four posts that held the large safety rope were snapped in half in the bridge that crosses the creek just before going back up the other side (but those those big fatty ropes looked more like artistic decorations than safety ropes π).
On the far side, there was a part of the path where a slip had swept its way across the path, but it hadn’t really changed the level of the path much. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was also a little sinkhole in a landing part of the path by the bigger slip that blocked the cliff jumping access, but the sinkhole was easily avoided.
Anyway, so much like the other closed tracks, it wasn’t dangerous, just a few minor obstacles. One person with a shovel and a chainsaw could have it all fixed up in half a day.
It seemed to me that if you’re going to take the time to go out to a place that’s not very badly damaged, you might as well fix it while you’re there. Seems much more efficient. π
Oh well.
I enjoyed my time there, picked up a little trash, and was grateful to have a trash bin to empty it into back of the parking lot.
Beautiful place.
From there, I decided to head north along the coast up toward the Coromandel, finding myself stopping back at Whiritoa Caves, where I had an even better experience this time than last time. π
I called my sister Heather when I first got there because she had messaged me about going over some mail that I had received. So we went through that together, and then I continued chatting as I started walking down the beach toward the cave.
At first, I was alone, wandering about the place, snapping bunches of pictures because the whole place was so much different both with high tide and a water everywhere because a whole bunch of rain had fallen from the storm. π
It was even more beautiful than I remembered, I think a fair bit because of all the extra water. π
I was video calling my sister, so I set the camera to look at the scenery instead of it me so she could get a virtual experience of what it was like to be there.
Such a beautiful place. π
After finishing our conversation, and after taking lots of pictures from various vista points, I started to explore the trails that wind their way to various viewpoints all over the hilltops the cave and sinkhole are attached to.
After a bit of exploring, I found my way over to the northernmost lookout, and to my surprise, found a park bench there.
Lovely place to put a bench. π
I would never have guessed there would be a bench there because the little trails through the woods are not maintained trails of any kind. They’re just the kinds of trails that are formed naturally by lots of people walking along the same path through the woods.
But I sat my not-as-little butt down enjoying a rest with the beautiful view.
I had started dictating a catch-up journal entry as I was walking through the woods on the hilltop, so I continued that after I sat down.
It wasn’t too long of my sitting in solitude before a family wandered up a pathway that I didn’t even know was there–a formed, maintained pathway from the bottom to the bench.
We got to chatting, and I took their picture for them. I found out that they were from Sri Lanka–a father and his? two boys who had moved to New Zealand a decade ago, and then a relative of the father’s and that person’s spouse?
I didn’t get all the relations down. π
Anyway, I told them how to get from where we were to the cave via the pathways on top of the hill, but after a minute, one of the boys came back and asked me where to go from the fork in the path, and so I just walked the paths with them to show them the way, chatting with the father along the way.
There were a handful of places that were a little slippery and some that were a little technical, so I led the way for them.
I first took them to the top of the sinkhole, and then I showed the two boys how to get down to the little tunnel cave and roaring creek below.
After the boys went down, the adults decided to come down as well, so I also showed them how to get down, taking another picture for them with the tunnel cave and the creek going through it in the background.
It was pretty cool to see the waves rolling in from the higher tide and smacking against the rushing water of the swollen creek. π
After everyone was back up top looking down the sinkhole, I led them down the northern side of the creek (to get the best view of the tunnel cave, I first brought them down the southern side). Normally, I would have just crossed the creek, but it was far too swollen to do so without getting absolutely soaked, and potentially getting washed down into the sinkhole area.
After I got everybody down the much more technical scramble, I bid them farewell, and they thanked me, saying that they never would have seen or experienced what I showed them had I not been there with them, so that was cool. π
As I started my way back up, a family (I’m thinking a father, his daughter, and his grandkids maybe?) were all exploring together. There was a mom and her 17-year-old daughter, for sure, and then there were I think five or six other little kids, three or four little girls, ages 7 to 10, I think it was, and two boys, one 9, I this, and one 11.
I did the same thing for the little girls that I had done for the Sri Lankan family, but with a little more teaching and a little more coaching–teaching the girls how to identify good hand holds (e.g, shaking tree roots before putting any weight on them) and more stable foot holds (e.g. stepping on the near side of roots and rocks as you go down slopes).
The little kids, especially the little girls, glommed onto me pretty much immediately.
I love kids. π
And generally, they love me, too. π€
I was totally in my element. I’m a teacher. I love it more than anything, I think; and teaching kids who are hungry and excited to learn about and experience the world… I just… love it.
Made the heart happy to be there, to see their eyes all lit up and happy. π And it was cool to see their mom completely comfortable with me there teaching her kids how to be safer while adventuring in the outdoors. π
I had so much I wanted to teach my kids, so many experiences I wanted to share with them.
That’s the hard part of these kinds of encounters. My heart melts, my love balloons, and then… it’s over. They’re gone, and I’m alone again.
π₯Ί
Still, it was a beautiful experience. π
After they left, I continued exploring the paths through the hilltops.
When I finally headed down, I went back out the way that I had come in and then climbed up one of the rock formations right next to the water to just sit there and take in the scenery for a little while.
And it was only a very little while, as it was probably only a few minutes or less into being there that the rain began to come down, and then it came down fairly hard, so I made my way fairly quickly back to my van. π
I stopped off at a little oceanside playground to hang for a minute on the monkey bars in an effort to decompress my spine a little bit. I also disposed of some of my trash in the parks trash can, and I watched a couple surfers catching waves. π
From there, I headed up toward WhangamatΔ, figuring that I would stay the night at one of the freedom camping places that I had stayed at previously. When I got there, however, after disposing of a little more trash and picking up some trash that was there, and filling up my water bottles, I decided that since it was only a little after 4:00, and I’d already been in this part of the country and didn’t really have any specific place that I wanted to explore further in the time I had left in New Zealand, I decided make my way toward Northland, to spend the last of my time in New Zealand up there.
Accordingly, I found a freedom-camping spot on the west side of the Firth of Thames, a part of the country that I’ve actually never been to before. π
After giving in to my sweet tooth and stopping off at the local grocery store for some ice cream and gummy worms (an absolutely foolish thing to do with my tooth bothering me so much), I wound my way through the steep, forested hills of the lower Coromandel, across the plains west of Thames, up the coast, and to my spot, parking on the ocean side, darkness having completely set in for the night.
I’ll probably head up toward Waipu Caves tomorrow π, doing my best to avoid Auckland traffic.
I don’t want to go back to the States. π
It’s just after 7:45 p.m., and I’m listening to the rain patter on the roof of my van while everywhere above me I see stars. π€
Not very happy with myself for having bought junk food. But I didn’t eat very much of it. Only a little bit of the ice cream and not even the full bag of gummy worms before I literally threw the rest out the window. π
Before I go to bed, I’ll probably try to catch up a little bit more on the two entries that I’ve not yet written.
At least I’ve written for today. π
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 