Te Ahua Point, Piha, Auckland

Walk #192 8th April 2026

The lookout is situated between Karekare and Piha beaches. The views weren’t great, we couldn’t see Lion Rock because cyclone Vaianu was on its way from Fiji.

We didn’t realise at first we were walking on a pa site related to the ancient Turehu. The inhabitants of this ancient pa lived on the cliffs either from fear of people or fear of a tsunami.

The full name of Te Ahua Point is ‘Te Ahua O Hinerangi.’ Hinerangi was a Turehu ancestress. A pou (carved pole) dedicated to a descendant of the same name looks out toward the Tasman Sea. This Hinerangi died of a broken heart after losing her husband to a rogue wave while fishing on the rocks at Piha.

The info board maintains the site was one of those chosen by the ancestors of Te Kawau a Maki who lived here for its position and proximity to Hikurangi. Hikurangi was the name given to the main mountainous range that formed part of Te Wao nui a Tiwa, the great forest of Tiriwa. Tiriwa was the chief of the Waitakere Turehu.

The ancestors of Te Kawau a Maki are the Turehu, a pre-Maori people. Their hair colours ranged from white and dull-golden, with red being predominant in the general population. There were also shades of brown through to black. Braided samples of this multi-coloured hair (taken from the Waitakere rock shelters) used to be on display at Auckland War Memorial Museum and were written about by Maori Historian, Sir Peter Buck.

There is more about the Turehu here, under the heading ‘Waitakere Turehu, Auckland‘ …

The Pre Waka Peoples, Patupaiarehe and Turehu

There is a radar station at the site. In 1948 two pioneering radio astronomers determined for the first time the source of radio waves from outside the solar system. The radio signals were identified as coming from three stars, Taurus-A, Centaurus-A and Virgo-A. Taurus-A is the remnant of the famous Crab Nebula, a super nova in the constellation of Taurus which exploded in 1054 AD.

Walk: Auckland 21

Links

Clues about the ancient inhabitants of Te Ahua Pa

Te Kawerau

About 15 years before Captain James Cook arrived, Ngati Whatua took over the Tamaki isthmus by warfare (note: Maori land ownership kept changing as tribes grew stronger) and yet even then, the Kawerau in the Waitakere’s were still recognised as the iwi whenua of the Waitakere when others such as the Maruiwi and Waiohua became extinct or absorbed into Ngati-Whatua, (In effect, they became the same as Maori absorbed into European bloodlines today – if you think about it!). The remnants of the Kawerau lived in Mahurangi and Omaha after these times. Source: The Kawerau

“Te Kawerau ā Maki are a West Auckland-based iwi. Our origins arise through whakapapa to the first human inhabitants of the land – the Tūrehu, and descent from the early migratory people to settle the region, such as the Tini ō Maruiwi and Te Tini ō Toi, to the arrival of the Tainui, Aotea, Moekakara, Tokomaru, Kahuitara, and Kurahaupo canoes in the 14th century, and the Ngati Awa, Ngāoho, and Ngāiwi people who occupied the wider area prior to 1600.” Source: Te Kawerau a Maki

Matiatia Historic Reserve, Waiheke Island

Walk #191, 5th April 2026

The walk begins to the north of the ferry terminal at Matiatia. The first ten minutes of the walk is along the beach and it’s best to go either side of low tide.

The picturesque views include Rangitoto Island and downtown Auckland. The track passes some of the island’s most expensive houses with their manicured gardens and sculptures. There’s an interesting dog made of timber at Cable Bay.

It’s a slog up a lot of steps at Cable Bay until you get to Delamore Drive. The road has a gate which you pass through and after that a long track downhill track leads back to the ferry terminal at Matiatia.

Walk: Waiheke 50

New Plymouth Coastal walkway

Walk #186, 21st February 2026

The 7km long walk goes from the port to the estuary of the Waiwhakaiho River. We started at the other end, next to the Te Rewa Rewa Bridge because I wanted to get that perfect shot of the bridge and Mount Taranaki. It was too cloudy for that in the early afternoon, so we walked as far as the Fitzroy Beach reserve. We didn’t have time to go any further.

We’ve done the walk from the other end on a blustery day with friends in 2017.

We returned at 6pm for the sunset shot and this time it was perfect.

Mount Taranaki can be seen on a clear day, usually in the evening, from the hill where I live in Wanganui, see below.

The walk was busy at times with cyclists who I can’t always hear on the path, but because of that awesome bridge I rate it as a solid four. The bridge was opened in 2010 and is part of the northern extension to the Coastal Walkway, connecting New Plymouth with Bell Block.

Walk: Taranaki 6

Related walk with the history of the area:
Pukekura Park / Brooklands Park, New Plymouth

Mount Taranaki taken at sunset from Wanganui, Oct 2023

Waikareao Estuary Walkway, Tauranga, Bay of Plenty

Walk #181, 20th December 2025

Walk: Bay of Plenty 7

We did part of the 9km long estuary walkway, from McCardle Reserve to the Esplanade Reserve. It’s a flat, easy walk but stick to the left and watch out for cyclists.

