Tramp Reflections 796 - Ohope Beach Walk, Whakatane

4, 5 October 2008

The Nga Tapuwae o Toi, or the “Footprints of Toi”, is a 16km round-trip walkway which captures the essence of the Whakatane district. It includes pa sites of major historic significance, superb native forest, spectacular Pohutukawa stands, unsurpassed coastal views, seabird colonies, forest birds in abundance, plantation forest and rural vistas. It covers Kohi Point, Ohope and Mokoroa Scenic Reserves.

This was my third tramp with the Club. We (all six of us – Sheila, Nick, Adrienne, Claire, Don and yours truly) left Hamilton at 2.30pm on Saturday aiming to reach Whakatane Holiday Park by 5pm that night. After a very uneventful drive (thanks to Nick) with a pit stop and ice-cream at Te Puke, we arrived bang on time at our cabins for the night. The bottles of wine were opened while the organic sausages (thanks Adrienne) were cooking and we settled down to a very nice dinner of pot luck salads, followed by rhubarb pie (again thanks Adrienne) and Don’s famous American sweet treat “rice crispie cake” appropriately coloured red, white and blue! It was then early to bed for our start in the morning.

As we needed to reach Otarawairere Bay an hour either side of high tide (avoiding it between 10.45am and 12.45pm), 7am Sunday saw us down our breakfast so we could head off on our tramp by 8am. As we were about to leave, Nick asked where the keys to the van were (which was going to remain at the camping ground for the day), only to find that Adrienne had dropped them in the drop-box along with the keys to the cabins! Luckily the camp owner wasn’t far away and we were able to retrieve them before setting off along the top of the stop bank beside the Whakatane River, past the Information Centre to the steps at the start of the walkway. These steps have the world’s first Vertigraph (tiles on the front face of the steps depicting a scene starting from the depths of the ocean and finishing in space).

The climb certainly got the heart rate up that hour of the morning, but lovely views were to be had over Whakatane town and inlet. The walk continued over the hill, past Toi’s Pa, around Kohi Point, passing through what was once another Pa site. We reached Otarawairere Bay by 10am so didn’t get wet feet and were able to sit and have a snack before climbing the hill over to Ohope Beach. As we arrived there at 11am and well before a scheduled lunch break we decided to have one anyway and thought we would do it in style and found a café where we could hide out the back and enjoy a decent cup of coffee. Some couldn’t help themselves and had hot chips and yo-yos as well!

After our refueling we found the start of the remainder of the walkway and made our way back to Whakatane to the sound of Wood Pigeons and Tui feeding on the rewarewa flower. Then through a mixture of native bush, forestry land and farm land, reaching Whakatane town at around 2.30pm. We walked back to camp through the back streets of the town to the stop bank and stumbled across a miniature steam railway about to take off with only two small boys on board. The ticket-collector was so impressed with the distance we had walked that he offered us a free ride, which we willingly accepted! A very memorable way to end what was a very nice walk. We got back to the van at 3pm and, thanks to drivers Sheila and Nick, arrived safely back to Hamilton by 5.30pm after driving through very heavy rain and mist over the Kaimais.

Written by Bev Aves

Photographs by unknown (Canon PowerShot SX100 IS).