Walking the Wild West

Another overcast Sunday, another opportunity to put on the hiking boots. This time we headed way out to Whatipu, the northern head of the Manukau Harbour and the southern tip of the Waitakeres. The walk was a 5-hour loop, first climbing up to around 300m before descending into a valley and then returning along the coast.

The drive out there was an adventure enough in itself - we didn't see too many other Mini's heading out along the dirt road! The climb up through a Manuka Forest took us just over an hour, no where near the signposted 2-hours. Supposedly you can sometimes have views all the way down to Mt Taranki - not this day. The descent was pretty steep, and we had to billy goat it a view times. Passing through an awesome grove of Nikau Palms (and a couple of Kauri too) we finally made it down in the valley. Here our lack of tramping cred was exposed, as we removed out boots to cross the stream. Of course, this is when we saw the first people as day, as two guys strode straight past us and straight across the stream.

With dry feet on the other side, we made our down the way and out to the coast and some pretty impressive sand dunes. This was real wild west stuff. The dunes must stretch out for nearly a kilometre to the sea, where the Tasman Sea was throwing down it's best on the coast. It took us nearly 2-hours to make our way back, not seeing a soul the whole way. It felt quite surreal walking through this black expanse all by ourselves. We tried to take the direct line a few times, though each time we were beaten back by grass and wetlands. In the end, it was easier to just take the wide way.

When we finally make it back to the heads at Whatipu, it was a shock to see how many people were there - we had seen the sum total of 4 people during the whole walk. We pulled our tired legs back into the car and headed back in to the city - where we were surprised to find that on the other side of the hills it was brilliantly sunny. But the gray and the clouds had suit the scenery. And now we could enjoy the stunning evening with a couple of well earned pints at Galbraiths, and satisfaction on a bloody good day.