March 29, 2013
Some of the best trails on Great Barrier Island start from Kaiarara Bay, including one to the top of Mount Hobson, a 6-hour round trip hike needing a “good level of fitness.” Rich and I have a level of fitness, but we weren’t sure we’d call it “good.” It’s hard to determine these sorts of things, but we could look up and see how tall that mountain was and decided when they say fit, they might mean Lance Armstrong fit. So we decided we’d take one of the hikes requiring less exertion.
We went ashore and ran into a nice lady who recommended the Kiwiriki Track. We could take that to the Line W Track, which would take us up to Forest Road. We could walk back and find the Bush Trail heading back to the bay. That sounded like something we could handle. I wasn’t sure what to expect on this walk, but I was hoping to catch sight of a Kaka, the brown parrot of the northern forests of New Zealand.
We walked uphill to find the Kiwiriki Trail and began our hike. It soon became apparent that not many people walk here as it was barely visible at times. We’ve found that no matter how many forests you walk through in New Zealand, there’s always something that sets each apart. In this case, we’d been in lush fern forests, but this one had an abundance of palm plants amid the ferns and trees. It was a beautiful walk, although we had to traverse a few streams and it got a little rugged at times. What looked like a short walk took a good half hour, and while I wouldn’t say it required a lot of fitness, it did require some acrobatics. I’ll call it Acrobatic Level 3.
Once we reached the Line W Trail, we began what would be 30-minute uphill walk. The vegetation rapidly changed from fern forest to what I’d call high desert, something I hadn’t really seen in New Zealand.
Once we reached the Forest Road, we turned and headed north. As we walked, the drier landscape suddenly reverted back to fern forest, and soon we found ourselves amid kauri trees (New Zealand’s giant trees). This was an unexpected treat as we just expected this to be a plain road. Suddenly from overhead came the parroty cries of kakas. I was so excited I cried out and scared the crap out of Rich. I guess not everyone screams if they see a rare bird. (Tip for Kiwis: If you’re in the forest with an American, try not to scream as for us it means bear, alligator, snake, scary spider, skunk, or Dick Cheney with a gun).
We continued our walk and ended up at the Kairaara Hut. I hadn’t realized we’d get to see this and was thrilled to go walk across the suspension bridge nearby.
Have you ever notice how some people are more thrilled by the bouncy fun of a suspension bridge than others?
After having fun on the bridge, it was time to head back to our bay. We followed the Bush Trail though beautiful forest and got a closer look at a flock of kakas that landed in the trees above us.
In all, this had been a three-hour hike, and it took our last reserves of strength to get our dinghy to the water and then climb aboard our boat. We were glad we hadn’t attempted the tougher six-hour hike to the top of Mount Hobson. –Cyndi
