Te Araroa Trail Waitangi Forest to Paihia
Wow.. I had the best night’s sleep of the trail so far last night! I woke bright and early, and Markus cooked a delicious breakfast. The three of us stepped back onto Te Araroa trail by 8.30am and we started with an 8km road walk to the trail head.
Our packs were heavy today after the food resupply in Kerikeri. Mine comprised mostly of cheese and chocolate! 🙂
Waitangi Forest
The Majority of today’s trail was spent on a nice easy track through the Waitangi forest. We stopped for lunch at midday at the Te Araroa official opening marker.
The trail then took us up to Mt Bledisloe, then down to the Waitangi treaty grounds which has been considerably upgraded since I last went.
I left Anja and Markus there, and I checked into the Paihia YHA. I got busy organising our water taxi transfer for tomorrow. Whilst out and about I met Amber & Mark (Kiwi) who I originally caught up with in Ahipara & Kerikeri.
Paihia has changed since last time I was here… it’s so much more of a resort than I remember it being! I enjoyed a cake & glass of wine in a lovely bar over the water as the sun went down.
The others joined me later and we had lovely fish & chips from Vinnie’s takeaways.
