Author: Jo-Blogs

Hi, I live in beautiful New Zealand. I write, I blog, I work, and in my time off I enjoy the great outdoors. I am the mother of two grown children and inheritor of their cats. I work in IT with my husband and son.

Twin Craters / Ngahopua Track, Lake Okataina, Rotorua Lakes

Walk #180, 17th Dec 2025

This walk is near Lake Okataina in the Rotorua Lakes area. The track follows a crater rim and leads to views over two lakes, Lakes Rotongata and Rotoatua. The views are better away from the viewing area.

I give it 3 stars because the views in most part are blocked by trees.

Walk: Rotorua 30

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Related walk:

Lake Okataina

Links

Ngahopua Track (Twin Lakes Track)

I recommend the Te Auheke Track (Cascades Track) instead.

The NZ Motor Caravan site provides this helpful info:

  • Time: 40 min loop
  • Distance: 1.5 km

The track passes a sheer cliff face which is covered with moss and ferns. At night, thousands of glow worms can be seen. The picturesque Cascade Falls (around 10 m high) pour water over and around many rock protrusions and inspired the track’s name: Te Auheke means ‘tumbling water’.

Getting there: Start at the back of the field behind the Outdoor Education Centre.

Mangapohue Natural Arch, Waitomo Area

Walk #179, 19th November 2025

This walk is through an impressive limestone gorge that passes underneath a 17 m high natural arch. There are two arches, one on top of the other.

There are supposed to be giant oyster shell fossils beyond the bridges but we couldn’t find them.

The walk is on the scenic Te Henga road, and further up the road going west is Piripiri Cave and Marokopa Falls.

Walk: Waikato / King Country 29

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Links

Mangapohue Natural Bridge Walk

Hot Water Beach, Kawhia

Walk #177, 18th November 2025

This was an unusual walk, we made our way over a big sand dune to a hot water beach near Kawhia, which also goes by the name of ‘Te Puia,’ meaning ‘hot springs’.

The hot spots are directly out from the main track down the dune. As you can see this hot water beach is less crowded than the more popular and well-known beach at Hahei, Coromandel.

You have to go two hours either side of low tide. The hot water is found by digging into the sand with your toes. We found a warm spot and my husband Bert dug a hole for us to soak in with his father’s US army issue spade. As he dug I could smell the sulphur. The hole that I’d already claimed had water that was a bit hotter.

Unfortunately it started to rain, but we were already wet anyway and the wind wasn’t cold.

I recommend the walk for its sheer novelty value.

Walk: Waikato 7

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Horoure Pa, Aotea, Waikato

Walk #176, 17th November 2025

This old pa site at Aotea Harbour was right at the doorstep of the place where we stayed for two nights. The harbour in front of the pa was named after the Aotea canoe which is said to have arrived around 1300.

The Tainui canoe arrived about 50 years later and the people from that canoe settled at nearby Kawhia, just down the coast. The Tainui and Aotea tribes lived in harmony until the 1600s when battles started because the Kawhia people were expanding.

The two tribes united when their rohe (area) came under attack around 1800 from inland Tainui. The defeated people fled south to take refuge in pa still controlled by Te Rauparaha, trekking to Taranaki and then on to Horowhenua.

For a long time after their defeat this pa site was left empty, until the defeat of Waikato by Ngapuhi at Matakitahi in 1826 when survivors from that conflict settled here.

The book said it was an easy climb to the top – no it wasn’t. The long grass came half way up my body and it was impossible walking through it. Plus there was some dead gorse in the midst of the vegetation. I did not want to disappear into an old kumera pit so I called it a day and came back down.

The pa site is not a “wahi tapu,” a sacred locality like part of the foreshore – but when I gained the ridge I felt I shouldn’t be up there.

Walk: 26 Waikato and King Country

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Mangaokewa Gorge Scenic Reserve

Walk #175, 17th November 2025

Mangaokewa means “the stones of Kewa.” This walk is about 3kms from the town of Te Kuiti. It follows the Mangaokewa River.

There’s a small waterfall about 20 minutes along the track. Beyond that is an old road going in the direction of Te Kuiti. The area has a ghost townish feel which I remarked about on the video. I later learned it was the original site of Te Kuiti before the town moved north.

Walk: King Country Walk 31

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Links

Mangaokewa Gorge Walk

Papers Past: Old Te Kuiti (By J.W.E)

Te Kooti

Te Kooti was invited to Te Kūiti, the residence of the Māori King – but only if he came in peace. He responded defiantly that he was coming to ‘assume himself the supreme authority which he coming direct from God was entitled to’. Accompanied by Horonuku and Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and his core group of around 60 whakarau, Te Kooti arrived at Te Kūiti on 10 July 1869. Rewi Maniapoto greeted Te Kooti as a kinsman (they were related through Te Kooti’s father) and Te Kooti, for his part, appeared more conciliatory. He had come not to depose Tāwhiao but ‘to rouse up the Waikato to take up arms’. A feast had been prepared, but at this point Te Kooti declared that ‘he should consider himself the host (tangata whenua) and that the Waikato were his visitors’. His men loaded their weapons and fired over the heads of the bewildered Ngāti Maniapoto.

