Onehunga to Rangiriri
After breakfast with a niece yesterday and losing every Scrabble game at my cousin's place, I was well rested for the Trail again. Said cousin dropped me off at the Onehunga Wharf so I could walk to Mangere on the old bridge. Mangere Mountain in the background erupted 18,000 years ago and much of today's walk crossed its lava field.
I wandered along the Manakau foreshore, passing sheep at Ambury Regional Park and a gateway I didn't have time to explore.
The tide was low so at an observation hide I saw no godwits or red knots, now arrived from Siberia, but there were thirty Royal Spoonbills and dozens of oystercatchers on another man-made roosting area.
I once sat in an identical hide at Cley on the Norfolk coast and watched flocks of avocets change colour in mid-air. White, until they turned simultaneously and became black.
I struggled to understand the route at the Otuataua stonefields.
Maori lived and gardened here, exploiting the warmth of the volcanic rocks to grow taro, gourds and kumara.
Once I found my way through, I was confronted by a land dispute at Ihimatao. Fletcher Construction tried to develop the area and iwi dispute their right to do so.
From the protest camp, it was a roadwalk towards Auckland Airport. A few kilometres along, I met a fit-looking woman going the other way. "How are you getting on?" she asked. We chatted, and I realised this was the South African kiwi who was a day ahead of me on Ninety Mile Beach. She confirmed the underpass under the Southern Motorway was closed, and I explained my own plan for dealing with closures at Clevedon and the Hunuas. Affirming, discovering another hiker "solving" Auckland with NOBO sections and contemplating a skip SOBO.
At the airport, I realised I didn't have enough time to walk the Puhinui Stream section at Wiri and get to the bus depot at Manakau City in time for my lift to Rangiriri. Instead, I caught a bus to catch a bus, having walked 18km. My cunning wheeze worked... I am posting this from Rangiriri, on the bank of the mighty Waikato.
