🗓️ October 21, 2025

🏁 Kilometers : 12,5

That's it! D-Day! The day I've been longing for for five years! A quick breakfast of yogurt and a banana, and we're off at 7:00 a.m. Steffie, who had planned to hitchhike the last 100 kilometers to the starting line, backs out and joins us in the car we're sharing with Ben, Steve, and Georges. Our driver, Brian, informs us that the journey will take two hours—including breaks—and also acts as our impromptu guide. He shares a lot of information about the local culture: the island's first inhabitants, the Māori, arrived in New Zealand around 700-800 years ago. The Māori people are a mix of Polynesians and Asian descendants from Taiwan, the result of a 6,000-year migration. Numerous studies demonstrate similarities in genetics, language, and cultural practices. He also tells us about Abel Tasman, a Dutch navigator who set out to explore and find the hypothetical “Terra Australis incognita” for the Dutch crown. Instead, he discovered Tasmania (hence its name!) and later New Zealand around 1642. He mapped the west coast of the country without ever setting foot on it and then headed back to Batavia, a former Dutch colony now called Jakarta. Brian also teaches us some specifics of the Māori language and a bit of local geography. The place we are going to, called Cape Reinga, is located at the northernmost tip of New Zealand's North Island. A narrow strip of land, barely ten kilometers wide, stretching for about a hundred kilometers (see map). In the final minutes of the journey, a few hills come into view. Brian tells us that it was originally an island, and that sand accumulated over millions of years, attaching it to the main island in an unusual way. Our driver makes a few stops so we can admire the scenery and even have a coffee. The weather is superb, the morning freshness still lingering, the air invigorating, the landscape made of stunning green and blue. As the journey progresses, I feel the emotion rising within me. For the past five years, I've often imagined what it would be like to arrive at the starting point of the trek, imagining experiencing certain emotions… and I'm happy to feel them indeed. I observe the blue of the ocean with its white foam forming as the waves crash against the rocks. The shrubs that cover the hills around us are Manuka trees, whose small white, pink, and red flowers are pollinated by bees to make the world-renowned honey: New Zealand Manuka honey. Other plants line the road, such as cabbage tree and New Zealand flax, adding an exotic touch to the landscape.

And finally, here we are, at the end of the road. Beyond lies the ocean, the vast ocean, the endless ocean, the mesmerizing ocean. Brian drops us off, we pay him, and he heads back to Kaitaia. And we realize that we are here, at the very end of the earth, with only our bulging backpacks and the dreams that have brought us here as our sole resources.

From the parking lot where Brian dropped us off, we have a breathtaking view. The white lighthouse at Cape Reinga awaits us a little further down, some forty meters above the ocean, with its cliffs and rocks below against which the waves crash in a ceaseless roar. We can almost touch it; it takes barely five minutes to reach the lighthouse on foot. The Cape Reinga lighthouse marks the starting line of our incredible adventure, the kilometer zero. The small platform on which the lighthouse stands also features a sign indicating the directions and distances to several places around the world: Sydney at 1975 km, Tokyo at 8475 km, Los Angeles at 10573 km, London at 18029 km. The sign also shows the distance to Bluff, which will be our final destination in the south of New Zealand, if we manage to complete the 3058 km journey ahead (1452 km as the crow flies). I imagined this moment dozens of times in my head, sensing that every part of my body would vibrate with the incredible emotion emanating from this place, feeling both light at the prospect of six months of freedom ahead of me and heavy with the weight of embarking on the unknown. I had imagined what this place might be like, the magic that could reign there… and I was surprised that, in reality, it was even better than my wildest dreams!

After a few minutes of savoring the moment, we start the official countdown and off we go, taking the first steps of what we already know will be the best adventure of our lives. The path winds downhill with the cliffs to our right and the first beach ahead. It promises to be a short day. Two times 3km beaches and a few kilometers of trail through the dunes, for a total of 12.5km. The beach is magnificent, deserted, with only our heartbeats to be heard. After 5 kilometers, we leave the beach and enter the dunes, sometimes covered in sand, sometimes in red and yellow earth, with a bit of vegetation and Manuka trees lining the path. As we reach the end of the dunes, approaching the second beach, a heartbreaking scene unfolds before our eyes. We had been warned the day before that about thirty long-finned pilot whales had beached themselves on the shore. The group that started the trek the day before had reported this sad event on the WhatsApp group. The conservation department rangers had advised, via messages, not to approach them and not to try to return them to the water. Once stranded, the whales have no chance of survival. The group that found them described half of the whales as dead and the other half still alive.And now it's our turn to arrive at this spot. Almost 24 hours later, they are all still there, stranded on the highest part of the beach where the tide has pushed them. The cetaceans are magnificent, ranging from two to five meters in length depending on whether they are calves or adults, their black skin glistening, their eyes seemingly frozen in a final, desperate gaze. We walked along the 3 kilometers where the whales were stranded here and there, and to our dismay, three or four of them were still dying, seemingly taking their last breath. What a heartbreaking sight. As we continued, we saw the rangers arrive with two vehicles and a tractor. They informed us that this type of event is not uncommon and that several factors could explain it: the presence of food near the shallow beach, their very strong social bonds (if one calls for help, the others will all come and can become trapped themselves). It could also be due to confusing electromagnetic activity, or the human use of sonar that disorients and panics them. The rangers intended to bury them a little higher up in the dunes. Reaching the end of the beach, we thought we heard a gunshot—we hoped it was a gunshot—the few creatures still dying deserved to be helped to end their agony.

It was with a touch of emotion that we climbed the few steps leading to "Twilight Camp," where we would spend our first night. It is a strip of grass about thirty meters above the beach, offering a splendid view. A small wooden structure provides shelter from the rain.We had taken our time on this first day of hiking, and yet it was only 2 p.m. We took our time chatting, pitched our tents, ate dinner at 5:30 pm, and ended the day watching the majestic sunset unfold before us, the camp overlooking the beach and facing directly west.There were five of us, but in the meantime, Fred and Isabelle, a French couple from Dôle who seemed a little lost due to their limited English, joined us. A little later, a couple from the United States arrived. They told us that when they passed by the beach where the whales had beached themselves, the rangers wouldn't let them walk and they were driven the last three kilometers in a buggy.They also added that the beach would be closed for a few days, both to bury the cetaceans in a hole and for cultural reasons: the Māori community observes a "Rahui," a time to allow the souls of the deceased (human and animal) to gradually disappear, cleansed by the elements. I find it beautiful and poetic. We just barely made it; one day later we could have been stuck before we even started our adventure.

Despite the emotion caused by the whale stranding, I'm happy with this first day and I go to bed with as many stars in my eyes as there are stars above my head.