• Te Araroa Day 14
• Kerikeri to Paihia – 29.7 km in 8 hours
• Cups of tea with real milk: 3!

It was a great morning watching tv in bed, drinking cups of tea, but 10am check out time rolled around all too quickly and it was time to go.

Andrew texted to say he would be at the hostel in Paihia tonight but he’s decided to pull out from Te Araroa and go back to Auckland, his feet just aren’t right. Ian was there last night but is on the move today staying ahead.

The Kerikeri River trail was a lovely way to start and I was glad I could enjoy a part of it after struggling so much yesterday afternoon. I dropped my camera again – it’s having a hard life but somehow still functioning… Think I’ll be claiming on that drop insurance though!

Then came the Kororipo Heritage Park which was a really fascinating and beautiful place to wander through. The weather was beautiful too.

Just after moving on, a cyclist stopped to chat. Question man had a million questions but was very interested in Te Araroa, and was considering doing Tour Aotearoa at some stage. It was nice to chat.

Road walking dragged a bit, although there was a footpath for a lot of it which was exciting.

Finally into the forest, and I was looking forward to soft pine needles to walk on as Barry was a bit tender. My shin felt fine though at least! The road began with lots of hard, sharp, dig-into-shoe-soles gravel… (I’ve become very knowledgeable at different types of gravel!!) Not how I imagined it and 12 km through it suddenly seemed a long way.

Around this time I noticed the peanut butter mocha smoothie I’d had for morning tea wasn’t sitting well. After a couple of kilometres I had to stop and sit down so the smoothie didn’t come back up.

Things improved and the road surface did become softer, and I picked up the pace realising the afternoon was rapidly disappearing. Eventually I reached the part around where a plaque was supposed to be. I missed it, but at least realised after only 200m. I can’t say it was a particularly pretty monument, but good on you Jim Bolger! You can read more here about the opening and history of this section. Interesting it was laid in 1995 but trail opened in 2011, and I also wonder why it’s in this place? Not well trafficked, or particularly pretty, and far away from an entrance?? I can’t imagine many people see this at all.

Mt Bledisloe was nice. Somehow I felt far from home looking at arrows to Christchurch & Dunedin on the ceramic map. Somehow I got a mosquito bite through thick merino socks, lucky me..

It was time to press on, so I tried to hustle down another gravel road, passing Waitangi golf course and lots of traffic to the mountain bike park. The trail takes you round the back of Waitangi treaty grounds so I’m glad I can go back tomorrow properly. I was definitely much too tired by this point in the day. I was a bit surprised to see a Copthorne next door? I also realised I’d mistaken Waitangi for Paihia which was actually around the corner in the next bay. Oops. Come on feet you can do it…

Paihia was such a pretty little town, and a very pleasant surprise as I didn’t know much about it before arriving. It’s like a beach version of Queenstown, but nicer!

Feeling very weary I arrived at The Pickled Parrot about 6 pm and was happy to see Andrew sitting outside…. and oh my gosh this place is AMAZING 😍 one of the owners had recently done Te Araroa so they’ve thought of everything a hiker could possibly want. There’s a box of stuff people have left that you can use, like as antiflamme, shower gel etc and gear you can have if you want. The highlight was a selection of clothes you can wear while you put everything in the wash. As I’d realised on starting the journey, washing is tricky as I basically have two sets of clothes but can only really wash one at a time…

Places like this bring such a lot of happiness, and make everything better at the end of another long day of walking. It was great to see Andrew too and swap stories about the forests as we dunked gingernuts in tea.