Te Araroa Trail Marsden Point to Waipu
We got up and out a little later today. Te Araroa trail started with an easy 4km road walk to Reotahi Bay. We met Duncan there, who ferried us across the Whangerei Harbour. After a short but choppy ride which included a bit of a soaking 😉 we landed at Marsden Point refinery.
We became thoroughly confused at this point. There was no Te Araroa signage, so we followed the Guthook TA Hiker app through the plant to the final gate, where we were refused beach access by the staff at the end. We ended up walking back through the plant and around the outside of the perimiter fence and underneath all the pipework to get around the beach instead.
On reflection this whole episode seemed a bit silly – but we thought there might be a through-route that Guthook was onto!
Waipu when you can Ruakaka?
After that it was a lovely, if lengthy beach walk past Ruakaka and Uretiti to Waipu. We walked into the village and did some food shopping.
Trail Angel Mary
I texted Mary, a new friend of mine and our trail angel for the night. She drove down to pick us up and took us back to her wonderful farmhouse. We got ourselves settled in and immediately jumped into the spa with a beer… marvellous!!
We had a lovely evening of beers, wine and chat with our hosts Mary, Bob and Alice. Mary cooked us an outstanding dinner of roast beef with all the trimmings, including Yorkshire puddings – what a treat! We are in danger of becoming the first Te Araroa hikers to actually put on weight on the trail!
It was the first Yorkshires that Anja, Markus and Anouck had had, and of course they loved them. We fell into bed very happy and slightly tipsy trampers!