Te Aratia Walkway, Mahia Peninsula, Saturday 4 November 2023
Banner Photo: Following the Whangawehi River, with native planting to protect the stream
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 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 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
What a beaut walk, amazing weather too…fantastic