Stretch your legs with a stroll along the pretty riverside promenade beside Mahurangi River. Photo / 123rf
Well into his quest to search out the top spots for a pit stop on a classic Kiwi road trip, this week Peter Dragicevich discovers The Tahi is No 1 in Warkworth.
These days the journey between Auckland and Whāngārei or Dargaville usually takes less than 2½ hours and there's many a Kiwi dad who will insist on motoring through. However, if you're looking for a pitstop, you have options. Kaiwaka is a contender but aside from its excellent cheese shop and a couple of decent cafes, there's not much to it. Wellsford's traffic-choked main street is hardly brimming with charm and Waipū requires a detour from State Highway 1.
This brings us to Warkworth, the pick of the bunch. If you're coming from Auckland, it sits at around the 45-minute mark and it's the first decent contender for a coffee or a wee. In peak holiday times, the traffic snarls to a crawl through here anyway, so you may as well get out and stretch your legs. It's also the turnoff for key holiday hotspots such as Matakana, Snells Beach, Mahurangi, Tawharanui, Ōmaha, Leigh and Pākiri. In summer the town's two oversized supermarkets do a brisk trade with holidaymakers stocking up on supplies for the bach.
The local iwi, Ngāti Manuhiri, knew this area at the head of the Mahurangi Harbour as Puhinui. In 1843 a chap named John Anderson Brown built a water-powered sawmill and a house where the Bridge House Lodge currently stands. The tiny settlement was initially known as Brown's Mill, with Brown and about 35 staff effectively squatting on Māori land. In 1853 Brown was able to purchase 62ha and laid out a street plan, calling it Warkworth after a town in his native Northumberland.
The English Warkworth has a Norman church and a stonking great medieval castle looming over it – so a little different to our Warkworth, then. All the towns seem to have in common is that they're both set within the bends of a river. Brown took his Northumberland nostalgia to an even more ludicrous level when he named the streets after his home county's aristocratic families. For instance, Percy St is named after the dukes of Northumberland. The current duke, Ralph Percy, also holds the title Baron Warkworth and is the current owner of the aforementioned castle. It seems unlikely that he's ever visited our Warkworth but who knows? Perhaps he has a bach at Ōmaha.
This brings us back to the Warkworth of the south. It may not have dukes and barons but it has been known to raise sporting royalty, specialising in brotherly duos: All Blacks Zinzan and Robin Brooke and Black Caps Hamish and James Marshall.
Drive right into the centre of town and pull up near the very helpful i-SITE at the beginning of Baxter St. After you've all availed yourself of the loos, regroup inside to stock up on information about your intended destination. If you're interested in heritage architecture, stop to have a squiz at the Corinthian columns and classical pediments of the elegant Masonic Hall next door (built in 1883). The Mahurangi River is directly behind, so stretch your legs with a stroll along the pretty riverside promenade. If you've got little kids in tow, there's a playground here too.
If you're feeling peckish or parched, Warkworth offers plenty of choice. Our favourite establishment is The Tahi Bar & Kitchen (reopening at red traffic light stage). Straddling a laneway opposite the i-SITE, this hip nook wouldn't be out of place in inner-city Melbourne and yet it offers the most quintessentially Warkworth experience of all. In fact, "local" is the obsession here. All of the craft beer is sourced from local producers (including Warkworth's 8-Wired and Kaipara Flats' Colab Brewery), as is most of the wine (Matakana being a near neighbour) and much of the food cooked in the kitchen. The butcher across the road even makes sausages for them to the Tahi's own recipe.
A few doors up, the Gourmet Burger Co. lives up to its name with the likes of burgers crammed with roast duck and capped with duck egg. If you're more in the mood for a sit-down meal, Aldo's next door serves delicious Italian food in a convivial, family-style ambiance.
Back down on the main street, the recently renovated Warkworth Hotel dates from 1864 – as does the spectacular Norfolk Island pine in front of it. Inside it's all burnished wooden floors and sparkling chandeliers but the sunny front terrace is the place to see and be seen, especially for late afternoon drinkies. A little further along, Pete & Mary's Eatery is the pick of the town's cafes. It's not a big space but it's open and airy, and the food is reliably excellent.
So, no castles, but plenty of good excuses to stop, stretch your legs, wet your whistle and fill your belly.
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