How to get to the start of the track

The car park for the Rapurapu Kauri Track is on the Waikato side of SH 29 (it’s after the Kaimai Summit Loop turn off if you’re coming from Tauranga). Even though it isn’t signposted from the road, there is clear signage on the fence at the start of the track.

I’ve been ticking off a lot of the day hikes in the Kaimai-Mamaku Forest and the Rapurapu Kauri Track was the perfect kind of chill hike to get me out of my recent funk. Normally, I like to hike at least a couple of hours for each hour I’m in the car - I guess this one was the exception. I figured I could make a day of it and grab a late lunch on the way home.

The start of the track is along SH 29, it’s not signposted, but easy enough to find if you Google ‘Rapurapu Kauri Track’ like I did. Even though the turn off to the car park isn’t signposted, there is an official DoC (Department of Conservation) sign on the fence at the start of the trail. You’ll walk through a grass track and a wide gauntlet of gorse for about 10 minutes before you reach the bush edge.

I had recently joined the Kaimai Track and Hut Users Facebook group page before going on this hike, and if you use Facebook, I highly recommend it. We had had a storm a few days before and someone posted photos of large windfalls from that morning. It was still passable, but it’s always good to know what you’re up against. The same was said about the water levels - it was high enough that you were definitely going to get wet feet, but not enough to make stream crossings dangerous.

The track itself is only short, just 5km return and pretty flat most of the way. It wasn’t long before I came across the first windfall - a tangled mess of juvenile trees blocking the track. I could still see the track on the other side so I looked to either side to see signs of footprints. The track was a bit muddy and made it easy to follow where others had been and avoid trampling over plants.

A couple of curious Pīwakawaka (Fantail) watched me as I took photos of fungi on a log nearby. One stayed perched up on a lower branch keeping watch while the other explored the forest floor looking for food. That’s the great thing about easy tracks like this, there’s always time to stop and enjoy the birdlife.

There are at least six stream crossings, I say six because I stopped counting after that. Even though it was still early morning, the humidity was already intense and sweat dripped down my face when I came out of the shade. It’s one of those rare times that I actually enjoyed the stream crossings because it was so hot.

The recent storm did a real doozy on this track because there were four major windfalls along the way. However, even if they had made a real mess, they only slowed you down and became a nuisance rather than stopping you from getting through. The one below were actually two trees - the bigger of the two showing the vulnerability of the shallow root system. I stayed a while admiring the force it must have taken to topple this one.

If I didn’t see the Facebook post about the windfalls that morning, I might have missed the viewing platform altogether. I didn’t realise how close I was when I came to the largest windfall of them all - this one was blocking the boardwalk and steps leading up to the Kauri viewing platform. There was an orange marker pointing straight ahead, but the path ahead was blocked. I went left towards the river, but decided against it as the water looked deeper than the previous crossings.

Then I remembered the post telling me to go up the hill - sure enough, after a quick scramble, I could walk back down to the boardwalk. From the platform I could see the large boulders in the river - I was glad I didn’t take the river route. Kauri (Agathis australis) are a native hardwood and were milled in the Kaimai-Mamaku forest from the 1800s up until the 1950s. They’re a protected native species - these days their biggest enemy is the Kauri dieback. It’s important to following the cleaning protocol going into and leaving Kauri tracks.

This isn’t a looped track, so you will walk back the way you came. As I started walking down the steps, I thought I could hear people. However, by the time I had walked around the windfall at the foot of the steps, there was no one there. It was only when I got to the stream crossing that I saw three people coming towards me. They had turned back from the windfall, so I let them know to scramble up and around it until they could see the boardwalk. 

It was early afternoon by the time I made my way back to the carpark. The track seemed busier, but I still managed to get large sections to myself. The piercing sun hit me as I came out of the bush, and it took my eyes a couple of seconds to adjust. I took my time walking back to my car - soaking up the sunshine, listening to the birds and daydreaming under the blue skies.

fivefootronna is Ronna Grace Funtelar - a thirtyish adventurer, graphic designer and writer. A woman with a curious mind who lives for hiking mountains, outdoor adventures and eating pizza. She has a unique brand of optimism that is a combination of her great enthusiasm for life and cups of coffee during the day.