Hauraki Rail Trail: 160 kilometres of flat railway across the Hauraki Plains
The Hauraki Rail Trail is the easiest of New Zealand’s Ngā Haerenga Great Rides and the one most people ride first. It follows the formation of the old Thames and Paeroa branch railways, which means it is flat, wide and smooth for very nearly its whole length — Grade 1 (easiest) on the national scale, with only the Paeroa–Waihi section stepping up to Grade 1–2.
Both governing bodies — the Hauraki Rail Trail Charitable Trust and nzcycletrail.com, the national registry — publish the trail as 160 km, split into five sections. Most riders take three to five days, and because it is a rail formation rather than a mountain trail, an unfit rider on a hired bike genuinely can do it.
The five sections, and why they do not add up to 160
nzcycletrail publishes the sections as Kaiaua–Thames 55 km, Thames–Paeroa 34 km, Paeroa–Waihi 24 km, Paeroa–Te Aroha 23 km and Te Aroha–Matamata 37 km.
Those five figures total 173 km, which is more than the 160 km headline, and that is not a mistake in either source. Paeroa is a junction, not a waypoint: the Waihi section and the Te Aroha section are two branches leaving the same town in different directions. No single end-to-end ride covers all five, so the network is longer than any route through it. Plan the ride you are actually doing rather than the total.
The common through-ride is Kaiaua → Thames → Paeroa → Te Aroha → Matamata, with the Karangahake Gorge run out to Waihi and back as a day trip from Paeroa — which is how most people end up seeing the best part of the trail anyway.
The Karangahake Gorge, which is the reason to come
Between Paeroa and Waihi the trail leaves the plains and turns into the Karangahake Gorge, a deep cut through the Kaimai Range carved by the Ohinemuri River. This is the busiest and by some distance the most photographed section of the whole trail.
The centrepiece is an 1,100-metre former railway tunnel, unlit end to end — bring a torch, and do not rely on a phone. Around it are the remains of one of New Zealand’s richest gold fields: the Victoria Battery ore-processing site, the Windows Walkway burrowing through a side gorge on the old pack track, and a waterfall a short walk off the trail. If you only have one day on the Hauraki, this is the day.
