On my first day home in New Zealand, Lisa and I went out for a Tiki Tour to Duder Regional Park on the Pohutukawa Coast with the intention of doing exercise…shock horror I know. I had bought walking boots prior to heading home so I needed to justify that purchase with a decent walk. Lisa powered up little Roberto for our drive out to Duder Regional Park; we are both proud owners of Fiat 500’s purchased within a week of each other…Italian Job anyone!
I should be nice and let you know what a tiki tour is…Kiwi’s will know…nobody else will have the foggiest of ideas….so it’s a sight seeing journey with no real destination in mind, taking a scenic route to a destination (you’re probably lost when you mention the words tiki tour) or just wandering aimlessly.
We decided on doing the Whakakaiwhara Pa Walk which breaks off from the Farm loop and offers the best views from the Regional Park…it may have taken us longer than the recommended time as I was taking way too many photos along the way.
We’d only been on the path for a few minutes when I managed to spot and promptly scare off a Kingfisher, a New Zealand Wood Pigeon and a few Tuis…and then we saw some Pukekos which are the most ditzy of all New Zealand birds…and they had little babies…the babies managed to hide before I got to photograph them!
I’d truly forgotten how beautiful the New Zealand landscape is….as much as I love the history of England, it really doesn’t compare to New Zealand’s wild and rugged natural beauty.
The path had us weaving through some cows…well rather quickly…too quick to get a photo! Finally getting to the top of the path we found a few pohutukawa trees that were in flower to photograph…
…Lisa decided to pose for me…totally in the name of an instagram cliche of course! We’ll call it the flying plane pose!
We then found a perfect little spot…
…where we did a selfie…we must remember to sit up straight, shoulders back and boobies out…next time! We went for the Hunchback of Notre Dame selfie look.
I kinda got excited about seeing a red shed…I’m easily pleased…red is my favourite colour.
While the path is pretty easy at the beginning with a gravel path…
…it does go a bit off road but you just follow the red posts….easy peasy right! It’s not too rough but there are a few climbs to work off last nights dinner.
Trust me the views around the coast line of Duder Regional Park are stunning…
…you…
…really…
…must…
…visit!
We finally made it to the Whakakaiwhara Pa site and we were pretty proud of how far we had travelled…
…all totally worth it for this view alone!
^^It screams “New Zealand Summer”
After doing a number of posing photos which I won’t share…we were rather sweaty bettys, we turned around and headed back but first we visited the point…
…and then missed the below said red post as we were talking about instagram…we were possibly doing all the fake poses you see on the app and not really paying attention…
…and almost ended up in a paddock with sheep as we had gone the wrong way…but we still ended up in another paddock filled of sheep but the right one and I’m sure I almost broke Lisa’s wrist by dragging her through the paddock quick smart!
The walk at Duder Regional Park took us around three hours however there are shorter walking routes for every fitness level.
The Duder family had owned and farmed this land for approximately 130 years prior to selling the 400 acres to the the Auckland Regional Council in 1995 so it can now be enjoyed by everyone. You can read more about Duder Regional Park here via the council website.
^^As I said on instagram: Not all those that wander are lost…unless of course you lose sight of the red posts and almost end in a paddock full of sheep…doh, then those that wander are lost!
I know a lot of tourists completely write off Auckland when they visit New Zealand but there is so much to see and do so I’m hoping I may inspire a few people to spend a day or two visiting New Zealand’s biggest city.
What’s your favourite walking spot in New Zealand?
xx
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