I left the holiday park around 7:30 excited to get back out on the trail. I had to walk across town to get back to the trail, and within the first kilometer I ran into Audrey, one of the only Americans I’ve met doing the trail so far, she has great taste in backpacks.
There trail from Kerikeri to Paihia is mostly forest road, but in the beginning there are a bunch of parks and we made…. many wrong turns. Kind of an amusing amount really. Then event time we got to an intersection we would check our phones and sure enough we were going there right way. Until the time we didn’t check and went the wrong way again.
The forest roads were nice, at least a little shaded (it got up to 30 C today), but not exciting. My feet were sore, which surprises me after two days off, and she was struggling with shin splints or something (self diagnosed). The bottom line is we weren’t going fast. 21 km for the day, but I suspect we did at least 25 with wrong turns, we also made a wrong turn in the forest roads.
Staying at Haka lodge bay of islands backpacker hostel in Paihia, it has a spectacular view of the water and is right in town.
Tomorrow we get to kayak the next section, which both gives our feet a break and is just plain awesome!!
246 km