History

The area forms part of my childhood memories from when I stayed with my mother’s family in Tauranga in the 1960s and early to mid 1970s. The area has changed quite a lot since then.

They lived in a large house on the hill at 31 Chapel Street which overlooked the estuary. It was situated next to the Mission House, which in those days ran a farm and had milking cows and animals which were kept on what is now the Domain.

My grandfather owned two boats, which I don’t remember because it was before my time. He built a small jetty just below the Domain where the boat was moored.

My mother is in black togs seated next to my grandfather who is standing in the water. My great-Grandfather is the one wearing a hat at the other end of the boat.

Pre-european history

The earliest people known to have lived in the Tauranga area are the Purukupenga, whose name alone survives, and the Ngamarama, who inhabited all the land from the sea to the Kaimai ranges.

So numerous were these people that when the Tainui canoe passed through the Tauranga harbour, she made only a brief stay.

An anchor stone was found on the foreshore directly below the old Otumoetai Pa. The pa originally belonged to the Ngamarama people. They were replaced by Ngati Ranginui and then later by Ngaiterangi. The latter were in control of the Tauranga district when the missionaries and traders arrived in the early 19th century. As the largest pa in the district it was referred to by missionaries as “the capital of Tauranga.”
Source: Tauranga Heritage Collection

A second carved mahe (Māori anchor/sinker stone) found in the Tauranga Harbour by a fisherman in 2005. Image: Tauranga Heritage Collection.

Related walk:

Mount Maunganui,Bay of Plenty

Links

Waikareao Estuary Walkway

Otumoetai Pa

He Toto: Te Ahu Matua a ngā Tūpuna
Tauranga City Libraries
Description: Ancestral history, stories, and whakapapa of various whānau, hapū, and iwi of Tauranga Moana. Researched and written by John Steedman.

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

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

Links

King Country places

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

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

Flagstaff Hill, Russell

Walk 6th Sept 2011

While it’s winter time I’m posting some walks we did years ago. The walks on this page were at Russell / Kororareka in the Bay of Islands. We’ve been to Russell twice, the first time was in early spring of 2011 when we took the ferry across from Paihia. The second visit was in the late winter of 2015, and this time I walked from Okiato near the car ferry at Opua. Despite the lawlessness of the area, for a short time in 1845 Okiato was the site of NZ’s first capital.

Russell began life as Kororareka, and it was a wild town full of whalers, grog shops, brothels and a Maori Pa belonging to Ngapuhi chief Hone Heke.

Tensions grew between the Maori and the British over the imposition of duties and tarrifs. Inspired by talk of revolution by the Americans, in 1844 Hone hacked down a flag pole he’d formerly given the British. When it was replaced in 1845 he cut it down again and actually flew the US flag from his waka (canoe).

To provide further context to the issue, according to the 19th century Pakeha Maori F.E. Maning (see links below) the Maoris associated the British flag with the lack of trade and high-prices. When the duties and tarrifs came off after the first flagpole was chopped down, it resulted in goods becoming affordable again. In the Maori mind, stopping the British flag from flying solved the problem.

The fourth time the flagpole was erected in 1845, the lower portion was clad in iron, but that did not stop Hone from cutting it down yet again – and to follow it up he sacked the town, burning down many buildings including the Duke of Marlborough Hotel.

The Duke of Marlborough Hotel was quickly rebuilt after being burned down and the establishment has been running ever since. We had lunch in the historic dining room overlooking the waterfront during our week’s stay at Okiato in 2015.

Christ Church is the oldest surviving church in NZ. It actually has bullet holes from the Battle of Kororareka. Hone Heke told his warriors to leave the church standing but its old timbers still bear the scars from the battle. It has a historic graveyard that we walked through. Among the graves in the churchyard are those of Tamati Waka Nene (a Ngapuhi chief largely responsible for the Maori’s acceptance of the Treaty of Waitangi and who fought for the settlers against Hone Heke), members of the Clendon family (James R Clendon was the first honorary United States Consul), and the men from the HMS Hazard who fell in the battle.

We went to a church service on the Sunday we were there in the winter of 2015. That was special. There was no minister, the parishioners kept the church running by themselves. After qualifiying for a degree in theology from an institution in Melbourne they all took turns at preaching. The hymns were played by MP3 through a sound system. We were impressed at their commitment and quiet ‘can do’ attitude. I met a great-granddaughter of Hone Heke at that church, she was a very elegant and well spoken woman.

On our first trip to Russell in 2011 we visited Flagstaff Hill. We strolled along the historic waterfront and then climbed the path through regenerating bush to the hill overlooking the town. A new flagstaff was erected in 1857 as an act of reconciliation by those involved in cutting down the old flagpole and it still stands today.

