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The Te Araroa – or long pathway – dispenses with formalities, taking the Blissful Hiker onto an exposed start of drenching squalls, inconvenient tides and a never-ending roar of the waves.


In this episode:

1. The Blissful Hiker starts walking the Ninety Mile Beach, a long strip of sand that will take three days to complete, a baptism by fire for causing injury, boredom and many hikers to quit the Te Araroa. 
2. She learns that thru-hiking is a lesson in patience. 
3. Her tent, the alicoop, crashes down in the ferocious wind, but the TA goddess stops the rain, and she reorients it under a blanket of stars.
4. On the final day, the wind changes, coming directly in her face, but she rises to the challenge, met in Ahipara by a new friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. 

MUSIC: Pastorale Calchaqui by Hector Gallac as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
available on iTunes

The Te Araroa – or long pathway – dispenses with formalities, taking any hiker who dares onto an exposed start of drenching squalls, inconvenient tides and a never-ending roar of sound that begins as a curious lullaby, but in time, crescendos to a scream. 

Fortunately, I’ve been warned about the beach, mostly told not to underestimate how difficult it is even though a simple point A to point B, on flat ground. Even young and healthy hikers manage to injure themselves with painful tendonitis, shin splints or shred their tender city-feet in a mass of blisters. Total exposure to the elements of wind, rain, and sun, no water and loud monotony make this one of the most difficult starts of any thru-hike in the world. It’s a baptism by fire – or more accurately, water.

Beautiful, lovingly built stairs with rubber grips take us steeply down through the bush. Little did I know this would be one of only a handful of well-built and maintained portions of the 3,000 kilometer trail. 

It looks like it was my turn for my tent – the alicoop ­– to crash down on me. It’s no one’s fault, really, certainly not the gear, just that I set behind a wind screen that only protected me for the half of the night before the wind changed directions. 

To survive today’s, I make a plan to divide it into thirds. I’ll use each 10k section to consider some ‘deep thoughts.’

1. What causes a person to make the decision to walk for five months?

2. Why does said person need a plan to get through a particularly long, hard day?

3. What must it feel like to be free, like one of these wild horses?

In no time, the wind picks up to dry me off. But this time, it’s straight in my face. At Ahipara, Peter treats me like his own daughter, looking at me with concern when he remarks that I have sand on my cheeks and in the corners of my eyes. 

Joining me for a glass of wine he wonders if it would be considered cheating to skip the long, dangerous road walk to Kaitaia and allow him to drive me to the next section. 

I tell him not if I don’t tell anyone!

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The Blissful Hiker flies to New Zealand, drives to the Meeting Place of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean at Cape Reinga and within 36 hours, she begins to walk the Te Araroa towards Bluff.


In this episode:

1. The Blissful Hiker has her first encounter with authentic Kiwi "trail angel" hospitality.
2. She's taken up the winding, roller-coaster roads of Northland to Cape Reinga.
3. She learns security is just an illusion and we have to take risks to truly live.  
4. She immediately begins hiking and just as immediately takes a wrong turn. 
5. Rain, hail, hot sun, tides and the constant sound of waves are her companions for the first 100 kilometers. 

MUSIC: The Horizon from Owhiro Bay by Gareth Farr (used by permission)
The Pee Rag by Stacia Bennett

The Show: 

I found out what a pee rag is right around the same time I met Irene on Facebook. She’s a Kiwi from Hamilton, planning to walk the TA in sections. She planned to start from Cape Reinga on October 29, my start date. 

I fly over puffy clouds above crystalline bays abutting sandy beaches fed by winding streams and estuaries. Hilly bright green pastures and dark bush see rain falling in the distance, and the ocean beyond that to infinity. If all goes as planned, to walk back to Auckland, will take me a month. 

 I’m out of my comfort zone, having reckoned with what really matters in my life and putting to the test risking security for something intangible. Helen Keller wrote “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Security is an illusion. You have to risk a bit of adventure to really live.

This part of the country is called Northland or the far, far, north. The sky clears above a wide track through flax and yucca, azure waves in long rows crashing beneath us as we rise up on high cliffs. We spot our first trail sign, a plastic orange triangle nailed onto a wooden post. It leads us away from the beach up onto a sandy bluff dotted with bright yellow lupine. 

