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Walking in New Zealand: Waitangi Opua Forest
This is a good day walk following well marked forest and coastal paths.
We started from the car park at Waitangi, but the walk proper starts from Paihia.
Go to the south eastern end of Paihia and follow the road inland through housing - keeping on the low ground.
There is an Opua Forest sign where the road starts to climb into the forest, but the path starts along a board walk along a swampy valley just to the right of that.
The path is clear and easy to follow, with a short diversion to a good lookout at the top of the ridge.
Views from lookout
Views from lookout
Return to the main path and continue on. The path follows sharp ridges, twisting and turning with the ridge, with quite a lot of up and down as well. Mostly through regenerating forest with a wide variety of vegetation.
And occasional views out over the forest.
Eventually the path reaches a gravel road where you turn left. Follow this gravel road down until you reach the main coast road. Some good views as you go.
Cross the main road to continue down to the sea front in Opua and turn left for the Northern end of the town where a path and boardwalk takes you round by the cliffs. This path follows the sea all the way round to Paihia. There are board walk bridges through the mangroves and over the inlets.
GPS track of this walk. The route slightly inland of the coastal walkway is the main road - the coastal walkway has bridges over the inlets.
Extra map data is copyright Peter Thomson. Scripts are copyright of the original authors.
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