Day 17 Paihia- Opua Harbor

We woke up on our last morning in the Parrot, and the rain still hadn't let up. The track notes talked about a 6k section at the beginning of the track in Russel Forest that is a knee-deep river walk that should be avoided if there might be a possibility of rain in the area. The last 3 solid days of rain made that an easy decision. However, Nick looked at the maps for a while and found a marked trail that looked like it would skip the river section and allow us to continue on the track without having to do the roundabout Russel Forest road walk track. We figured that would be perfect and set off on our journey. The morning began with an awesome water taxi ride out of Paihia Harbor up the river in the driving rain. It was tons of fun and we all enjoyed ourselves out on the water in the tiny boat. We got to the trailhead and were excited to be on the trail again. We began walking and got lost instantly trying to find this non-TA trail. We doubled back and began down a 'road' that was really more like a driveway. We followed it, as was marked on the map, rossing a few streams and maybe a few fences that we shouldn't have until eventually the trail grew cold. We had nowhere to go, and had to begin on the Russel forest road bypass. It was about noon, and we began to walk down the road. We hadn't done much that day, and spirits were getting lower, but we were glad that the rain had FINALLY let up. We got about 10k down the road, and Nick began thumbing. Right as we got to a place where we were supposed to turn off onto a smaller road, he got a man with a flatbed trailer to stop. He agreed to take  us all the way to Opua Harbor, and after some conversation we all agreed to take him up on it. It was just a road bypass after all ;).

 What followed was the most scenic drive I think I've ever been on in my life. We had tons of fun hanging on to a strap on a flatbed truck as he drove us literally down the scenic route past cliffs overlooking beautiful bach homes and small towns out on the pacific ocean. We even saw Fernando from the pickled parrot driving behind us towards Whangarei! We got to a point that was even more spectacular than all the others, and Phillip our driver pulled over to allow us to gaze upon Edward's Bay, a beautiful and pristine stretch of coast with huge rolling waves crashing in on it. We say and laughed and admired the ocean as our driver/host offered us fresh oysters that he had just grabbed up from the sea hours before. We got back on the trailer and Phillip dropped us off at beautiful Opua. We walked down the coastal town and over a hill at the end to a beautiful campsite set apart from town with its own island out in the bay and its own beach just under where we camped. We made dinner, went for swims, I swang in a nice tree swing underneath the beautiful 'christmas trees' of NZ that the campsite had. Then we stayed up late and watched the stars for a while over the water. A fantastic end to a fantastic day. I remembered that I just need to let the world come to me and show me wonderful things, and that's exactly what happened today. Many thanks to Phillip for giving us one of the most fun days we've had yet!