Te Kooti goes to Te Kūiti

From 1873 to 1883 Te Kooti lived at Te Kūiti. Here he evolved the rituals of his church. In 1883 Te Kooti was formally pardoned, at Rewi Maniapoto’s insistence. Te Kooti left Te Kūiti and in April moved to Ōtewā, where he founded his religious community.

Te Ara: Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki

Queen Elizabeth II Park, Paraparaumu, Kapiti Coast

Walk #173, 18th October 2025

Queen Elizabeth park is on the Kapiiti Coast between Raumati Beach and Paekakariki. We parked at the Wellington Tramways Museum at MacKays crossing and took a historic tram to the start of the walk at Whareroa Beach. It was a different and fun way of starting the walk. The tram runs on the weekend.

The central car park at Whareroa Beach is the start point for two loop tracks, one north to Raumati Beach and the other south to Paekakariki. Both have seaward tracks that follow the dunes. We kept to the inland track which is more sheltered from the westerly wind.

Walk: Kapiti 36

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Links

Wellington Tramway Museum

Queen Elizabeth Park

History

The name Paraparaumu is from an early foray of the Musket Wars.
RNZ Nau Mai Town – Paraparaumu

The greater Wellington Regional Council gives the history of Queen Elizabeth Park here:
Queen Elizabeth Park Resource Statement

I have some family links with the area from the 1800’s.
History of the Howell family (my paternal Grandmother’s relatives)

From the 1850s, several Pakeha families came into the Whareroa/Paekakariki area to
farm the land which included areas currently within the Queen Elizabeth Park. From 1860, John Telford established a sheep farm know as ‘Wharemako’ and this extended around and south of current-day Raumati and presumably included the northern part of the park

In August 1879, William Bentinck Howell leased much of this land off Telford for £100 per annum for 10 years. The 1,335-acre run carried 800 sheep. In 1884 Howell agreed to buy another 600 acres or so, on deferred payment, with the result that he then held an approximately 2,000 acre farm that extended all the way down to Whareroa Stream. Howell continued leasing and acquired a right of purchase of the whole farm by the late 1880s. He began draining the swamps in between the sandhills and establishing pasture.

Howell Road, Paraparaumu Beach

Named after the Howell family, early settlers. William Bentinck Howell (named after the ship he was born on the way to NZ) settled in Wharemaku, a homestead next to the Wharemauku stream in 1879. This house was demolished in about 1949. The site is now 41 Alexander Road.
Source: Kapiti Historical Society – Street names and early dwellings Project

My grandmother’s grandfather and brothers

Long Bay Regional Park, Auckland

Walk #172, 21st September 2025

This seaside reserve, half an hour from Auckland includes a kilometre-long sandy beach and a coastal marine reserve. Green hillsides provide a buffer from the neighbouring suburbs and pohutukawas flank the beach along the length of the bay.

The parkland continues north of the beach for about two kilometres before turning inland along the Okura river.

Vaughan homestead, the original farm homestead has been restored and is open for visitors.

Walk: Auckland 4

Related walk: Okura Bush and Dacre Cottage

Links

Long Bay Regional Park

Jubilee Park, Hamilton

Walk #171, 10th September 2025

Jubilee Park, known locally as Claudelands Bush, is a tiny bush remnant of what was a 200-hectare forest, dominated by Kahikatea, Rimu and Matai. Development has seen the forest shrink over the years to its current size, with some of the remaining trees part of the original forest.

The park is also home to the endangered long tailed bat, the pekapeka, one of New Zealand’s only mammals.

Walk: Hamilton 17

Links

Long tailed bats: Andrew Styche, from the Department of Conservation (DOC), thinks bats have mostly survived in Hamilton thanks to tiny islands of remnant bush within the city limits.

“There’s not much original vegetation left around here so it is amazing they’ve survived,” Andrew says.

Urban bats: Long-tailed bats thriving in Hamilton

History

From the signboard, the land was originally a renowned native bird forest hunting area. The first inhabitants of the area were the Mokohape, a sub-tribe of an extensive tribal group known as Nga Iwi (the people). They were replaced by Tainui people from Mokau and Kawhia.

In the 1800s battles were fought against Te Rauparaha from the west, Ngapuhe from the north and then the British in the Waikato land wars of the 1860s.

With European settlement, Francis Claude subdivided the land in 1870 and the suburb became known as Claudelands.

The Mokohape

Mokohape refers to a figure depicted on carved pou (posts) outside a casino in Hamilton, New Zealand, which represents a tribe of the Nga Iwi people who once lived on the Waikato River before being conquered by Ngaati Wairere. The pou feature a carved face and a lizard, symbolizing the Mokohape people’s struggle for survival and eventual displacement, an event captured by the proverb, “People may disappear but the land remains.” Source: Google AI