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| Tangaroa parked at Tutira Regional Park |
Tūtira Regional Park, forty minutes drive north of
Napier, is a pretty spot where motorhomes can park and campers can pitch their
tents for a koha of $5 per night. Tūtira
is a wildlife refuge and has been a bird sanctuary since 1929. We based ourselves beside the lake here for a
while, and did some memorable walks in the area.
At Tūtira
itself we walked from Tangaroa to the
Table Mountain trig. This loop walk took
about four hours and we climbed ever higher over open hillsides until we
reached the summit. From here we could
see Napier and Cape Kidnappers, though hazily.
This was about the half way point of the walk—from here we went steeply
down into a pine forest, where the track had been turned into a quagmire by
cattle. We slithered down and eventually
came out in some paddocks not far from the bus.
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| Lake Tutira |
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| On the Table Mountain walk |
Inland
from Lake Tūtira is an area called the Boundary Stream Mainland Island. Predators
are intensively trapped here, with the hope that native birds will again flourish
and the native forest will regenerate.
Māori legend recounts how, long ago, the Tākitimu canoe sailed past the area. A tohunga (priest) on board threw a wooden
carving shaped like a bird at the mountain range. When it landed the slopes erupted with
birdlife. Māori named it Maungaharuru,
'rumbling mountain'—they said it reverberated with bird calls.
William
Guthrie-Smith, who once farmed neighbouring Tūtira Station, was an early and
influential naturalist and conservationist. Tūtira: the story of a New
Zealand sheep station was
published in 1921 and is regarded as a New Zealand classic. Guthrie-Smith's journals chronicle the spread
of plants and animals now regarded as pests.
He became a founding member of the Royal Forest and Bird
Protection Society and worked hard to promote the conservation of native
species. We found information about
Guthrie-Smith and the Tūtira and Maungaharuru reserves on panels at the
Regional Park and at reserves in the Boundary Stream Area, now in the care of
DOC. I think he would have been pleased
with the progress made so far.
Setting out in the car, we turned onto Matahorua Road at Tūtira
store. The gravel road wound higher and
we had great views out over the countryside.
We turned left onto Pohokura Road and continued for another ten
kilometres or so, until we saw a carved
Māori gateway where we stopped.
There were information panels about the carving, the nearby tracks and
the birdlife. While we were reading a
flock of raucous kākā landed screeching in the trees above us. Our planned walk that day was to Bell Rock—we
hadn't realised before that there were other things to see and do in the
area. We decided not to get
side-tracked, however, so continued a few kilometres up the road to a small car
park and began the Bell Rock walk.
The path
went gently upward for about 30-40 minutes through gnarly, moss-covered pepperwood and fuchsia broadleaf forest, with ferns of several types
bordering the path. There were traps for stoats and rats, and bait stations. We
also saw wooden weta houses attached to trees
with some very large weta inside.
We heard bird calls as we walked—tui and bellbird—and saw kererū. Abruptly we emerged into open, tussocky
grassland. There was a stile and DOC
posts marking the route uphill. About 50
metres further on there was a track junction marked by a sign showing Bell Rock
track to the left, a thirty minute uphill walk.
We took longer than this but had lots of photo stops. This section of the track was a marked
contrast to the shady, green forest—it is retired farmland, with wide views in
all directions. The higher the path
went, the more dramatic the views became.
Just
when we thought we were at the highest point the track unexpectedly dipped into
a wide, grassy gully but the marker poles could be seen going up the other
side. A little further on there was
another stile and, finally, the most breathtaking views came into sight. Ahead there was a sheer drop down into a wide
valley, edged by weathered and sculptured limestone formations. Bell Rock was evidently named for its
resemblance to a huge bell, the sort that hang in church belfries. Scrambling (carefully) down to it we could
see the fossilised remains of shellfish embedded in the rock, testament to New
Zealand's turbulent geological past.
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| Me at Bell Rock |
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| Malcolm admiring the views |
This
was obviously the lunch spot, so after some exploring we found a place on the
ledge around Bell Rock and spent some time admiring those views. We could see from the Mahia Peninsula to Cape
Kidnappers in one direction, and ranges stretching inland towards the central
plateau if we looked the other way.
After lunch we retraced our steps to the DOC sign, which indicated that
a loop track would take us to Pohokura Road.
We walked along this track for some way but the path was fenced off and
the route seemed doubtful, so we returned the way we had come, back through the
forest.
On
our way back to Tūtira we stopped to visit the Opouahi Kiwi Crèche. This is at a reserve on Pohokura
Road. We entered the crèche through a
predator-proof fence and found ourselves beside a bush-fringed lake. Information panels told us that kiwi chicks
are reared at the crèche until they are of a big enough size to fend for
themselves in the wild.
