Walk 72, 25th September 2021
This is a beautiful farm park at the end of Whangaparoa peninsula. It has everything – native bush full of native birds, a waterfall, views, a farm, beaches and a camping area. A pest proof fence has been constructed since our last visit in 2010.
Walk: Auckland 2
Links
Jan 2025, Dozens of rare hihi chicks hatch in Auckland’s Shakespear Regional Park
Walk 65, 26th April 2021
This park is a working farm on the South Kaipara Peninsula. The walk leads to a remote beach filled with birds like Oyster Catchers, Godwits, Terns, Herons and Black Swans. The view over the Kaipara Harbour is stunning.
We didn’t see a lot of Puriri trees, considering how the park is named.
I recommend starting the walk outside the car park by the stockyard. It’s not such an uphill slog on the way back going in that direction.
Walk: Auckland Walk 10
Links
Te Rau Puriri Regional Park – an introduction | Auckland Council
South Kaipara Landcare – Te Rau Puriri (Regional Park)
Auckland Council’s farms featured on Country Calendar
Birds in the area: NZ Bird Atlas
Farm History
Four tribes that are known to have inhabited the South Kaipara Head from the time of earliest settlement, including; Te Kawerau-a-Maki, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whātua and Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara. Radiocarbon ages estimates indicate at
least 800 years of settlement and occupation. – After Davidson, J. (1984) The Prehistory of New Zealand.
During the early 1800s, the battle of Te Ika-a Ranganui led to the virtual total abandonment of the Kaipara area by Māori (Spring-Rice, W. 1996. Māori Settlement on the South Kaipara Peninsula). In 1837, Māori began to reclaim their ancestral lands in the region. Source:
Atiu Creek is a working farm park which was owned by Pierre and Jackie Chatelanat. They gifted it as a park to the NZ people and the property is being run by the Auckland City Council.
We knew Jackie and Pierre from our work as IT Consultants. I couldn’t have met better people. They were gentle, humble and always interested in us. ♥
We’ve gone for several walks on the farm. The tracks are well maintained and there are beautiful views over the Kaipara.
Walk: Northland 38
Besides developing Atiu Creek, Pierre worked for a time with the UN FAO developing composite flour. He wanted me to scan the pages of a book he produced about it. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to type any explanations of the photos but the pictures show what he developed. I remember him telling me the woman on the cover of the book is wearing a dress he picked for her.
These are the pages of the book I scanned for him in 2011: Composite Flour.
Jackie explains: “In the 1960s Pierre found himself in charge of a mission station in New Guinea for two years. This was a turning point in his life as observing the local villagers drying and preserving sweet potato so successfully he realised the possibility of applying the same principle to all food crops, such as taro and sago, and later sorghum and millet. This started him on a project which by a chance meeting with one of FAO’s food technologists was to take him to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
He was invited originally to join the Freedom From Hunger Campaign to develop his ideas and always on a voluntary basis spent almost thirty years eventually initiating his own project which he called the Composite Flour Programme. This was to encourage developing countries, especially in Africa, to increase and use the cereal crops they were growing already and so reduce dependence on wheat imports. He compiled two technical books during those years, mainly for cereal chemists, which were then distributed to all UN members.
1n 1986 with the farm at Atiu Creek in such good hands, he felt able to resume his research work on composite flours. He and Jackie travelled to 19 industrialised countries to document their sophisticated use of cereal crops produced by the third world and their acceptability world-wide. FAO has now a library of information and photographic evidence on the use of composite flours and is available to all, especially and hopefully those developing countries who need to increase their food production.”
Links
Pierre’s legacy lives on at Atiu Creek
♥
Tawharunui peninsula is not far from where I live and I’ve been to the regional park several times .
It’s the first mainland island that combines farming, public recreation and conservation of native species. The aim is to create an open sanctuary free of plant and animal pests, which showcases how aspects of sustainable land management – recreation, conservation and farming – can be compatible.
The park is on a peninsula with a predator-proof fence to keep out animal pests. It is also close to islands, such as Little Barrier/Hauturu, and is a stepping-stone for birds such as kereru, kaka, bellbird/korimako and seabirds. The bellbirds reintroduced themselves as soon as the predator-proof fence went up. How did they know?
Evening kiwi walk
I’ve been out there twice at night to see kiwi with Ness from Kiwiness Tours. I highly recommend her tours, especially the evening kiwi walk.
Our latest kiwi walk with Ness was on the 7th November, 2020.
Walk: Northland 34
History of Tawharunui peninsula:
My friends the late Lyn and Fred Marshall lived, farmed and raised their family there before retiring to Snells Beach. Ness from Kiwiness Tours also grew up there, she was the rangers kid.
It’s a special place.
The area was occupied from ancient times. In fact local tradition states
that Te Ika roa ā Maui, ‘Maui’s long fish’ (the North Island) was hauled from the sea to the north east of Tāwharanui. After the fishing up of the land, the area was occupied by ancient peoples known as Ngāti Kui, Tūtūmaiao and Tūrehu (Wiripo Potene in G. Graham, 1927).
Local tradition also tells us that the famous ancestor and voyager Toi te huatahi visited the area approximately eight centuries ago and named many of its prominent features including Te Hauturu ō Toi (Little
Barrier Island). The large island adjacent to Tāwharanui (Kawau Island) was named Te Kawau tū maro ō Toi, ‘the sentinel cormorant of Toi’, and the Hauraki Gulf was named Te Moana nui ō Toi, ‘the great sea of Toi’.
In local tradition Toi is credited with living for some time at Maraeroa on Hauturu (Little Barrier Island.) The descendants of Toi were known as ‘Tini ō Toi’ or ‘the multitudes of Toi’, and some of them settled in the area with the more ancient people who were already there. They in turn were absorbed by later migrations associated with several of the famous ancestral waka (canoes) from Polynesia.
At the time of first European contact the hapu (sub tribal groups) in occupation of the Tāwharunui area were Ngāti Manuhiri and Ngāti Raupō.
Source: Tawharunui – Our History
Links
Tawharunui Regional Park walks
Ambury Regional Park at Mangere Bridge is right in the heart of Auckland. The park is named after Stephen Ambury who farmed the land and built a homestead for his family in the 1880s.
The park is a working farm. There are farm animals to meet including a handsome pair of Clydesdale horses and a pet lamb enclosure where children can pet the lambs. There’s a bird hide where you can see birds feeding in the estuary, and as you wonder through the fields you’ll see sheep, ducks, domestic fowl and peacocks.
There are beautiful views over the Manukau Harbour.
The narrowest point of land between the Manukau and Waitemata harbours is the isthmus at Otahuhu, called the Otahuhu portage. It was only 1km long and it’s where the Maori dragged their canoes (waka) across the Tamaki isthmus.
Walk: Auckland 37
Links
NZShortWalks 