Te Araroa Day 9, Opua, Waikare and Papakauri Stream

Starting km: 248
Finishing km: 274
km covered today: 26 (although only 18 was actually walked)

I was a bit conflicted with what to do this day.  The official trail route has one walking ~8km from Pahia to Opua, along a pleasant coastal trail before taking a boat/kayak up Waikare inlet to the town of Waikare.
Unfortunately water taxis weren't making the trip that day as they can only land at Waikare near high tides, which occurred at 06:00 and 19:00 that day (not to mention the fact that they cost at least $100 anyway.)
Kayaks were little better, tides limiting them to departures in the afternoon and costing at least $170, as neither I nor the rental places could find anyone to go with me.

So the dilemma was this:
Would it be "cheating" to walk to Opua, take the short scheduled ferry trip across the inlet, then hitchhike to the head of the inlet?  If the official route didn't involve 100% walking, should my modified route be required to if I walked all the "official" parts on land?  I concluded that it would be okay to hitch (unsurprising, given how much I didn't want to do an extra 22km of road walking after my previous day's monster.)

The morning started with a walk along the coast including plenty of beach, some clifftops and boardwalks through the first of many mangrove forests (I didn't realize NZ had quite so many of these!)

The ferry from Opua to the Russell Road took about 10 minutes.  After this I road walked about 5km to the Waikare turnoff, then rapidly picked up 2 rides that took me to the tiny village at the end of the inlet.

From Opua the trail headed up a gravel road.  This actually felt a bit creepy.  With lots of wrecked cars and other junk by the side of the road it felt (I'm sure entirely unjustifiedly, big-city-person-biased-ly) Deliverance-ish

I'd loved the 1km or so of walking down the river in Omahuta forest.  Today featured even more, with 4km walking up the even prettier and more remote-feeling Papakauri Stream.  Didn't see another soul as I walked up the river (except for an eel, which are the apex predators in most of NZs fresh water.  Seeing the eel was really cool!)

There was also not a soul in the big, grassy campsite at the end of the river walk.  There was even a shelter, which I decided to sleep under, forgoing the tent.  Bad choice.  I spent the whole night being kept up by insects that sounded like mosquitos buzzing around my ears (though they mustn't have been given the lack of bites I had the next morning.)  Also had a couple of visits from possums throughout the night, though these weren't a big deal as I'd hung up and secured my food bag.

Camping spot after a deservedly relaxed day of walking