Stretch out summer in Tawharanui's Anchor Bay, one of the most scenic in North Auckland. Photo / Auckland Unlimited
Stretch out summer in Tawharanui's Anchor Bay, one of the most scenic in North Auckland. Photo / Auckland Unlimited
Stretch out summer on the beaches of North Auckland. In this short series, Peter Dragicevich surveys the best of the Supercity's regional parks.
If you've been following this series over the past couple of weeks, you may remember that South Auckland and West Auckland have three of the Super City's28 regional parks apiece, and the central Auckland isthmus has just one. So, who's hogging all of the rest?
Well, three are on Hauraki Gulf islands, seven are in East Auckland (we'll get to those next week) and two are actually on the Waikato side of the Hunua Ranges. That still leaves a whopping nine in North Auckland. And each is extraordinary in its own right. The most accessible is Long Bay Regional Park, at the northern tip of Auckland's East Coast Bays. When the traffic on the bridge isn't going bonkers, it takes less than 30 minutes to get here from the city centre. With its kilometre-long stretch of sandy beach, large playground, broad lawns and free barbecues, it's the perfect spot for family-friendly picnics – and hence it's often swamped on the weekends by community, corporate and extended-whanau gatherings.
I remember it fondly from the Yugoslav picnics of my youth. Back then Long Bay (Oneroa) felt like the fringes of the countryside, but now massive new housing developments lap at the park's edges. The Yugoslav picnics of yesteryear were simultaneously great fun and a fascinating study in escalating ostentation. Lamb was grilled, old men wore speedos and a fiercely contested tug-of-war competition pitted winemakers against orchardists. The orchardist camp, into which my family fell, may have won the occasional bout but certainly couldn't compete with the increasingly flashy cars of the winemakers as the 1980s progressed. But I digress.
North of the main beach, a 3km coastal track skirts the historic Vaughan farmstead and a working sheep farm, passing a couple of small bays before coming to an abrupt halt. The second beach, Pōhutukawa Bay, is one of the city's best-known nude beaches – despite the coy protestations to the contrary on the council's park brochure (if you're easily offended, you only need to look away).
The next park to the north isn't actually the next closest. Positioned at the very end of the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, Shakespear Regional Park is a good 50-minute drive from the CBD. There's an island-like quality to the 500-hectare headland that the park inhabits and, indeed, a 1.7km pest-proof fence has converted it into a mainland equivalent of the Gulf's island sanctuaries. Endangered birds such as kiwi and tieke (saddleback) have been reintroduced here, and others like kākāriki and korimako (bellbird) have made their own way here from nearby Tiritiri Mātangi. Take your pick of themed walking tracks and let the prevailing wind guide your choice between north-facing Army Bay and south-facing Te Haruhi Bay.
Looking out from the Hibiscus Coast Highway over the Puhoi River in the Wenderholm Regional Park. Photo / Simon Morris, Flickr CC
Much further north but less than 40 minutes from the CBD, Wenderholm Regional Park still really does feel like a rural getaway. This beautiful place is squeezed between the Waiwera and Pūhoi Rivers, and incorporates a large tract of coastal forest, a pā site and the remains of Māori gardens. Like Long Bay, it, too, has a heritage homestead and a lovely long sandy beach.
Next up is a cluster of parks rightly famous for their glorious sandy beaches. Mahurangi Regional Park is split into three distinct sections facing off across the Mahurangi Harbour. Mahurangi West is barely 45 minutes from Auckland, but you'll need to add an extra 20 minutes to drive to Mahurangi East (which is further split into Scott Point and Sadler Point). Scandrett Regional Park shares the same peninsula as Mahurangi East but gazes across Kawau Bay to Tāwharanui Regional Park – which, like Shakespear, is a predator-free open sanctuary.
The next two, Pakiri Regional Park and Te Arai Regional Park, are part of the near-continuous stretch of white sand that reaches all the way to Mangawhai. These are the most remote of all of Auckland's regional parks (allow 90 minutes to drive to Te Arai) – perfect for banishing all thoughts of the big city and the latest case numbers.
That just leaves the odd one out, 843-hectare Atiū Creek Regional Park, situated on a lonely peninsula jutting out into the Kaipara Harbour. It may not have beaches to compete with its East Coast cousins, but it makes up for it with harbour views, old-growth forest, pā sites and a network of farm tracks suited to walkers, mountain bikers and horse riders. Some of these parks have free barbecues and some have campgrounds, so if you're looking to squeeze the last dregs out of the tube marked Kiwi Summer, take a look at the Auckland Council website and pick one that suits.
