Well that was stupid!

We successfully stealth camped and woke up to rain in the night. We were so tired and lazy that we didn’t bother to pitch the tent properly, low and behold we had rain. Now I did check my bag but I didn’t look at my boots, which now had some lovely puddles inside of them. I also had barely any sleep, I am not sure why but it was rather noisy. On the brightside Rowan had water in his boots too so we both got to put our feet into soggy boots. We wandered over to a picnic table and had some breakfast, garlic pita breads with some salami. It was really dry and on the upside it repeated chronically throughout the day. We set of for Wenderholm Park knowing we had lots of time as we needed to wait for the tide. The weather was ho hum, with regular showers. We arrived at Wenderholm around 11am, made a hot lunch of noodles and set in to relax. Here is where we went wrong…

The camp site was shut so we thought we would wait for low tide (2pm) and packraft up as it came in. In our heads it sounded much more preferable than walking along the main road. So we relaxed and killed some time in the park. Meantime we got in touch with a trail angel who said for $20 we can pitch on her lawn and have a hot shower! We kept an eye on the water but not much was happening. All of a sudden the time was 3.45pm so we quickly got up and started getting the raft ready. Now the water had finally turned we could paddle up easier. I said to Rowan, is it too late, do we need to just stay here? He said let’s just do it. So 30min later we had shoved all our gear in and we headed off. The raft did really well and we only got stuck on a sand bar a few times. Once Rowan had to get out and move us. Now the problem is this estuary river is a long bloody river, the sun was setting faster than I could paddle. I had the worst pains in my hips and my back but we persevered. When we could see the motorway I got really excited. I wish I knew at the time that meant I was only half way haha. I am pretty sure that shower is the only thing that kept me going. When we hit the bridge I was so happy, we were aiming to get out at the kayak hire. It got to the point where we couldn’t easily see so we decided the next easy bank on the left we would hop out. Luckily for us it was the kayak hire. I hoped out first and sank into Puhoi mud knee deep, I lost both of my saddles trying to get out of the mud. I tried to get attention of the house to let them know what I was doing in their yard but I failed. Rowan pulled the boat up behind the hall on the grass. By now we were wet sodden and needed to unpack and repack of backpacks. I wish there was someone to take photos but it was really dark by then. I found my head torch which was already on so that keeps on going low and bright while we attempted to pack. Rowan’s torch also went out, bloody typical. We some how got all sorted mud everywhere and had a 1km walk ahead to do. As we set off there was a quiz party going on at the hall and the locals thought we had joined in with the dress up themes. Then they realised we were two idiots that look like swamp trampers. A relatively easy walk but wet and cold wasn’t fun. We made it to Pip’s House and quickly got the tent up, about 30min by the time I got enough mud off before going inside. That shower was amazing, I nearly didn’t get out. We made some kai and by the time we hit the hay it was 9pm and we were exhausted.