Back then on our first visit we were more interested in the panoramic views of Russell, Paihia, Waitangi and the islands of the Bay. Our interest in NZ history came from later walks.

Walk 4th August 2015

This was the walk from Okiato to Russell / Kororareka I did in 2015. The exercise was ruined after eating and drinking decadent chocolate at the Newport Chocolate shop in Russell. The chocolate was worth every calorie!

Orongo Bay on the walk impressed me the most, with its mangrove boardwalk and Mt Tikitikioure, a small mount rising 180m above the bay. The hill once belonged to a local chief named Ure and it meant ‘Ure’s top-knot. The Maori people there used a blue pigment found deep in the mountain for painting their faces. It turned out be be manganese which was mined until 1887.

Walk: Northland 12

Walks relating to Hone Heke:

Hone Heke Memorial Park, Kaikohe Hill

Ruapekepeka Pa, Northland

Links

Doc – Flagstaff Hill Track, Russell

Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times by Frederick Edward Maning. This book written by Maning, a Pakeha Maori, gives an insight into the time surrounding the war against Hone Heke in 1845. After the battle the maori were plundering the town “because they believed the fight was over, and the people were only quietly plundering the town which had been left for them, and which they had given fair payment for.”

That custom was called ‘muru,’ to plunder, confiscate, take ritual compensation – an effective form of social control, restorative justice and redistribution of wealth among relatives. The process involved taking all the offending party’s goods. The party that had the muru performed on them did not respond by seeking utu.

“At last, all the town people and soldiers went on board the ships, and then the ship of war fired at the Maori people who were plundering in the town. The noise of the firing of the ship guns was very great, and some of Kawiti’s people were near being hit by the lumps of iron. This was not right, for the fight was over … so in revenge they burnt Kororareka, and there was nothing left but ashes ; and this was the beginning of the war.”

Muriwai Lookout and Gannet Colony

Walk 5th Dec 2010

While it’s winter time I’m posting some walks we did years ago, this is one of them. It was a lovely summers day with a warm wind blowing when we crossed the coast to Muriwai from our place at Snells Beach. It was an easy walk and we were able to see the gannets up close.

There used to be two pa at Otakamiro Point where the gannets now are. There’s a seal colony at Oaia just off shore. The gannets began establishing nesting sites on Oaia, then in 1975 on they moved to Motutara Island, and from there they settled on Otakamiro Point, one of only two mainland nesting sites in NZ.

The white fronted terns occupied Motutara Island. Then came the gannets. The gannet invasion of Motutara Island caused the white fronted terns which formerly nested there to shift down to the small crevasses on the sheer cliffs.

To really top the walk off there was a sea cave on the beach. All in all it was a cracker day.

Walk: Auckland 11

Related walk:
Te Ahua Point, Piha

History

The earliest known chief associated with the Motutara area was a renowned rangitira or chieftain known as Takamiro. He, like his famous contemporary Tiriwa, lived at a number of places between Motutara and Whatipu, although he generally occupied the headland that dominates Muriwai Regional Park. This landmark, and the pa which was constructed on it, are still referred to as ‘O-Takamiro’ or ‘the dwelling place of Takamiro.’

Both Tiriwa and Takamiro were Turehu leaders credited in tradition with great spiritual power, and with the ability to modify the landscape.

Korekore Pa near Muriwai Beach

According to local tradition the area was subsequently settled by the ‘Tini o Maruiwi’ or the people of the Kahuitara canoe who migrated north from the Taranaki coastline. Some of this iwi settled on the coastline between the Manukau and Kaipara harbours where they intermarried with the Turehu people.

Ngati Te Kahupara, a sub tribe of both Te Kawerau a Maki and Ngati Whatua descent, lived at Korekore pa until the 1700s. The pa was abandoned before the coming of the European.

J.T. Diamond writes,

“The largest of the pa on the west coast is at Muriwai and is known as Korekore or Oneonenui and locally as Whare-kura. This pa has been fully described by Firth while Best also makes reference to it in his monograph on the Pa Maori.

This conspicuous headland pa jutting out into the sand dunes about 2½ miles to the north of Motutara was until 1938 one of the best preserved of pa sites. Its covering of pohutukawa and puriri trees has however been since removed and the whole area grassed. To prevent cattle and sheep being trapped, many of an extensive series of subterranean storage chambers have been blocked up, while the huge defensive earthwork 60 feet across and 27 feet deep has been partially infilled to provide tractor access to the western section of the pa.

The carvings on the side of the large storage pit situated on the ridge running south-west from the main pa are still in a good state of preservation, as are house sites and storage pits in this area in general. But much of interest on the main pa site has been obliterated. There was a kumera pit 28 x 21 x 7 foot deep.”

Source: Maori in the Waitakere Ranges, by J.T. Diamond, p 304-314/p1