Te Araroa Trail Day 12. Kerikeri 222.1km – Waitangi forest – Paihia 247.6km

Te Araroa Trail Day 12 - Overlooking the Bay of Islands

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.

Te Araroa Trail Opening Marker
Te Araroa Trail 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.

 

Te Araroa Trail Mount Bledisloe
Te Araroa Trail Day 12 – Mount Bledisloe

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.

Views to paihia Te Araroa trail
Views to Paihia
The beach at Paihia
The beach at Paihia

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.

 

Te Araroa Trail Paihia
Te Araroa Trail Day 12 – Anja and I enjoying a wine in Paihia

To add comments, ask a question or to signup - please click below

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.