Drive south on high way 30, to Taupo. Fenton St is the main road south out of Rotorua. You will know it from all the motels and hotels along is full length.  Plus it is one of the main shopping streets in town.  You cannot miss Rainbow Mountain as you drive past.  At 26 km there is a turn off to the left on to Highway 38. This highway goes to a forestry town called  Murupara, then on to  Lake Waikaremona  then on to the east coast  of NZ,  to a town on called Wairoa.  Turn to the left.  Murupara is a 37 km drive through the Kaingaroa Forest, the largest pin tree plantation in NZ and in the southern hemisphere.  At 41 km the road becomes narrow and very windy. Drive with care, logging trucks uses this road also.  At 57.5 km you will arrive at Te Whaiti, Minginui turnoff, Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.  If you drive straight ahead you will arrive at Ruatahuna and then at Lake Waikaremona 75k km.  Turn hard right.  At 8.4 km you would have driven past what is left of the settlement of Minginui. Don’t Blink.  And now stop at the next turnoff.  If you are lucky the sign post might be sill there on your right.  If not, turn hard right, and drive down to the river 600m.  Cross the bridge 100 m.  When you drive over the second bridge, look out for the turn off to the left.  There is a sign post for the Whirinaki Forest Park. See first photo.    Turn to the left.  At 14.8 km you can pull over and park the car in the car park.  The start to the track is over to the left.

Terrain varies from gentle river flats to narrow gorges, waterfalls, and heavily dissected uplands with a forest cover of dense podocarps and high altitude beech. The most striking feature of the forest is the density and size of the podocarp trees; kahikatea, totara, matai, rimu and miro. Bird life is abundant, especially the rare kaka and red and yellow crowned kakariki. The Whirinaki, Rangitaiki and Whaeo rivers have excellent trout fishing and deerstalking is popular

Whirinaki Forest Park forms a boundary between the exotic Kaingaroa pine plantations to the west and Te Urewera National Park to the east. It stretches over 55,000 ha from near Murupara in the north to the Napier-Taupo highway in the south.  New Zealand's only native mammals, the long and short-tailed bat, are both present but rarely seen. In addition many introduced mammals have made Whirinaki home. These include red deer, pigs and possums.  The park has some outstanding short bush walks The Arahaki Lagoon is a picturesque lake deep in the forest where stately kahikateas stand rooted in the water and the Te Whaiti-Nui-a-Toi Canyon is a spectacular rock-bound cascade. A very popular 4-5 day tramp is the Whirinaki Circuit