“I sure hope we’re not lost,” Irene says, just as I realize, we most surely are. 

Irene and I were never really lost, just misguided. 

Oyster Catchers peep at us as we pass, their eyes looking askance. Sponges, jellyfish and small piles of broken shells fan out at the water’s edge. It all seems a bit unreal, the route taking us under the curve of a rainbow towards another squall line and tonight’s destination.

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The Blissful Hiker realizes there's no "there" to get to, learning to live in the moment, face vulnerability straight on – while at the same time, opening herself up to "the ecstatic experience."



In this episode:

1. The Blissful Hiker sorts out the myriad details before departing on the 3,000 kilometer Te Araroa. 
2. She learns she can only plan so much before needing to make peace with not knowing how the story will unfold. 
3. She also learns to be present and ‘hold her soul ajar to welcome the ecstatic experience.’
4. She shares the first words she learns in Maori, ones that mean ‘hello,’  but also, ‘be well,’ ‘be safe,’ ‘be filled with gratitude.'

kia ora: Māori greeting, literally "be well!"

MUSIC: Erik Satie, Gymnopedie No. 1; Kevin MacLeod, Apero Hour; Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 1 (used by permission)

 
The Show: John Kaag writes in his book, Hiking with Nietzsche, that the great philosopher wants us to be wanderers, but not as a traveler to a final destination, for this destination does not exist.

If you arrive at a final destination, it’s a sign that you’ve set your sights too low. On a long walk who we are is about recovering from who we think we are.  

Backpacking is about coming to grips with this projection requiring me to live in the moment, face my vulnerability straight on – while at the same time, opening myself up, like the words of Emily Dickinson, The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

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The Blissful Hiker sells her flute to make the dream of walking a long-distance thru-hike a reality before it's too late and arthritis takes over her body.


In this episode:

1. Meet ex-professional flutist and voracious hiker, the Blissful Hiker.
2. With arthritis taking over her body, time was running out. 
3. But once she voiced her dream to walk a long trail, the universe conspired to make it happen. 
4. And letting go of her professional flute, brought her one step closer to New Zealand’s long pathway, the Te Araroa.

MUSIC: The music in this episode is Argentine composer Angel Lasala’s Poema del Pastor Coya as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

Available on iTunes

The Show: My name is alison young and I am the Blissful Hiker. Walking was always my solace, the place I found peace, got centered and came up with creative ideas. My earliest memory is of looking down at my feet as they took me from our house in New York up a winding sidewalk to the back door of the church where my father was the minister. I had places to go! Up there was nursery school.

I had a long, hard, fraught but ultimately deeply satisfying and successful career as a professional flutist that took me all over the world, until one day in my mid-thirties when I couldn’t move my fingers. It seems I had developed a neurological condition, dystonia, and it ended my career. 

I played with great orchestras, made recordings, toured, taught, but much of what I did in my life was unrelated to making music. I had this kind of part-time gig as a hiker and when I traveled, I’d fit in some walking like in Japan, China, Pakistan, Switzerland, Argentina, and of course all over the United States. Blissful Hiker’s little motto of “walking the world” is kind of spot on. 

When radio took over my life, I would work weekends to stockpile a few priceless extra days to take even more adventurous hikes, which only whet my appetite for more – and longer – hikes. I wanted to see what it felt like to walk far, a thru-hike of thousands of miles, something verging on a lifestyle. 

But I kept that dream a secret for a long time – though time was running out – dystonia screwed up my hands so I couldn’t play the flute at a high professional level and now, I was developing arthritis in my feet. Would I also lose the ability to walk?

How lovely it is to dream while you are awake. Anybody can dream while they're asleep, but you need to dream all the time, and say our dreams out loud, and believe in them.
 –Andre Agazzi

It’s kind of woowoo, but I have had the experience where when I voice something I want, things begin to change, like the universe is conspiring to make things happen. 

And then there was that flute sale. It turned out one of my adult students wanted to buy it. When we got to the moment I put the flute in her hands, she she presented me with her first student flute from grade school, a little silver-plated jobbie with a sweet sparkly tone. “Let’s make a trade,” she said. “This flute for a flute lesson.”

And I was just that much closer to my thru-hike. 

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