Travel
Manna in the wilderness
by Patric Lane
Heaven on earth is percolated coffee by Lake Waikaremoana.
Peoples, there’s peoples coming,” yells the lifejacket, the faded yellow buoyancy vest hovering about 40cm above the ground and about 40m up the track. As we draw nearer, it becomes apparent that the lifejacket, rather than levitating, is supported by a pair of tiny legs, with an equally diminutive set of arms sprouting from its sides and a dark mop of hair and the glowing face of a small child nestled atop the bulky floatation device.
After exchanging hellos, the child politely asks if we’re hungry. A short distance ahead, perched on the narrow strip of solid ground between the path and the edge of Lake Waikaremoana sits a foldaway table and a small cardboard handwritten sign: “Pikelets, 10 cents each + cup of coffee”. Tied up at the shoreline is an ageing blue and white cabin cruiser, from which the makeshift trackside café has obviously emerged.
Our waiter dispatches – not so politely – two even smaller accomplices, dwarfed by their lifejackets, to fetch battered enamel cups from the boat. Onboard, a coffee percolator steadily bubbles away on an ancient gas cooker, while the vessel’s middle-aged captain sits slowly whittling away a piece of wood, happy to leave his entrepreneurial charges to entertain us.
The sun is shining, Waikaremoana’s turquoise waters are glistening and I’m about to have my first real coffee since beginning tramping around the lake three days earlier. Life couldn’t be better.
Of course, the trip didn’t start that way. Think tramping, and images of panoramic views from lofty vantage points and cosy evenings in rustic huts spring to mind. Unromantic yet essential details such as Gigantor the Pack – my rather large red canvas backpack that dates from the late 1980s – tend to remain forgotten. Gigantor started its life as a trusty but cumbersome companion on a variety of epic hiking expeditions undertaken in my late teens. But in a campground cabin, nearing midnight on the eve of my first tramp in over a decade to last longer than two days and not involving the use of a water taxi to ferry gear, Gigantor was failing to accomodate the essentials to make the four-day walk around Lake Waikaremoana in Te Urewera National Park as safe, comfortable and satisfying to the taste buds as possible.
That Gigantor was on the verge of developing its own gravitational pull was earning little sympathy from my partner, who was battling the laws of physics with her own pack. Furthermore, she was facing the prospect of having to walk in a pair of old running shoes, having left her tramping boots in Napier. “Go cry me a river” was her less than empathetic response as I reached the despairing conclusion that my Italian stove-top coffee maker would have to stay behind.
Torrential rain throughout much of the night served only to heighten our unease, and although the morning dawned relatively fine and clear, the weight of our packs remained physically and mentally daunting as we loaded them in the campground shuttle minibus for the short drive to the start of the track at Onepoto Bay. There, looming 600 metres above the lake, the imposing Panekiri Bluff served as another reminder that the panoramic view from the top would not come without an arduous and sweaty climb.
Washing the pikelets down with the gloriously strong coffee, we learn that the largest lifejacket, named Sofian, is on holiday from France. His shy accomplices, Moana and Mariah, are local family friends, and they’re all spending a week on the lake, cruising from bay to bay, swimming, fishing and earning some extra pocket money.
Such a chance meeting at the start of the trip might well have forced a complete abandonment of our plans in favour of trying to find a berth on an accommodating boatie’s vessel. But by day three, having lightened the packs by nine meals (plus a hard-earned bottle of merlot on the first night) and pounded our bodies into something resembling tramping fitness, the journey had proved increasingly rewarding. The steep climb up Panekiri Bluff on the first day provides vistas that widen and lengthen as the track steadily gains elevation, eventually encompassing not just the lake and the lush green of the surrounding ranges but the hazy blue of the distant Pacific Ocean merging with horizon off to the south and east. The second day features an at-times hair-raising descent back down to lake level, the hardy beech trees of the upper ridges giving way to lush ferns and podocarp forest, before the trail finally reaches the soft grasses and toitoi of the shoreline.
After paying Sofian for the pikelets and coffee (“Moana, Mariah, we got more monies!” he exclaims, counting the coins) we press on. Leaving the tramping shelter and popular berthing spot at Korokoro campsite, the track soon climbs slightly and continues around the lake, the elevated traverse following a relatively steady contour, weaving in and out of the series of small inlets leading towards Maraunui Bay, our chosen lunch spot. Here, the heat of sun and the morning’s exertions prompt a short-lived dip in the lake, its tropical appearance belying the sharp chill of its waters.
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