Te Paki Coastal Track

The first in a series of guides to the recently opened Te Araroa trail, selected by its founder Geoff Chapple.

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Geoff Chapple

Te Araroa starts at Cape Reinga lighthouse on the northwestern tip of the North Island. Below the lighthouse is the rocky cape where by legend the spirits of Maori dead slide down the roots of an old pohutukawa tree, beginning an undersea journey to the homeland, Hawaiiki. The site is sacred, and dramatic. Out to sea, the separate currents of the Tasman and Pacific oceans meet in a swirling ocean crease. A sealed path leads away from the lighthouse before the track turns away to Te Werahi Beach, to the strangemountain of orange that is Herangi Hill and across the soft sandy webbing at the base of the basalt headland, Cape Maria van Diemen. Marker posts lead on and alongclifftops of flax and manuka scrub before the track drops down to Twilight Beach and then onto a gently rising and entirely pleasant bush-shaded track to Scott Point. Ninety Mile Beach—Te Oneroa o Tohe—stretches away in front to a vanishing point in the south.The wooden stair takes you four flights down to the beach, then there’s a further hour’s walk along the sandy wilderness of Ninety Mile Beach to Te Paki Stream. Through-walkers may want to stop, or go right on. Trampers just in it for the day and awaiting pick-up will have to walk a further three kilometres up to the car park on Te Paki Stream Road.

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