Seriously, that’s what Bob told me this morning. Really? I did not dare ask twice. Instead I got my gear together and had Bob drop me off about 20 minutes into a beautiful forest area near Opua for a hike. Bob needed me off of Charisma so he could replace the cockpit remote radio mike. And I was willing to do my part!

The hike was a 3 mile hike that traversed the ridge line into Paihia. It was stunning. I hiked up and down, up and down through a tunnel created by a combination of young Kauri trees, pine trees and others I can not identify. And as I dipped low on the ridge I was treated to fern umbrellas to keep cool.

The Happy Hiker!

The ridge became quite narrow at times and I realized that if I looked to my right I was looking down a cliff and when I looked left I had the same perspective. Once when I moved my jitoko ( Fijian for walking stick) to my right hand from the left I found no place to put it on that side either! And just when I thought I could hear a waterfall or river I realized it was the wind buffeting the top of the ridge. Very fun.

Good signage here.

Nice view from the ridge.

And the hike continued out to a lookout that treated me to a perfect view of the bay we had entered as we arrived. I sat and enjoyed a quick lunch wishing I could pull our friends that are still out there into the bay by sheer willpower. It looked lovely out there and hopefully it was as nice as it looked.

We've done the Pahia to Opua bit several times, but hard to get tired of the views.

I stopped in Paihia to kill more time and catch the 4 mile trail back to Opua, arriving at the perfect time…Bob had completed his job about a half hour earlier and was enjoying a beer and the boat was back in order! Yay!

(From Bob)  The project was kinda ugly.  Good that Ann wasn’t on board as I had to tear up most of the boat to get into the wiring to replace the remote mike.  There was stuff everywhere and no where to sit down.  I was very happy to finish the project before she got back and saw the mess.    😉