Te Araroa Days 6 – 10: Kaitaia to Kerikeri

The last few days, a huge variety of weather, terrain and scenery were awaiting.

After finally leaving the beach (I got my fair share of beach days ), the trail crosses inland from Ahipara towards Kaitaia, following backcountry roads through picturesque and surprisingly hilly farmland with many happy looking cows. Having resupplied in Kaitaia, the trails slowly winds towards the forests of the north: Raetea and Ōmahuta forests. Herekino Forest, unfortunately, is closed due to kauri dieback, a disease that kills the majestic endemic kauri trees that once covered most of Aotearoa’s landmass. Before headed into the first of the forests, we stopped at a Krishna Sanctuary for food, wonderful conversations and a place to pitch the tent. Abhay and Jaya intend to fully live off grid and of their land. A very intriguing life style!

Raetea Forest awaited with the expected mud, steep climbs and drops, but amazing views and a jungle you can only find in NZ. After slow 12 hours of mud fest we were spit out of the forest again and camped in a hilly terrain with other exhausted hikers.

Ōmahuta-Puketi-Forest waited with rain, many impressive kauri trees and a long detour to avoid scetchy water crossings.

Mud, hours of rain, wet gear couldn’t impact the high spirits: the north of Aotearoa turns out being spectacularly beautiful.

So far, the beginning of the trail is probably the most demanding to my feet I almost ever experienced (yep, many kilometers of beach walk and road walk are not always awesome), and I still need to find back into somewhat a long distance hiking routine, but the Te Araroa, the people and the scenery are wonderful!

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