Pou Herenga Tai · Twin Coast Cycle Trail

The route

Coast to coast, east to west, with the midpoint at Kaikohe — which is also, conveniently, the highest ground on the whole trail.

Ridden the popular way, from Ōpua on the Bay of Islands to Hōreke on the Hokianga Harbour, the trail climbs gradually for its first two-thirds and then falls away west. It is a disused railway corridor for much of its length, which is why the gradients are so kind: they were surveyed for locomotives. The four sections are 11km, 34km, 14km and 28km, and they sum to the 87 the trail advertises.

In order, and this is the map in words: Ōpua marina, the estuary and its mangroves, the Whangae Tunnel platform where the train takes over, Taumārere Station, Kawakawa and its Hundertwasser toilets, Moerewa and a disused wood mill, the twin suspension bridges at Tūhipa, Kaikohe Aerodrome, Kaikohe at the midpoint, the 1915 tunnel, Lake Ōmāpere, Ōkaihau, the Utakura Valley, the mangrove boardwalk, and Māngungu. The stage table below gives the same list by section.

The name is not decoration. Pou Herenga Tai is a post that binds the coasts, and the trail is bilingual along its whole length: carved pou at the trailheads, storyboards in Māori and English at the churches, the memorial gates, the mill and the old station sites. It runs through Ngāpuhi country and it does not treat that as background — the New Zealand Cycle Trail's own summary calls the ride a mix of scenery and manaakitanga, and on the evidence of a day in the saddle that is not tourist-board language. Riders who stop and read arrive at the far end knowing considerably more about the Far North than riders who do not.

Two things about this page before you use it. The first is that we rode the western half and not the eastern one, so the voice changes partway down. Where it says we, we were there. Where it says you, we are reporting what the trail and the New Zealand Cycle Trail publish, and we say so at the top of that section. The second is that the two official sources disagree about how hard the western descent is, and on that one point we are a witness rather than a reader.

Downhill for two hours, and mildly terrifying

42 kilometres, one March day, on hired e-bikes, with a minibus waiting at the far end. This is the section the trail's own operators sell hardest, and we can see why.

We picked the bikes up in Kaikohe. There is one full-service operator in the town — hire, beds and shuttle from a single property — and the arrangement is the whole reason this half works as a day out: you ride away from your car and somebody collects you 42 kilometres later. It was the sixth time on that trip we had hired electric bikes, and by then we had stopped pretending we were doing it for the hills.

The first stretch out of Kaikohe climbs, and it is the only climbing the day asks for. Fourteen kilometres to Ōkaihau, gently up to the highest ground on the entire trail at 280 metres, through a curved railway tunnel built in 1915 — eighty metres of it, dark enough that the trail's own advice is to take your sunglasses off and let your eyes adjust before you go in, or get off and walk. Then down to Lake Ōmāpere, which is Northland's largest and drains, appropriately, into the Hokianga you are riding towards.

We stopped for coffee at the Kiwi Kai in Ōkaihau. It was 10 out of 10 and the people were friendly, which is a sentence that will date badly and is true as we write it.

From Ōkaihau it is 28 kilometres and it is essentially all descent, off the tops and down into the Utakura Valley by a series of switchbacks, then along beside the river with bush-clad hills on either side. The trail's own site grades this section 1–2, the same as everything else. The New Zealand Cycle Trail calls it the Grade 3 section, and elsewhere describes it as easy to intermediate. Having come down it: it is steep enough that you would not want to ride up it, and a little tricky coming down. Nothing a competent rider cannot handle, and worth knowing about before you set off with a nine-year-old.

The last of it is flat and strange. A kilometre of boardwalk carries the trail out over a mangrove estuary to the edge of the Hokianga, and then about three kilometres of shared road bring you to the finish. Which is not a car park or a sign, but a white weatherboard house on a lawn above the water.

Then the minibus, and back to Kaikohe with the bikes on the trailer, which after 42 kilometres felt like being collected by a chauffeur. A very good day.

The half we did not ride

We have not been on this ground. What follows comes from the trail's own site and the New Zealand Cycle Trail, and where it describes a place rather than a fact, we say so.

The eastern half is 45 kilometres in two sections, and it contains the thing that makes this trail unlike any other in New Zealand. Between Taumārere and the Whangae Tunnel platform the old railway is a working railway again — the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway has restored it in two phases, 3.2 kilometres and then 2.8 — and cyclists are no longer permitted on the corridor at all. A trail alongside the track is planned and not built.

So there are two ways across and no third. You book onto the train, load the bike onto an open deck of bike racks, and ride the oldest passenger line in the country for about half an hour: through the middle of Kawakawa — the only place in New Zealand where a train crosses a state highway — then east over farmland and wetland and across the longest curved wooden bridge in the Southern Hemisphere. Or you take the alternative: about 17 kilometres of gravel back road through Oramahoe and Whangae, regraded in April 2026 and still shared with traffic, which the trail describes as best suited to experienced adult riders.

How long is the train section? The trail's own train page says six kilometres and shows its working — 3.2 plus 2.8. Its own section page says four. The New Zealand Cycle Trail says five, twice. We would plan on six and not worry about it, but it is a good illustration of how much of this trail's published detail disagrees with itself.

