Well this was a nice dry section for us, only a few days of showers and rain coat on and off 10 times per day! Nice coastal walk around the bays and out of Paihia then onto the vehicle ferry to cross to Okiato. A mixture of tar seal and logging tracks for the afternoon before heading into the Russel 'Ngaitongo Walkway'. Saw the most awful rubbish tip off the side of the road going straight down into the forest - even cars just dumped over the side - DISGUSTING!!
No streams at the start of the forest and heading into night time but Johno was awesome and managed to suck up a litre of water out of a rain puddle - just enough for a drink for the evening and a little for the following morning. Good job he did as had a 3 hour walk before we got to the stream in the end. Bit of a landslide gone on at the end of the track or rather what was the track, legs are ripped to bits from the gorse and clambering over fallen trees - Jo
hno reckons it ruins his modelling career!! Because of the bush bashing the day before we decided to change the days route and we took the coastal road down to Mimiwhangata coastal reserve rather than through the forest and we are so glad we did - it was the most stunning scenery - we even walked a 32km day (the most so far)
Walked across Whananaki footbridge, the longest in New Zealand before picking up another coastal route head
ing into the Matapouri Forest where we had to wait (luckily for only 45mins) for forestry operations to finish for the day (didnt fancy a big pine tree on our heads!). Ngururu's campsite no longer exists (nice to find these things out at 6.30pm at night)! so we hitched to Tutukarara to camp for the night (about 4km away). Just so happened that the guy who picked us up was living at the campsite so that was handy. Got another ride back the following morning to that pick up point then various roads into the Mackerel Forest to Patua and our longest day yet at 35km!!! We hadnt planned to walk that long but there was nowhere to really camp for the night. We thought we could stock up on some yummy stuff at the campsite in Patua for the night but found out we were the only ones there and the shop was closed until December where apparently the population of 50 increases to 5000!!!!
Had another change to the Teararoa trail later on leaving Patua as high tide thus not able to walk over the estuary so a bit of road walking before hitting Marsden Point where we managed to hitch a ride on a boat after only a 20min wait with two girls who had been out diving for the day. Across to the oil refinery the other side (bit too deep to wade across) before continuing on the beach through Ruakaka and then Waipu for our day off where we exchanged a nights accommodation for tidying the owners garden for 2 hours - bargain!!
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