Fairy Falls reopens in the Waitākere Ranges and The Big Loop turns 5
Long time, much-closed track to Wai Maringi waterfalls is back accepting walkers and I plug my book again.
Adventure outing: Fairy Falls, Waitākere Ranges
We begin with something a little less intrepid and a little more pedestrian. After [insert big number] long years, Fairy Falls Track on Scenic Drive, in the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park has reopened. [Clapping and applause] And it’s a banger!
The initial track weaves through the nīkau and ponga, descending gently from the ridge which nestles Scenic Drive. Giant, aged kauri stand out in the crowd, becoming larger and more obvious as the track starts to enter the gully of the stream. It’s here that the first of the newbuild boardwalk steps begins, winding you and your walking buddies down the hill.
An even grander and spectacular boardwalk greets you at the stream. Special grating offers a view of the clear water running under the bridge - an early attention-grabber - before some stairs descend beside the upper falls as they tumble through their various pools.
At the bottom pool, sits a giant deck, with some oversized steps leading down to it. With no fence at the bottom, it’s definitely inviting you for a dip.
Water exits this pool and almost immediately tumbles down the large 15 metre falls - known by Te Kawerau ā Maki as Wai Maringi. A flashy new bridge offers epic views straight down the drop and the track then leads to the bottom.
Fairy Falls Track is an ‘out an back’, so from the end you will have to clamber back up the hill to the road. Best to apply ‘Grand Canyon logic’ here: every 30 minutes down is 60 back up.
My early days as a Westie and mission to hike every track in the Waitaks made me biased for the Ranges, so take this with a grain of salt, but: it really is an epic afternoon out!
Nods to the Gear Gods: fix everything with Aquaseal
It was November 2022 and I was on the wide, stoney bank of the Manawatū River, at Palmerston North. I knelt down to mouth-inflate my raft, while my mind mentally prepared for the huge day ahead. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would turn out to be a 62km day, courtesy mainly of the many meanders on the river between Palmy and Shannon.
I blew the final puffs of air into the raft and stood up slowly, so as not to pass out. ‘REBEL SPORT’ my brain yelled at me. The raft had developed a tiny amount of air leakage around the valve and I had ordered some Aquaseal from Rebel Sport to patch it up! Only trouble was: I had forgotten to Click and Collect. Sorry, I mean I had forgotten to Collect - I had done the Click part.
For the next few raft sections south towards Cape Palliser, I bodged several ways to stop the leak. The most annoying was ‘getting out every 20 minutes to reinflate the boat’, while the most ingenious was ‘folding a piece of napkin and wedging it into the gap between the valve and the boat’. When I eventually got hold of some Aquaseal, I dabbed it on the hole and sealed it up like magic. I also accidentally sealed up the valve cap’s ability to rotate, but I didn’t see that as a necessary function of the valve cap. No air has leaked from my little boat ever since.
I tell you this little tale, as I’ve had to get the Aquaseal out again recently. Back in March, my adventure tent fell down in the middle of the night. The pole snapped and it ripped right through the outer fly. After some negotiations, the tent maker Zempire and I agreed on them sending me a new pole and a patch for the tent. Some months on and I finally got around to patching my little house, but the sticky strip they sent wasn’t big enough. Out came the needle and thread and I put Mrs Sawyer’s year 7 sewing classes to good use. Once stitched up, the repair needs to be sealed to keep the rain out - assuming you’re going to be camping in Auckland - and that’s where Aquaseal comes in. It creates a flexible and watertight seal on almost any material. I even used it to patch a bunch of pin-sized holes on my sleeping mattress. It’s super durable and it works. I swear, they should pay me for this.
Warning: contains toluene, toluene, toluene, TOLUEEEEEEEEEENE (Dolly Parton, reference, obviously). Ahem, sorry.
Final thing of the week: The Big Loop turns 5!
Five years ago, my first book - The Big Loop - hit the shelves up and down Kiwiland. We held a hot and crowded launch party in Mt Eden’s Time Out Bookstore, I pitched my unique tale to book buyers via a flurry of media appearances and I found myself drawn to bookshops and libraries, just for the endless amusement of snapping a selfie of myself ‘reading’ a copy in a shop.
It was a beautiful end of a chapter that began with a simple adventure idea and snowballed into a life-changing experience. I pedalled out of Mission Bay to cycle the NZ coastline and returned eight months later with too many yarns. In a way, the book was me handling what the adventure world terms ‘reintegration’ - the return to ‘civ life’ after a giant mission or extraordinary experience. I had to write everything down, if only for me, like hitting ‘save’ on an important document. However, publisher Bateman was interested and we turned it into something for everyone to enjoy.
If you have an interest in bikes, unorthodox adventures, Aotearoa New Zealand, humorous travel stories, being outdoors, statistical anecdotes, cycle touring, sleeping in tents, epic self-powered journeys, learning from mistakes or just doing something most wouldn't, you might just be interested in The Big Loop. It’s still breaking through to interested parties today and I suspect it will for a long time.
Thanks for all the support and here’s to the next one: rafting the length of Aotearoa in an inflatable boat. What journeys!
It only took me 5 years to buy it.
(PS: ~195km in traversing the peninsular from Coromandel base this weekend (Whitianga (via 309) back via Opito Bay loop yesterday, Over to Kennedy Bay (via Driving Creek Road) back via Colville today) so can mark a few more km of coastline off my map)