February 27, 2026
We woke up to a gorgeous weather day with clear blue skies. Our itinerary for the day was to make the round trip drive up north to Port Jackson to the end of the road at Fletcher Bay. The road was 25 km of gravel starting at Colville. The road was mostly well graded, but it was narrow and very twisty in spots, making it a bit challenging to navigate around other vehicles. Fortunately we did not pass many other vehicles on this road.
There was road construction near the beginning of the gravel stretch that delayed us by at least 20 minutes. We drove nonstop to the end of the road since we were running short on time: we had planned to hike the Coromandel Walkway to the lookout, which was about a 3-hour round trip hike.
The Coromandel Walkway was billed as one of the most scenic hikes on the North Island, with lots of stunning coastal views. I was really looking forward to it. But when we arrived at the trailhead, we found this:
So that substantially changed the rest of our day. Oh well, we had been running short of time anyway... I subsequently found out that the trail was closed on January 24, which was right after we had arrived in New Zealand. There was no way I would have known about it unless I had thought to check its status online after we arrived.
We then had a very relaxing time exploring Fletcher Bay and really took our time traveling back to Colville. The views of the beach and the surrounding hills at Fletcher Bay were lovely.
On the drive back to Port Jackson we stopped at a lookout that was at the northernmost point of the Coromandel Peninsula.
Our next stop was the upper carpark trailhead for the Muriwai Hilltop Walk. This was an easy walk that had wonderful coastal views. It was one of my favorite short walks on the entire trip. It followed a ridge with views the entire way, and it was so peaceful. We encountered only one other person along the trail.
After the hike we drove back down to Port Jackson and stopped at the beach. The only public facilities at Port Jackson appeared to be a campground at the beach. The remaining part of Port Jackson was a few houses along private roads.
Past Port Jackson the road climbed up to a nice view of the beach below.
Then the road dropped back down to sea level, following the coast for most of the way back to Colville. We stopped briefly at Fantail Bay, where there was another campground.
We drove back to the road construction area and this time had less than a 10-minute wait. We finally rejoined the paved section of the road and stopped at the Otautu Bay wharf.
Our final stop for the day was at Colville Bay, just down the road from our motel room.
Back at the motel, I walked around the pretty grounds.
We fixed dinner and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
