Day 13 of a Te Araroa thru-hike delivered a bit of everything: 29.5km of drizzle, a near-disaster with trekking poles, a cheap ferry crossing, and a 26km stretch of tarmac that tested every ounce of stubbornness.
The day started from Paihia Top 10 holiday park in the Bay of Islands, with misty rain settling in almost immediately. The coastal track was atmospheric rather than scenic in the damp, and the rain soon escalated from drizzle to proper downpour. A comedic low point: both trekking poles tumbled off a boardwalk railing onto the beach below while the hiker wrestled with a waterproof jacket. Both were rescued thanks to a conveniently low tide — a bigger deal than it sounds, since they double as the tent's supports.
In Opua, a general store snack stop (hot hash browns, a genuinely good call in bad weather) came with an interesting reminder: locals welcomed the rain, because the region's winter and spring had been so dry that reservoirs were worryingly low. From there it was the vehicle ferry across the Waikare inlet to Okiato — departures roughly every 10 minutes, fare just NZ$2.70, which the crew waived out of sympathy for the sodden walker.
Then came the grind: a wet, muddy, rollercoaster bush track followed by a long road walk toward Russell with traffic, roadworks and the occasional ditch-hop for safety. A hi-viz vest worn over the pack — a small weight penalty the writer considers non-negotiable for road sections — plus one podcast earbud at a time (the other ear kept free for traffic) got the job done. A heroically placed bench at a gravel-road junction, seemingly built for Te Araroa hikers, made a decent lunch spot.
The day ended at The Farm, a camp near the route that was hosting a school camp of around thirty 11-year-olds. Chaotic and homely in equal measure — communal spaces were effectively someone's living room — but it offered the essentials: flat ground for the tent, a hot shower and phone charging. After a day like that, that's all anyone needs.
Why should this matter to a traveller? Because Te Araroa, New Zealand's 3,000km coast-to-coast trek from Cape Reinga to Bluff, is increasingly drawing ordinary holidaymakers doing multi-week sections, and the far-north stretch around Paihia and the Bay of Islands is one of the most accessible chunks. It combines beaches, bush tracks, historic Russell (once the whaling capital of the Pacific) and cheap local ferries, with holiday parks and small camps like The Farm dotted along the way. If you're considering a section hike, this account is a useful reality check: the road walks are long and exposed, rain can hit hard even in a drought year, and packing a hi-viz vest, reliable waterproofs and poles that double as tent supports is genuinely smart planning. It's also a nudge that the trail is as much about small human moments — free ferry rides, hash browns, stranger-built benches — as it is about the scenery.