Either side of the train, the riding is easy and, by all accounts, pretty. Ōpua is a working port with a marina, a boatyard and the car ferry to Russell — it is the first landfall for yachts arriving in New Zealand after crossing the Pacific — and the trail leaves it along an estuary edged with mangroves. Kawakawa is the town with the Hundertwasser toilets, which are a genuine tourist attraction and also, usefully, a toilet: the Austrian artist lived nearby for the last twenty years of his life and the building is his, mosaic-tiled, cobble-floored and grass-roofed. Te Hononga, the memorial park beside it, carries the same idea into a community hub, and the town has cafes, a museum, a gallery and a small supermarket. West of there the longest section of the whole trail runs 34 kilometres past Moerewa and its closed wood mill, over the twin suspension bridges at Tūhipa, past waterfalls and the Kaikohe Aerodrome — built in 1942 as a United States Marines bomber base and now the largest grass airstrip in the Southern Hemisphere — and climbs, gradually, for 25 kilometres to Kaikohe. Which is where we picked up the bikes.

The stages

Four sections, published by the trail, from the Bay of Islands to the Hokianga. Two days is the standard shape; any one of them is a morning.

Kaikohe sits at 45km, exactly the midpoint, and it is the practical hinge of the whole trail. It has the accommodation, the supermarkets, the bike hire and the shuttles, and it is downhill from there in either direction. If you have one day rather than two, start there and choose your coast.

Which is also where you sleep, on the standard two-day shape. Ride Ōpua to Kaikohe on the first day — 45km including the train — stay the night, and take the remaining 42km down to Hōreke on the second. That splits the distance almost exactly and puts the only real climbing at the end of day one, when you are fresh enough not to mind it. The alternative, breaking at Ōkaihau, leaves a 59km first day and a 28km second, which is lopsided in the wrong direction.

The thing to plan around is that services thin out as you go west. The greatest concentration of beds is around Paihia and the Bay of Islands at the eastern end; Kaikohe has plenty; Ōkaihau and Hōreke have some. Hōreke is the end of the line in more than one sense — there is no onward trail, so whatever gets you off the Hokianga has to be arranged before you set out. In peak season, January to March, book all of it well ahead.

Bikes, bags and booking

The trail is free. The train is not optional, the shuttle is what makes a one-way day possible, and both want booking before you arrive.

A hybrid will do for most of the trail; a mountain bike is more comfortable, and it is the Ōkaihau to Hōreke section that argues for one. E-bikes are permitted, widely hired and — on the evidence of our own day — a completely reasonable way to do this. Check your accommodation can charge one if you are staying out. The trail is well signposted throughout and passes through towns often enough that you are rarely far from a shop, but some businesses keep limited hours in winter, so carry food and water rather than assuming.

All prices were read on 6 September 2026, and one of them changes on 1 October. That date is worth noticing for another reason: it is the third New Zealand trail operator we have found this month repricing on exactly that day. If you are reading this after 1 October, assume the higher figure and check.

If something goes wrong

This is the least remote of the Great Rides. You are rarely more than an hour from a town, which changes what can go wrong and what it costs you.

Coverage is good around the larger towns and patchy between Kawakawa and Kaikohe, and there is now boosted free wifi along the Utakura Valley between Ōkaihau and Hōreke. There are public toilets in every town and at the midpoint of each section except Kaikohe and Ōkaihau. Water bottles can be filled in the settlements, which matters more than it sounds on a hot Northland day.

The weather can be different on the two coasts on the same day — the point of a coast-to-coast is that you get both — and the surface goes sticky in places after heavy rain. Northland is sub-tropical and the trail is rideable all year, but January to March is peak season and books out, while in winter the smaller towns wind down and some businesses run reduced hours.

And there are magpies. The trail's own status page carried a warning in September 2026 about nesting birds between Otiria and Ōkaihau, which is the section we rode. The advice is to dismount and walk through, move quickly without running, protect your head and face, wear a helmet and sunglasses, and put a flag on your bike. Warning signs go up where the birds are active. It is a seasonal thing and it is genuinely worth checking the status page before you go, because this is the kind of trail where the hazards are small, local and current rather than permanent.

Dogs are banned on three named stretches — the 12.5km from the macadamia orchard on Hōreke Road through to Harrison and Mangataraire Roads, the land beside Hōreke Road managed by Utukura No. 7 Inc, and the section running off Ngapipito to the suspension bridge — and must be on a lead everywhere else. Horses need council consent. There is a short detour on Hōreke Road that puts you on the road for about 500 metres.

Shorter versions, and longer ones

Four sections and a shuttle operator in the middle means this trail breaks into days more easily than almost any other.

Kaikohe to Hōreke, 42km, is the one we did and the one we would recommend if you have a single day: it takes in the tunnel, the high point, the lake, the descent, the boardwalk and the mission, and it finishes at something worth finishing at. Three to five hours at a civilised pace. Kaikohe to Ōpua, 47km, is the mirror image and also downhill, with the waterfalls, the Tūhipa bridges, the cafes of Kawakawa and the train at the end of it.

Kaikohe to Ōkaihau, 14km, is the trail's own most popular short section and the gentlest way to see the best engineering — the 1915 tunnel and the ford — in an hour or two. From the eastern end, Ōpua to the Whangae Tunnel and back is 5.6km, an hour, flat, and suitable for children and for anyone hiring a bike on the spot.

In the other direction, some riders take the whole 87 kilometres in a single day, which the trail acknowledges without encouraging, particularly in summer heat. And the trail sits in the middle of a region worth more than a day: Waitangi, Russell, Kerikeri and the Bay of Islands are all within reach of the eastern end, and Ngāwhā Springs is seven kilometres from Kaikohe if what you want after a day in the saddle is to sit in hot water.