The hike started with a ferry boat ride across the bay
You know you're hiking in New Zealand when...
Giant Ferns...
Well tended trails...
A boardwalk over the swampy bits...
And after a six mile hike, the reward....!
Finally we had some sun today. We suspended all boat work and went for a walk. Not just any walk. A 6 miler. We took the ferry boat from Opua to Okiato (across the bay a ways). We asked the ferry pilot how far to Russell, which is the little town on that side of the bay. His eyes got a little big and he said; “Oh mate, that’s about 9 kilometers!”. We said that was OK, we were out for a good walk.
He gave us a little map that made all the difference. It showed the trail system and we had a delightful walk (trek) across country. The path went through trees, hills and the most memorable parts were on a walkway built over the swampy land across the edges of some of the bays along the way. We were literally walking across the mangroves and saw all the wildlife of the area. At one point Ann even saw a Kiwi bird.
We didn’t get into Russell until about 5 PM, so we stopped at a cute little spot for pizza and beer before continuing the journey. Once suitably fortified, we went looking for the ferry from Russell to Pahia. Found it and after a short wait crossed another bay over to Pahia where we called a country taxi for the ride back to Opua. It’s about another 2 hour walk and we were running out of both light and strength. Having been on the boat so long, the 6 mile walk was about all we had in us for the day (full disclosure: actually Ann went for a morning walk with one of her friends and they were gone about an hour so I’m guessing they put in a couple more miles for the day) so the taxi looked pretty good!
A fun day. We’ll leave this nice area on Monday, weather permitting, for Whangerie. The Black Dogs have already taken our car there, so it will be waiting for us there.
So the transition from sea-legs to land-legs begins. Don’t do too much yet. When you get back we will have to get a few ‘miles’ in on the bikes, just to remind you of how much you miss it.
Whangerie – now that’s a name! I’ll just boogie on over to Whangerie. You’ll have to find out what it means or its derivation. Sounds like it should be happinin’ in a weird way.
I think you should have gotten the bigger boat with the auxiliary helicopter. Then you could just flit hither and yon. And do fly and walks. Maybe next Pacific cruise 🙂
More names for Adventure Bound – Morning Star (my personal fav) and Endless Sky.
I loved Russell! It is such a cute town. Driving back to Auckland from Russell was another story (we attempted to avoid paying to take the car ferry back and instead our GPS routed us through the forest on an unpaved road in the pitch black and pouring rain!). Enjoy Whangerie! Where you get an “F” sound at the beginning of that word is beyond me, but due to it’s name it became a very memorable stop on our little road trip through New Zealand. Oh and if you are driving from Whangerie to Auckland there is a cute little cafe/store on the way called the Honey Center in Warkworth. I really enjoyed it a lot!!!