Our next foray took us to the walking tracks in the
Boundary Stream Reserve. The through
walk to Heays Access Road takes five hours one way, so we opted to do a
shorter, two hours return, loop track instead.
Although the reserve is not fenced, the aim is to reduce pests
sufficiently so that the forest can continue regenerating and native wildlife
will be able to hold their own. We
walked first through podocarp forest, coming before long to a huge matai,
thought to be 800 years old. We had
lunch on the bluffs looking down into the forest before following the track
back to the car.
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| At Shine Falls |
Shine Falls is described as the most spectacular
waterfall in the Hawkes Bay, so we went to check it out. Had we done the through-walk in the Boundary
Stream Reserve we would have passed it, but to get close by car we had to take
the Heays Access Road turn from Matahorua Road—a drive of almost 20 kilometres
from the Tūtira Store. From the car park
here it was a short, ninety-minute-return walk, first through grassy paddocks
with limestone rock formations looming above us, then through mixed lowland
forest to the stunning waterfall. We saw
four other people on this walk but had seen no one else at all on the other
tracks we had walked in the area.
For a change of pace we took some drives in the car. One day we drove to the Holt Forest Arboretum,
which is down another unsealed road near Tūtira. We parked in a small car park (alone—we were
getting used to seeing no one in this part of the world) and wandered around
through the stands of redwoods and around a lake. The forest was planted by Harold and Dorothy
Holt after they purchased the land in 1933.
They planted the 15 hectares with indigenous and introduced trees,
shrubs and other plants. In 1962 the
arboretum became a wildlife sanctuary and was opened to the public. The road we took back to SH 2 was called
Darkys Spur Road. It was not for the
faint hearted and, to make it worse, Malcolm kept pulling over—stopping, what
seemed like, inches away from steep drops to take photographs.
From the main road we took the turn for Aropaoanui Beach,
which was down a long and winding road. The beach was at the Aropaoanui River mouth,
the river known to be one of the cleanest in New Zealand. It was a surfer’s beach, with plenty of
flotsam for beachcombers to check out.
It was absolutely deserted.
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| Te Ana Falls |
Further down SH 2 we saw a sign for Tangoio Falls
Walkway. This short walk took us through
native forest beside a little stream.
There were two waterfalls to see, Te Ana Falls and, a little further on,
there was a viewpoint where we could look across the valley to Tangoio
Falls. Being beside the main road this
walk had several other people on it, just when we had got used to having all
these bush walks to ourselves!
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| Waipatiki Beach |
Our final sortie in the area took us towards the coast
again. We went to look at Waipatiki
Beach. This small settlement has a
coastal walkway leading both north and south from the beach. We walked a little way in the northerly
direction but signs advised the track was closed due to a slip. By now we were thinking about ice cream. I had hoped the village might have a little store
but it was too small for that, so we headed back to the shop at Tūtira and sat
outside enjoying our fix.
Then we drove back to the shores of Lake Tūtira, where we
sat in the shade of Tangaroa's awning
enjoying a rum and coke while watching black swans strutting around the
lakeshore. We considered that we had
seen and done a lot in the area. It was
time to move on but we knew that we would be back.
Information about places mentioned in this post - correct at the time of writing
Walks
- · Boundary Stream Walks:
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/hawkes-bay/places/boundary-stream-area/things-to-do/boundary-stream-walks/
Kamahi Loop Track: 4.5 km, 2 hr return, easy: walking track
Tumanako Loop
Track: 2 km, 40 min return, easy: walking track
Bell Rock: 5.3 km, 3 hr return, easy:
walking track
Heays Access Road
to Shine Falls Track: 2 km, 1.5 hr return, easy: walking track
Bell Rock: 5.3 km, 3 hr return, easy:
walking track
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Tangoio Falls
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/hawkes-bay/places/tutira-area/things-to-do/tangoio-falls-scenic-reserve-tracks
Te Ana Falls: 2 km, 30 min return, easy: walking track
Tangoio Falls: 4 km, 1 hour return, easy: walking track
Access: 1855, SH 2,
Tangoio
Places to visit
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Tūtira Regional Park
SH 2 41 km north of
Napier, 77 km south of Wairoa
www.hbrc.govt.nz/hawkes-bay/parks-trails-and-open-spaces/tutira-regional-park
- ·
Opouahi Kiwi Crèche
Pokokura Rd, off
Matahorua Rd, Tūtira
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/toyota-kiwi-guardians/sites/kiwi-guardians-around-napier/opouahi-panpac-kiwi-creche
- ·
Holt Forest Arboretum
Holt Forest Rd, Tangoio
Has occasional 'open
days'
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