It was a perfect Saturday afternoon when Stephanie & I went on a Wilderness Experience with Bush & Beach. Our guide for the day was Alexander. The vehicle was roomy & comfortable with high ceiling & wide windows. Perfect as a vehicle for sightseeing. There were 3 other people on the trip who are very nice & friendly to travel with.
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| A comfortable & roomy Bush & Beach Vehicle |
The trip began at 12.30PM, then we were driven to West Auckland. Along
the way to West Auckland, Alexander gave us lots of good information
about the suburbs we were driven through eg. a suburb of Avondale &
its famous Avondale Spider which was used in Hollywood movies like Spider Man & Arachnophobia. Not very long and we arrived at Arataki Visitor Centre on Scenic Drive. The centre is situated on top of the hill in Waitakere Ranges. This is great starting point for visitors to this region. They can provide driving routes around the area, help with your hiking trips, and show you the main interesting spots within Waitakere Ranges.
From the viewing deck at the centre, we could see two of the three Harbours in Auckland: Manukua Harbour (South) and Waitamate Harbour (North). The other one that we couldn't see from here is Kaipara Harbour, which situated in the Northwestern side of Auckland.
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| Koru Bike Stands: One of many art works around the centre |
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| Picture Perfect! (Looking South over Manukua Harbour)
The centre has many Maori arts & sculptures around the area. The facade of the main building has a tall Maori wooden crafts. The shape of & the decoration inside the building is a resemblance of Marea (Maori Meeting House). We were at the centre briefly before we headed to the rainforest & the famous Auckland's Black Sand beaches.
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| The front of Arataki Visitor Centre |
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| Main Entrance |
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| Inside the centre |
Our second stop was Karekare Falls. There wasn't much water when we were there but the guide told us, it's an impressive waterfalls the water is in full stream. Karekare was one of the old settlement areas along Auckland's West Coast, famous for kauri logging in the early 1800s. These days. Karekare Beach is poppular among surfers & locals as a good picnic spot. It's well-known as one of the locations in a movie called "The Piano". Do you remember the scene when Holly Hunter & Anna Paquin were left on the beach when they 1st arrived in NZ? Yep...that stunning, dark & eerie beach was Karekare.
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| Kerekere Beach from the Waterfalls Walk |
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| A little less impressive Kerekere Falls |
From Kerekere, we made our way to take a short stroll on a small section of The Hillary Trail closed to Piha Beach. The Hillary Trail is named after Sir Hillary Edmund, the first person to reached the summit of Mt. Everest. The whole trail takes 4 days to finish, but you can take one of the many shorts walks in different parts of the trail.
The Waitakere Ranges is one of Auckland's 26 Regional Parks. This is the closest area to Auckland City where you can find kauri trees. The country's biggest Kauri forest is in the northern end of North Island. Kauri tree is New Zealand's native plant. It's a massive tree which can grow up to 50 meters tall & up to 16 meters around the trunk. It can live up to two thousand years! (Source: Department of Conservation)
Before we entered the forest, we were explained about Kauri Dieback, a fungus-like disease that infects the tree roots & damage tissues that carry nutrients within the tree. This can come from infected soil or water that you or animals carry from somewhere else.
Alexander got all of us to use one of the Cleaning Stations located throughout the forest to clean out shoes before we started into the forest. The station looks simple. A black medium-sized water tank with a spray hose to spray the cleaning agent to the back of our shoes & 2 rows of hard bristle brushes molded to the ground so that we can give our shoes a good scrub. And now, we are ready for our mini exploration on The Hillary Trail.
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| Giving my love to a 200 years old Kauri tree |
The walk took about 20 minutes.We walked through a tiny section of the full 4-day Hillary Trail where we saw a few of many New Zealand Native plants: Silver Ferns, Koru & Manuka Trees, for examples. We also got a chance for a close-up look at one of many Kauri Trees in the Ranges. This one is 200 years old. It's a pretty large tree. Imagine Tane Mahuta (Lord of The Forest in English), The Largest living Kauri Tree in New Zealand. It's approximately 2,300 years old. How massive it would be!!
After the walk & some refreshments (provided by Bush & Beach). We were heading down to Piha Beach. The road down to the beach is very steep but the view is spectacular.
The most iconic landmark for Piha would be the Lion Rock. It's divided the long beach into Piha & Piha North. Alexander told us we can take a walk up to the top of Lion Rock. However, it's proven to be quite dangerous for an inexperienced climber as the rock can be very steep & slippery at some points.A few people had dead from searching to the top. And yes, we decided to just stick to the easy walk along the beach.
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| The Lion Rock |
It was a rather quiet Autumn afternoon for Piha beach, we had been told by Alexander. Only a handful of people dipping in the sea & a few more sitting along the beach.As it was a clam day, we only spot some surfers. The black sand on the beach is the results of many volcanic activities in the past which leaves a large amount of iron content in the sand. Also, lying under the surface along this black sand beaches is Platinum, one of very rare & very sought-after elements.
Piha is considered as one of the most dangerous beaches in New Zealand. Its rugged coastline with a canyon & a blowhole on the southern part of the beach made it's very challenge for swimmers. Adding to that is a very unpredictable rip current from the Tasman Sea.
We spent about 40 minutes at Piha. Next & our last stop was to see the largest Kauri tree in Waitiakere Ranges. It was a really short walk from the main street down to the tree. This Kauri tree is about 400-500 years old. We could only view this tree from a wooden platform of the walking track. But it was enough to give me the scale of how big these Kauri trees can grow to.
If you only have a few days in Auckland or in North Island, I would definitely recommend this half day trip to see the other part of Auckland. New Zealand is famous for its amazing landscapes & untouched nature, and what I could see during this trip is very much a great introduction to what you would see & experience for the rest of your time in New Zealand.
Posted by:
Nancy
4Sightseeing Travel Consultant
Email: Nancy@4Sightseeing.info
More info about Kauri trees:
www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-plants/kauri
