Long Bay Coastal Walk - 21 Oct. 2006

Today we headed north, to the far end of Beach Rd, where Long Bay Regional Park begins. Although I'd been to the beach and the area close to it many many times in years gone by, I'd never actually ventured past there and along the Long Bay Coastal Walk.

We started out by heading along a short Nature Trail which was interesting but would have benefited from a few labels on the trees as there were quite a few intriguing specimens that I have no idea about.

Then we walked up to the Vaughan Homestead, which weirdly faces in, across the river, rather than out to the great views of Rangitoto. The start of the Coastal Walk turned out to be at the bottom of this hill, so we squelched back down and then headed up along the cliff tops towards the mouth of the Okura River.

Many birds were spotted, some of unknown name, but including grey herons, several types of gull, cormorant, magpies, fantails, sparrows, thrush, blackbirds, tomtits, finches, pukeko, ducks, and something that may have been a yellowhammer?

Walking around the clifftops involved quite a lot of up hill and down dale, but the views were grand,

and eventually we made it to the Okura River mouth, to start the trek back around the coast (which is only passable three hours either side of low tide).

The walk back seemed a bit dull at first - impressive sedimentary layer cliffs to the right, views of Whangaparaoa Peninsula to the left, rock and sand underfoot. But after a while I started to notice the large range of rock formations, some of which were quite like the surface of another planet (or how I imagine the surface of another planet, to be more accurate).

All in all a lovely walk, took us about 3 hours in total, involving a great deal of stopping for photos, and a really rather nice view of Long Bay at the end.