The Epic Cape Brett Hike

Liz: typing like this
Jen: typing like this
Both: typing like this

We have returned from an epic jaunt from Rawhiti (RAFF-it-ee) up and down the mountainous cliffs to the tiny hut below the lighthouse on Cape Brett. My legs are still sore: squatting to pick up a dropped set of keys makes me wince, and while it normally takes a Hell Week with Leim to give me shin splints, I’ve got them now. Looking back though, it’s like I’ve already forgotten how much some of those hills sucked, and how I thought I might literally pass out from heat exhaustion or dehydration or both and tumble from a cliff; those things fade, and the only word left in my head is “awesome.” It was awesome.

Jen and I, plus the reluctant trio of Dan, Lewis, and Jamie, set off Monday morning. By the time we’d done our cleaning for the day (we had to get up at seven to accomplish this), been to the shop for biscuits and more water, actually packed our bags, found bandannas, waited in the parking lot for the liquor shop to open*, driven to Opua, taken the car ferry across to Russell, and driven the nauseating miles to Rawhiti, it was after eleven am. People kept reiterating that the “people who were lazy” were on the trail by eight am. The smart ones started at daybreak. We rolled out at 11:21, some of us more enthusiastic than others. Dan, Lewis, and Jamie apparently never go hiking. They’d certainly never been backpacking. Lewis and Jamie kept telling us how back at home, they often get rides to their pub, which is fifty meters from Jamie’s front door.

Liz and I were actually pretty worried about how everyone would fare on the trip. Liz and I who had planned the trip were pretty pumped and were looking forward to a good challenge. Dan, Lewis, and Jamie…well, Liz and I were SERIOUSLY concerned there was going to be an ACTUAL mutiny on the trail. No joke. An actual mutiny.

It’s 16.3 km from the start of the trail to the hut (just slightly over ten miles.) This doesn’t sound too far, and I was wildly over-confident at the start of the trip. The trail, however, made its way up and down the steepest hills I’ve ever encountered, so that soon, ten feet in a row of flat ground was something we cheered about. To make it worse, it was hot and muggy, and we were almost immediately drenched in sweat, as if we’d taken a trip underneath Niagara Falls without those cool blue slickers. All of the sugar in my blood quickly decided to get out of there (my hypoglycemia’s been acting up), apparently finding the miles of rocky slopes ahead too daunting, so I was left to stagger on without it. Frequent stops for bananas and trail mix became necessary. In all, it took Jen and Alex just over six hours, Jamie and I seven, and Dan and Lewis eight hours (they stopped for a nap) to make it to the hut.

The trek, however, exhausting as it was, was beautiful. Every time we burst out of the trees onto the peak of a new hill, gasping for breath, a new and entirely stunning view would be waiting for us: crystal blue water, raging white surf, and green islands stretching on hundreds of feet below us. The sloping mini-mountains, covered in tree ferns and palms and sloping into the wildly blue sea, were exactly as I’d pictured New Zealand before arriving. The happiest sight, of course, was popping out of a ninety-degree blur of shrubbery and suddenly seeing the hut, with its cheerful red roof, below us in the rolling waves of grass.

Jamie and I staggered down the hill and collapsed in the thick grass, on a steeply sloping hill over the sea. The sun was still out; the white hut looked gorgeous nestled in the downy green above the rolling blue waves. Jen appeared from below; she'd been swimming in the ocean.

Jamie and I followed her lead and picked our way down the stairs and ancient pulley ramp to sea level. As they’d warned us, the water was speckled with tiny blobs of jellyfish. They were everywhere. One particularly giant one caught our eye. It drifted back and forth in the swells at our feet, looking very angry and dangerous (or at least as angry as it’s possible for a transparent blob to look.) Jamie and I eyed it nervously. “F*** off, jellyfish,” Jamie said. “Get out, you wanker.” Apparently the jellyfish did not understand Scottish, because he stayed right there, waiting for us.

After about twenty minutes of rushing at the water’s edge and then stepping back, wilting with fear at a glance from the blob, I decided to man up and took a running leap into the water. When I surfaced, gasping for breath, muttering “Freezing, freezing,” Jamie sighed heavily. “I have to go in now,” he moaned. “F***.” And he jumped in as well. As the water was about as warm as Lake Superior in late May, we quickly made our way out again, swimming frantically and keeping both eyes out for the mad jellyfish.

