The day has finally arrived. I am walking toward the end of the Te Araroa Trail!
More than five months after setting out, I am finally on the last stretch of this 3,000-kilometre walk. I am so ready! Before dawn, I had quietly finished packing in the hostel, eager to get going.
Most of today’s route would run beside the expressway, which I do not like at all, but it could not dent my good mood. My mind kept bouncing with excitement: “Today is the day I will reach the goal I have been walking toward all this time.”
And after today, I could finally rest properly instead of dragging my injured foot onward through the pain. The cold and unstable winter weather of the past month had made me long even more to curl up inside a warm building with solid walls, safely shut away from the bad weather.
Before two in the afternoon, I had reached Bluff, the town at the southernmost end of New Zealand. Stirling Point, marked by the flagpole at the southern end of the trail, was only 2.2 kilometres away. There was a footpath and no difficulty at all. I knew I would definitely make it there today.
But at that moment, some stray inspiration made me decide to detour up to the Bluff Hill lookout for a different view, then follow the coastline from the other side to the finish. It added a climb and five kilometres, but there was still time before sunset. (Although I regretted it ten minutes later. Carrying a backpack up a brutally steep road is not exactly kind.)
From far away, the Stirling Point flagpole came into view. I stared at it, but my steps unconsciously slowed. My eyes gradually filled with tears, and I realised how much I did not want to leave this trail. I had taken the detour simply to spend a little more time with it, to feel once again the secret coordination between my feet and the path, which always brought a new surprise with the next glance.
Fragments from more than five months played rapidly through my mind: stopping my first hitchhike to reach the starting point, falling asleep beneath the stars and rising with the dawn, countless days spent alongside beaches, forests, and streams, walking alone through the wilderness, laughing and losing my temper with trail companions. All of it had made me understand again what it means to be “human.”
I slowly approached the flagpole, set down my backpack, then turned toward the trail and bowed deeply. Thank you for the life experience you gave me through all these days, and for leading me along a route I had never imagined I could take.
(Looking back on my diary entry from May 27, 2017)
It has been almost a year since I returned home. Writing these retrospective diary entries has carried the same feeling as that day: I am desperate to arrange the truest words before my memories fade, yet I cannot bear to bring the journey to an end.
Fortunately, an experience this intense does not fade easily. My time on the Te Araroa Trail will not leave me either. It has become part of my life, woven into every journey that follows.
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