Words & Photographs by Louise Coghill
It took four acts of kindness to get from Kaitaia to Cape Reinga, the starting point of the Te Araroa - the 3,006 kilometre thru-hike I was embarking on. I wandered to the edge of town with trepidation. This was it. I stuck my thumb out half hoping nobody would stop and I could spend one more day in bed binging Fleabag. A man in his late 60s pulled up. I heaved my big red backpack onto the backseat, wondering how I’d manage to carry this beast of a thing later today.
Rob told me the country is changing, "you be careful which cars you get into Louise, New Zealand isn’t what it used to be", he said as I jumped out on the side of the road 40 kilometres closer to my goal. Remembering the man who had sat next to me on the bus from Auckland who twitched with an obvious drug habit and asked if he could borrow my bank card - add my unfortunate habit of listening to true crime podcast - I was very aware of how broken this world is. The first car that drove around the corner pulled up, but luckily it was only Sue, a social worker checking out a property. She drove me another 30 kilometres and dropped me beside a dairy, with the same warning … be careful. A beekeeper helped me strap my pack in beside boxes of bees in the back of his Ute, and finally a French couple picked me up in their van and I sat between them on the front seat as we chatted about travel and photography and NOT about how dangerous hitchhiking can be.
I pulled my heavy pack onto my shoulders, took out my brand new walking poles and waved goodbye to the French couple as I wandered down to the lighthouse that marked the start of the hike. I was glad to be getting away from that changing world Rob mentioned and return to the roots of humanity.
It only took 12 kilometres to get to my first campsite, but 12 kilometres was still enough to make my feet ache from the extra weight on my back. My hips itch where my pack rubs and the pain in my shoulders is starting. I know it’s going to get worse, but I tell myself this pain is bearable. It’s fleeting. I am human, I am made for this - to focus on the physical discomfort of living, rather than the mental anguish of existence.
Perhaps it’s something a little deeper within, a small reminder nestled into my DNA that says for 1.8 million years we’ve roamed and gathered. We’ve wandered and wondered, we saw the stars, we felt the wind and made up stories to explain it all. It doesn’t actually feel good tramping in a rain storm, wondering if there’s going to be somewhere dry at the end of the day. Or getting up at 5 a.m. to beat the high tide. Walking for 13 hours through forest, stumbling over tree roots in the growing darkness, trying to find somewhere flat to camp. Wearing the same dirty clothes for 10 days. It never feels exactly good, but it feels right.
Perhaps that’s why thru-hiking has become an increasingly popular pastime. We’re all here, tramping back to our roots, trying to throw off a millennia of social conditioning. We’re creating our own rites and rituals to make up for what we’ve lost over the centuries. Returning ourselves to the natural world. Becoming nomads with everything we need on our back.
