Are you thinking of doing Te Araroa Trail? We’ve provided Te Araroa Trail accommodation for 11 years! Here’s what you should know…
We’re really looking forward to September/October 2025 and the 90 days of Te Araroa fever as everyone begins the adventure of a lifetime.
As you can imagine, we have learnt a lot about walking the trail over the years we’ve been providing Te Araroa Trail accommodation. Below is some relevant information for you wonderful people…
For Our International Guests
Arriving in NZ
We would definitely advise spending a day or two in Auckland to acclimatise and get over jet lag if time allows.
Getting to Cape Reinga
We suggest (obviously) to get up to Kerikeri and leave the rest to us. It’s best if you can get into Kerikeri around lunch time, which allows you time to get any last minute bits and both of us time to get organised for the next day. Some like to come up a day or two before – so up to you.
Fly from Auckland: Take an Air New Zealand 50-minute flight to Kerikeri (Bay of Islands) https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/
If you fly please get an early flight. If we are around we can pick you up or give you taxi phone numbers.
Bus from Auckland: Use Intercity to Kerikeri https://www.intercity.co.nz/
Again, please get one of the early buses up (not the 10pm one!)
Kerikeri is an ideal starting point for your Te Araroa Trail experience…
- It’s a really beautiful kiwi town
- It has plenty of restaurants
- Two big supermarkets
- A Hunting & Fishing store (just in case you’ve forgotten anything)
- All within walking distance of Hone Heke Lodge
Departure to Cape Reinga
We generally leave about 7am to head up to Cape Reinga with a lovely journey up the east coast travelling through beautiful Northland.
We normally get to the top around 10:30am. This gives you plenty of time to get to Twilight Beach or further on to 90 Mile Beach if you want to.
Walkers then usually arrive back in Kerikeri in about 9-11 days.
The huge advantage is that you travel back through Kerikeri to pick up things you have left with us, and a great town to reassess what you are really going to need on the trail.
This is a really important thing to think about.
The first 9 days are pretty tough going – 3 days on the beach and 2 gnarly forests to navigate, so it’s nice to come ‘home’ to Hone Heke Lodge again.
Some people have blisters, etc. We can even arrange a nurse to come to Hone Heke Lodge and help you fix those!
You can wash your clothes, sew some bits back or fix your broken bits.
You can have a meal – pizza, steak, beer, fresh fruit & veggies – whatever you are craving you should be able to find in town.
Te Araroa Trail Accommodation
We have had the pleasure of running this business for 11 years and truly love it and enjoy meeting all the different people who come through.
Like traditional backpackers we have hostel dorm rooms, double ensuite motel style rooms & private single rooms.
We work with a local orchard and have the pleasure of looking after their orchard workers from Vanuatu. We have been doing this for the last 3 years so they are part of our family too. You’ll have a very unique experience meeting people from a country you may not have heard of.
It is backpacker accommodation but we do have a big site where you can mix (or not). We have all the amenities you need and we pride ourselves on friendliness & cleanliness.
Read our reviews on Trip Advisor, like this one…
Hone Heke Lodge is the level all backpackers should strive to achieve. The owners, Victoria and David, were friendly and helpful from the get go!
We started the New Zealand thru-hike, Te Araroa Trail, with them and if you’re going to hike it, I recommend beginning at Hone Heke Lodge.
David drove us up to Cape Reinga and we had a room waiting for us when we walked back into Kerikeri. We had to extend our stay and Victoria was able to accommodate us every single time.
If you want a warm, safe and friendly place to stay at, with wonderful owners who care for every person who spends the night, Hone Heke is the place.
Trip Advisor – September 2024
And this little message and photo from Kevin & Caroline who just made it to Bluff!
Thanks for making our start to the Te Araroa Trail so easy. It was our first big achievement walking all the way back to Kerikeri. We hope many more Te Araroa walkers can experience your hospitality. Thank you and all the best.
HOW DO I BOOK?
Best way is to email us stay@honeheke.co.nz and we can go from there.
We already have shuttles booked for:
- 17 September 2025
- 1 October 2025
As we firm up more dates we’ll add them here as well so you can see when we are going up (as it’s not every day and not all season).
If you are still reading this we can honestly say everyone coming through and doing the Te Araroa Trail has loved it. It has been hard of course, but if you have the time and fitness it’s a wonderful way of seeing this glorious country.
DO IT. We are already proud of you!
Te Araroa Trail Alternative Start Points
If you choose to book somewhere else for your Te Araroa Trail accommodation, the other jumping off point to get to Cape Reinga is Kaitaia and there are some people offering similar packages from there.
And, just so you know, the more intrepid people hitch-hike up to Cape Reinga too.
Click here to visit the Te Araroa website »
