Drama on Te Araroa Trail
‘‘As we listed to the right, I was thrown from the rear of the canoe,’’ he says. He managed to wedge the canoe between rocks, bail out the water and get back on his way but soon found himself seeking shelter from a thunderstorm in ‘‘small bushes’’ on the
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McCartney broke down in tears.
‘‘All the stress, hardships and pain I had suffered over the past 164 days were released . . . ’’ he wrote. ‘‘It was just [fellow hiker] Bubbles and I there . . . We celebrated with Tim Tams.’’
It was while he was in Ecuador, having cycled down from the US, that McCartney began contemplating tackling the Te Araroa Trail. After months of struggling to get by in Spanish in Central and South America, he was eager to spend time in an Englishspeaking country and Te Araroa, New Zealand’s fastest-growing international tourist attraction, ‘‘came to mind’’.
Officially opened in December 2011, the trail is a work in progress, with lengthy on-road stretches, often on busy highways. There is often no alternative route to closed sections of the track and hikers are reliant on the kindness of strangers in parts. Te Araroa’s website notes that there is no official transport across Wha¯ nga¯ rei Harbour so recommends hitchhiking the perimeter of the harbour or ‘‘trying to flag down a boat to get a ride across.
‘‘We understand and appreciate this is far from ideal – but hope to have it sorted ASAP,’’ the website states.
McCartney was aware of such issues before setting out in October 2018, but decided to attempt to hike it in its entirety anyway.
‘‘This was not the best decision as the North Island is more of a route than a hiking trail, but I already knew that. It was the South Island I was looking forward to.’’
At times though, the North Island exceeded his expectations on the adventure front.
Canoeing grade-one rapids on the Whanganui River was fun, but fairly easygoing, until heavy rains hit. At first, the rain didn’t bother him: ‘‘It just added to the drama of being in a wild place.’’ On day three though, large waves created by boulders in the rapids flooded his canoe and, after being funnelled through two ‘‘walls of water’’ that he estimates were a metre high, he and his partner lost control. And began to sink. evening trading adventure tales made all the more dramatic by the flickering flames.
An ‘‘extroverted introvert’’, McCartney says he rarely feels lonely on the road as he enjoys his own company – as well as being being able to make his own judgments about the world as he passes through it uninfluenced by others. Going for several weeks without a proper conversation while cycling through northcentral Mexico, however, made him realise he does need to connect with others on a semi-regular basis.
‘‘For the first time in my life I find myself lonely,’’ he wrote en route to the Unesco-listed city of Zacatecas. ‘‘It’s a strange and unusual feeling . . . The last couple of weeks have taught me rather brutally that I need a good conversation every once in a while at the barest minimum.’’
McCartney funds his travels with the rent he collects on his Brad McCartney of canoeing the Whanganui River after heavy rain house in Darwin and, while this affords only ‘‘a very small income’’, it’s enough to get by on if he lives in a tent.
He is unsure how long he will sustain this nomadic lifestyle, saying, ‘‘For me, the journey is the destination and the journey often takes me into the unknown.’’
He takes each day as it comes, step by arduous-yet-energising step.
A recent social media post read: ‘‘I hiked 225km with over 10,000 vertical metres of elevation gain, swam in mountain streams, saw the Milky Way galaxy every night, had many close encounters with sandflies and some of the best scenery and weather possible in the Richmond Ranges of the South Island, New Zealand.’’ The preface: ‘‘What did you do this week?’’
Well done if you can top that.
You can follow McCartney’s travels on his blog and Instagram.