Pinnacles in the Mist

Here's what I love about travel: strangers get a chance to touch your life. Sometimes a single day can bring moments that makes you a different person when you go to sleep - more tender, less jaded - than the one you were when you woke up.

This particular day begins by entering the hidden world of the Kauaeranga Valley, home to the majestic Pinnacles range. From the road end car park, I hike to the swing bridge to cross the Kauaeranga River and follow the track to the Webb Creek – Moss Creek junction. Here I follow the Webb Creek Track, the historic packhorse route used by Kauri Bushmen in 1920s, to Hydro Camp. I steadily climb steps that were cut into rock to make the journey easier for the packhorses during the kauri logging era.

During the lung-bursting climb, I meet two local fellas. Conversation easily flows between us, we talked nonstop about books, films and everything under the sun. We therefore decide to complete the rest of the hike together...

From Hydro Camp junction, we take the Pinnacles Track which climbs and sidles around a hill before following a more open ridge. Occasionally, through the mist, we snatch impressive views down a branch of the Tairua River and the rugged volcanic landforms of Tauranikau and the Pinnacles. A steady climb, steep in places, follows another well constructed stepped track.

We stop for lunch at the Pinnacles Hut staring into the mist at where the Pinnacles should be. Waiting. Hoping for the weather to clear. From the hut, the scramble to the top of the Pinnacles rock formation should have rewarded us with 360° views of the entire Coromandel Peninsula and beyond.

On the summit we meet more disappointed hikers waiting, in vain, for something, anything, to come into view. Nothing ever did, but we passed the time by chatting with an ease of friends who have known each other for years. Subsequently, for the descent our group of three became a group of seven as we are joined by two German guys and an American couple.

We descend back to the Hydro Camp and begin a steady thirty minute climb which leads to a saddle. Along the way we share stories and laughter. At the saddle, the mist lifts for a while to treat us to excellent views down the Kauaeranga Valley to the Hauraki Plains. A little further on, a knoll overlooks the Billygoat Basin. We learn from the local fellas that the first attempt to log this basin was made in the 1880s but was abandoned within a few years as driving logs down the Billygoat Falls proved too destructive. The basin was successfully logged in the 1920s after the construction of the Billygoat incline to bypass the falls, and the use of a steam hauler.

We drop down into Billygoat Basin and continue downhill to the Kauaeranga Valley Road which requires an interesting crossing of the Kauaeranga River to the Tarawaere car park. After hugs and handshakes, we jump in our vehicles and head off, not sad because the day is over, but happy for the rest of the time we spent together.