Around 9:30am we set off to hike the coastal path from Opua to Paihia. We had certainly heard some good 
recommendations about the hike from others and the weather looked great so off we went.
After a short walk along the road, the hike took us along a boardwalk which had been 
put in place because the original path had crumbled. From there on the path was quite varied. A lot of it was a path cut into the size of the steep hillsides at the water’s edge. To keep our hearts going the path climbed and fell several times, often through thick wooded areas.
At one point we took a 5 minute diversion (not too popular with Helen) to climb up to a lookout point. 
This was a little disappointing as we practically had to stand on each other’s shoulders to see over the bushes/trees that had grown up around the spot. Towards the end of the hike it was more walking 
over beaches and rocks giving us a lot of variation in terrain.
Along the way we were offered excellent views of the area. See the slide show below for more pictures of this great hike.
Our main objective in Paihia was to set up a bank account. The first bank I tried didn’t have anyone in who was authorized to set up an account so we went to ANZ and were successful there.
After this we went for Fish n Chips on the water front followed by a beer. Having exhausted all our options, but not ourselves, we turned around and hiked all the way back. At 4-5 miles each way we got some decent exercise and a good warm up for some of the more serious hiking we have ahead of us.
The evening we spent in as we were quite worn out. I didn’t bother chasing our rudder pins, charger or car. I’ll leave all that for today.
Leave a Reply