Exploring new paths on Mahia

Te Aratia Walkway, Mahia Peninsula, Saturday 4 November 2023
Banner Photo: Following the Whangawehi River, with native planting to protect the stream

A map of the Te Aratia walkway

The Mahia Peninsula is not really a tramping destination.  But it does have a long walkway the locals call ‘Coast-to-Coast’ linking East to West. The building of this path has been a community project completed a year ago.  The path follows the Whangawehi River valley for several kilometres before crossing the river and heading up a bush track to Kinikini Road on the west side of the peninsula.

Six of us drove in two cars. With a comfort and pie stop in Wairoa, we started our walk from the Whangawehi river mouth on Mahia’s East Coast Road about 10 o’clock.

The gentle gradient along the stream walkway

The path is wide, well-graded and surfaced.  It meanders up the river valley through new native planting. The walk to a shelter took us about two hours. We had lunch and five in our group headed across the river for a two-hour bush walk up out of the valley eventually to Kinikini Road. I backtracked to the car to drive around and pick up the group.

The six exploring new territory

The tramp was not demanding and we all had a lovely time exploring somewhere different, and in beautiful weather. We finished off with Simon swimming in the ocean, ice cream and drinks for the drive home.

Trampers: Lynette Morgan, Doug Matheson, Julian Phillips, Juliet Gillick, Simon Hill and reporter Bruce Hodgson