Today we visit the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park, west of Auckland. This is a regional park of more than 17,000 hectares with much native forest and rugged coastline. This land is called Wao-nui-a-Tiriwa (The Great Forest of Tiriwa) by local Maori. Annual rainfall is more than two metres. Although much of the forest has been destroyed in the past, there are still some nice remnants of the original dense rainforest with large specimen of kauri Agathis australis, rimu Dacrydium cupressinum and kahikatea Dacrycarpus dacrydioides.
Although the first efforst to protect parts of the area date back to 1894, it was not until 1941 when the Auckland Centennial Memorial Park was established, commemorating Auckland’s first 100 years. This covered only 3000 hectares. This area now forms the core of the regional park.
We start our visit at the iconic Arataki Visitor Centre, to acquire some more information on the region. This is a most beautiful Visitor Centre, that gives great views of the southern part of the park.
Then we head for the beach at Karekare. This beach has become quite famous because parts of the movie ‘The Piano’ by Jane Campion are filmed here.
Next we do the Auckland City Walk in the Cascade area at the end of Falls Road, along a good grove of Kauri.
(Much more information on the kauri at conifers.org).
Finally we visited the gannetry at Muriwai. Gannets Morus serrator are large seabirds. Breeding on the mainland is quite rare. But here at Muriwai they do. It means that you can have beautiful views of the gannets (and their chicks) from the viewing platforms, just above the nesting spots.
(photo by Kees Aalbers)
more pictures in our Dutch blog.
