Day 4 - Hiking Paihai

Theresa - After a full day of rain yesterday, I decided we would do some nature walks today. It was going to be a beautiful, sunny day! Heins thought the itinerary I planned for Clint and I was a good way to see Paihai on foot. We started at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. The Maori people lived here first, but the British started to settle here and tried to push the Maori out. The treaty was developed to keep both sides happy. The picture is the flagstaff erected where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

Then we took a 3 hour roundtrip hike to see the Haruru Falls. Heins suggested we take the walking tracks to get the Falls and then, instead of backtracking, take the gravel roads on our way back. The waterfall was beautiful and well worth the hike. However, we found out after we had hiked 1.5 hours that we could have easily driven to the Falls. Oops!! Our hike back on the gravel road had lots of scenery of the countryside life.


Our final destination for the day was the Kauri Rainforests. By the time we got back to our car from our hike, it was almost 5PM. The sun sets here at 6PM. So we were racing against time to make it to the trails before it got dark. We made it there to take a quick walk through the rainforest to see huge Kauri trees which reminded me of the Redwood Trees in California.