Day 11 - gravel roads
Kerikeri —-> Waitangi 21km
It was a fairly leisurely start to the day. We spent the early morning lusting after the many delicious breakfasts being rustled up in the kitchen by non-walking holiday goers. We regrettably ate our miserable oats as we chatted to an ex-merchant navyman from Reading; he’d started the TA a few days after us but turned around realising 90 mile beach was going to be too hard going. He made Josh’s day by gifting him his copy of Private Eye, carried all the way from the UK.
The walking was fairly nondescript for most of the day: around the outskirts of Kerikeri suburbia and then through a logging forest, travelling along a dull gravel track with little to no shade.
It wasn’t until we left the logging behind that we had something worth while to look at - our first proper glimpse at the Bay of Islands. A short 5 minute detour took us to the top of Mount Bledisloe with glorious views of Waitangi, Paihia and beyond. We wolfed down a depressing lunch of half melted slimy cheese and crackers before descending down the hill, past a very luxurious golf course and into Waitangi.
My feet were absolutely killing me by this point. My little toes were already in dire need of attention and I had two new blisters on the side of my heels that popped up after a day of wet feet in the Omahuta Puketi forest. My feet hardly fit into my shoes at the beginning of the day and another day of churning along the road had just exacerbated them. Thankfully we weren’t able to kayak the next section for a couple of days, so we were planning on spending the next day as a zero in Paihia. Hopefully I could a see a doctor or at least go to a pharmacy and give them a chance to calm down.
With the Christmas break, Paihia was absolute chockers, every man and his dog, cat and horse were in town for the holidays. Waitangi holiday park was the only place available to us, a couple of km outside of Paihia. We set up camp, I soaked my feet in the ocean and Josh set off into town in search of a beer and dinner. A couple of hours later he called - could I pick up our Indian takeaway from reception! Somehow it had managed to beat him back to camp. Steph had just arrived after her day of slackpacking from Kerikeri, so we basked in the last few hours of sunlight; munching on curry and drinking wine out of our collapsible cups knowing we had zero km to do tomorrow :)
