Shakespeare Cliff and Lonely Bay

location: Whitianga to Lonely Bay coastal walk
distance: approx 5 miles

details: while our trip to New Zealand focused less on hiking than our two previous big trips, we did have one significant hike planned for the end of the trip - the Routeburn Track, one of New Zealand's most popular Great Walks. we hiked several peaks over the summer in an effort to prepare for the three day hike, but wanted to keep that going while we were in New Zealand. for a country that loves tramping as much as it does, New Zealand blew our expectations out of the water.

our first stop in NZ was Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula. a nice, quiet place to recover from jetlag in the shoulder season and presumably a great, busy place to while away a summer. our first hike was more of a coastal walk along Maramaratotara Bay, over the river from where we were staying (and original site of Whitianga town). we set out along Buffalo Beach on Mercury Bay to catch the passenger ferry across the mouth of the river and on through the old town (mostly holiday homes now).

the track offered two options - a protected path along the road, or a steep climb up to the clifftop. no surprise we took the more scenic of the two routes. the top of the hill was an interesting preserve; a combination of natural landscape and well-maintained, mowed lawn around trees - perfect for picnicking, one would imagine. the overlook was a bit harder to find, further along down a fire access route (and, you know, for people who didn't want to walk to the view). the only other person at the overlook was a groundskeeper, tidying the path in advance of the big visitor numbers of high season. the views did not disappoint and the look over Lonely Bay so charmed us that we decided to climb down to see it first hand. steep in both directions, and a bit slick with damp leaves, but totally worth it.

it drizzled a bit on the walk back and we had our first encounter with tides submerging tracks, but overall a very pleasant introduction to tramping in New Zealand!