It was only later, back in Paihia, that we learned that NZ has zero stinging jellyfish. At least we went in; the cold water was mercy to the layers of sweat that had built up over the day.

The rest of the evening was spent in various activities, most of them involving either eating or lying in a prone position. Dan and Lewis eventually appeared, muttering curses and walking half bent over, as if crippled underneath the weights of their backpacks. Lewis admitted he’d left the vodka some ways back on the trail to lighten his load, although Licorice (the stuffed sheep) was still with us. Jamie revoked his Scottish status for the night, disgusted. [Liz and I took away his “man cards” as well.] We all ate a giant meal of spaghetti and instant mash inside the hut at the big wooden table and drank cold white wine out of tin mugs. 

The sun set over the ocean and our little hut at the end of the world was wrapped in a warm layer of shadow.

Late at night, after the sun had gone down, a few of us made our way BACK UP the hill in almost complete darkness to the lighthouse (the rest chose not to go and threatened to literally punch us if we talked ANY more that day about hiking up hills…). The view and experience at the top were completely worth the long hike up. We sat in silence next the lighthouse, on the top of a giant rocky cliff, watching the light beams circle the dark horizon. And we sat there under the cloudy, starless sky, listening to the ocean swell breaking on the blacks rocks below.

There is not much different to tell about the second day – the hike back. Dan, Lewis, and Jamie spent most of the morning plotting ways to find a ride on a boat home instead of walking, but eventually we all resigned ourselves to the trek. First, however, we needed more water – the six of us only had about two litres of water between us for the 16.3 km back, so, and at 10:30 am, the “Dolphin Seeker” cruise boat pulled near our rocky beach. Dan swam out to retrieve a large trash bag of water bottles while excited Japanese tourists on the deck above snapped photos of the poor hikers who hadn’t packed enough water.

On the long, hot, exhausting hike back, Jamie and Lewis almost disowned Jen and I as friends for bringing them along, Dan sprained his knee and spent the rest of the day hobbling along with a big stick, and we played way too many rounds of the “Latter Game”, but we made it back eventually, in a noisy cloud of football chants and curse words. We’d done it. Sweaty, odorous, and aching, we were back. It was a sweet feeling. We took the curves at a million miles on the way home and immediately went for fish burgers and chips, followed by a beer, followed, at long last, by a shower, and the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.

“This has gotta be what’s so great about backpacking,” Jamie noted, while hunched over his greasy Vinnie’s burger. “I’ve never, ever, had a burger that tasted so good.”

*Seriously, camping with Scotsmen is a whole new event. Instead of asking, “Right, do we have matches? Food? Shelter?” the only question is, “Who has the whiskey?” Then maybe, “Should we get some vodka as well?” We later discovered that Lewis’ pack contained a fifth of vodka, a bag of crisps, a bag of biscuits, and a stuffed sheep (“Licorice.”)

Speaking of camping with Scotsmen – I think the f-word was used about every other sentence, making the Scotsmen’s pain and supposed hatred of hiking even funnier to Liz and myself (although we tried to keep our laughter and amusement under control).


As we sat there at Vinnie’s, finishing our trip while eating fish burgers and chips, we felt surrounded by the love of our “family” here. Dan, with his sprained knee (probably from getting these sprinting "A-zones” where he would literally shoot ahead of everyone on the trail, running full speed down rocky passes to the laughter and amusement of everyone): a good guy who always looks out for us two girls and whose random comments sometimes cause us literally to fall over with laughter. Lewis, our Scottish friend who lovingly “slags off” us girls just as if he was a little brother. Jamie, another truly good guy who always tries to keep us motivated and happy, and who always had a water bottle or banana ready when we thought we might be near collapse. We love them all, and can’t imagine living in Paihia without them. As much as threats were made while hiking up and down the cliffs (Lewis: “Liz and Jen said it would BLOODY take FOUR HOURS for this walk! *&#$.....) our "family’s” hike to Cape Brett brought us all together, and will always bring a smile to our faces. And even Jamie and Lewis reluctantly admit this. : )