Treasure of a getaway opens at Waiheke

Visitors and locals can enjoy The Whakenewha park on Waiheke island, opened by Helen Clark (third from left), yesterday. Photo / Auckland Regional Council

A "treasure for all Aucklanders to enjoy" came into being yesterday.

Whakanewha, with a half-moon sweep of sandy beach and Waiheke Island's only public camping ground within its borders, is Auckland's latest regional park to open to the public.

The 270ha regional park on Waiheke was officially opened by Prime Minister Helen Clark.

From a pa site above the beach, about 600 people attending the opening had a spectacular view of a Ngati Paoa waka with 40 paddlers coming into Whakanewha (Rocky Bay).

ARC chairman Mike Lee said with so much of the Waiheke coast locked up in private mansions and the public locked out the new park was "a treasure for all Aucklanders to enjoy", filling a real need for recreation and camping on Waiheke.

The park had a long, controversial history from the time the council bought it when money was tight and, in the late 1990s when part of it was saved from an airfield expansion.

Mr Lee said: "Auckland City Council, Nature Heritage Fund and the Forest and Bird Protection Society helped the ARC to enable the purchase to go ahead and it was an absolute bargain.

"It has become important to Waiheke's tourism infrastructure, with 40,000 visitors a year, and to the quality of life of residents."

The sculpture of a dotterel guardian, made by local artists and Waiheke High School students, stands over a breeding area for the endangered New Zealand dotterel.

ARC parks chairwoman Sandra Coney said the park benefited from the help of volunteer groups such as the Waiheke Dotterel Trust.

Since the land was bought for a reserve in 1993, it has been cleared of pest animals and plants.

New facilities for visitors and a series of tracks have been created to give access to a pa site, a wetland and the Cascades waterfalls.