The first full day on Te Araroa was a roadwalk to bypass a trail closure, bringing us to the foot of the Te Paki Giant Sand Dunes.
CareFree and I got up shortly before sunrise. Unfortunately, a mountain was in the way, so we couldn’t actually see the sun rise over the horizon, but the view from the beach was still great.
Ulrike came over from her tent to say hi. We learned that she’d had trouble hitching to here yesterday, needing over three hours to get a ride to the campground, in a country that’s supposed to be easy to hitch rides in.
With a very damp tent from condensation, it took us about two hours from when we got up to when we left the campground. Not too bad for a first day on the trail.
The walk up the gravel road back to the main road was a little strenuous, but the sun was still low in the sky and it hadn’t warmed up much yet.
We were on SH 1 for most of the day, winding around a few ridges. Towards the start of the day, we could see the ocean to the west, though as the road trended generally inland, we eventually lost sight of the water. There were scattered forests, but most of the road was flanked by meadows, filled with grazing cows and sheep.
In contrast to the cows on the Continental Divide Trail, the cows and sheep here seem to be somewhat skittish; as we walked past them along the road (or on the occasional pull-off), the closest ones ran away.
After about three hours on the main road, we reached the turn-off to Te Paki Stream and the Giant Sand Dunes, which rise 150 meters above the ocean. We could see the dunes off in the distance from the main road, gradually growing as we got closer, until they became hidden by the landscape.
There were a few picnic tables at the entrance to the dunes, so we stopped there for a snack break. Quite a few cars and trucks passed us, going down the gravel road towards the dunes.
Once we started down the road, more cars passed us in both directions. Most were at least marginally courteous, but several drove past entirely too fast for the road, spewing up huge clouds of dust.
The road was flanked by sheep and cow pastures, most of which were fairly sedentary, though we also saw a pair of piglets and a trio of sheep running parallel to the trail, probably to get away from us.
All of the cars passing on the road was a little distracting, and caused me to lightly sprain my ankle. Most likely a major contributing factor was my boots being new, and I hadn’t gotten them fully tightened yet. But, it was also the first day on trail, and I was tired, and probably a little dehydrated. It’s easy to forget to drink water on a roadwalk.
Just before 2 pm, we reached the picnic area at the foot of the sand dunes, which towered over the Te Paki Stream.
The parking area there was quite crowded, and there were a few dozen people milling about, sitting at the picnic tables, playing in the creek, or climbing (and the often sliding down) the sand dunes.
The dirt road we had been following turned into the stream, and over the next several hours, there were a steady stream of cars driving into (and mostly out of) the creek, which flows to the ocean (and the TA itself) only a few kilometers away. Three trucks pulling boats out of the creek seemed highly absurd in the moment, but this was (apparently) a good access point to the ocean.
Arriving shortly after us was Shaun, a former IT professor from Wisconsin, who’d come to hike the TA just two weeks after completing the Pinhoti trail, connecting Alabama’s Flagg Mountain to the Benton MacKaye Trail in Georgia.
At some point in the afternoon, CareFree, feeling restless, climbed to the top of the sand dunes. (We’d finished early — before 2 pm!) I’d have joined her, had I not sprained my ankle.
Several other hikers arrived, including Hannah; Ulrike; Erica (from Sweden, and has hiked the PCT); Susanna and Peter, a couple from Switzerland in the middle of their third world tour, who’ve hiked several trails, including the Colorado Trail last year; Martin and Mark, from the Czech Republic; and a group of five that moved on to try and find a better campsite further down the creek. A trio of cyclists also came up the creek; one of them had hiked the TA last year, and now was cycling an adjacent bicycle route.
As the afternoon progressed, the locals disappeared, and we found places to stay. Once the sun set, it quickly became cool out, and we retired to our tents.