Mahurangi Coastal Path
Mahurangi Coastal Path will link 900 hectares of regional parkland, with public transport at Waiwera. The coastal path concept has already helped to ensure Te Muri remains car-free forever.
It’s a barge! It’s a boat! It’s the J Barry Ferguson
By any reasonable criteria, the J Barry Ferguson can be described as a landing barge. Clearly not in the assault-troop-landing sense, not least of all because of its diminutive size. In one very important respect, however, the J Barry Ferguson is not a typical…
Giselles and Gabrielles of their grandchildren
That, in modern meteorological history, Aotearoa has never been hit by a tropical cyclone, is no fluke. The clue, of course, is “tropical”. Not that a tropical cyclone can’t survive beyond the tropics, or even beyond the subtopics—Gabrielle was in the subtropics within a couple of…
Hungry-Creek-Road-first policy right for the wrong reasons
Prioritising private-light-vehicle access via Hungry Creek Road, ahead of a footbridge across Te Muri Estuary, is counter-productive policy making, fundamentally incompatible with Auckland Council’s own declared climate emergency. Fortunately, the tens of millions that would be…
Seeing coastal path for the trails, great regional park for the parks
Waiwera to Mullet Point, is a coastline mostly of regional parkland—all but about 3.5 of the 13 kilometres from Mahurangi Island to Mullet Point already is. Yet, that all-but contiguous 1000 hectares of regional parkland is officially five separate parks—six, unless a major, joint…
Coastal path and the greater Mahurangi regional park
Wenderholm, objectively, was where it started. While the 1729-hectare Centennial Memorial Park established in 1940 is recorded as Auckland’s first regional park, Wenderholm was the first of a half-century of regional parkland acquisitions that resulted in today’s 41 000-hectare…
Splendid summer to protect Te Muri sense of isolation
Already three years behind in its 10-year review, the draft regional parks management plan is now not due to be approved for release until November. Submissions on the monumental—the current document runs to 504 pages—and monumentally important…
Te Muri access dictated drop-in location
Was it not for John Darrach’s 1880s activism, Saturday’s coffee-and-croissants drop-in day, in Mahurangi West’s former school, would have been held in Sullivans Bay. John Darrach was so exercised about the danger to the 23 Māori and 14 Pākehā children living at school-less…
Mahurangi West land restoration planting Sunday 11 July
Officially, the West is East, but in practice it is neither, nor is it in the Mahurangi hydrological catchment, it being in that of Te Muri. First planting day under the Mahurangi Land Restoration label appears to be an echo of the first under the $3 million Mahurangi Action…
Te Muri Crossing coffee-and-croissants drop-in day
Te Muri Crossing high tea 2022, will be on Mother’s Day. Mothers who were treated to Sunday’ high tea at Tu Ngutu Villa clearly enjoyed the afternoon, the star-studded speakers, and the silent auction. The silent auction, after initially having nothing not on offer at the…
Te Muri Crossing high-tea silent auction online
Generous Friends of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail: The design and consenting of this 260-metre boardwalk-and-footbridge Te Muri Crossing is what your bids will help to complete. Because some of the best friends of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail were unable to be present…
Grand start to greater Mahurangi coastal path
Even Conservative-led England has its England Coast Path. A coastal pathway from Waiwera to Waipū, Whangārei or anywhere, once built, will seem the most obvious, and most marvellously magnificent thing in the world. Coastal urban Tāmaki Makaurau can…
High tea and then high time for community crossing engagement
Transparency, in a democracy, should be the default behaviour that is only departed from rarely, rather than routinely. Thus, it is a relief to report that, come next Sunday’s high tea at Tu Ngutu Villa, Mahurangi Coastal Trail trustee and coastal engineer Craig Davis will be…
Imperative for private-vehicle-free Te Muri future
Not everyone supports the proposed Te Muri crossing. Nor does everyone who supports the proposed Te Muri crossing, support every aspect of it. For example, many Mahurangi West people would have preferred that development of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail began…
Wicked climate action starts with Wenderholm Regional Park
Wenderholm is a wicked place to tackle the wicked problem of anthropogenic global warming. Wickedly symbolic, to begin with. Wenderholm was the first of Auckland’s wonderful 41 000-hectare network of now 28 regional parks. Throughout their otherwise…
Hour for Sunday 30 May Te Muri Crossing high tea
One hour can make a world of difference. Arrive at the stream mouth 15 minutes ahead of the turn of a spring-high-tide high, and a leisurely sidestroke, beach towel aloft, will quickly have even the far-from-fit across to enjoy Te Muri’s sense of splendid isolation. Forty-five minutes…
Better-not-bigger on beauteous display
Mahurangi Regatta’s better-not-bigger mantra is intoned in the full knowledge that with better comes bigger. The Mahurangi Regatta is so sublimely and uniquely attractive, its growth is utterly inevitable. Mahurangi Action, as the 1977 revivalists of this at-least 163-year-old…
Reporting on not just the latest in a litany of Mahurangi actions
chart is not just the latest in a long line of Mahurangi actions. Nor is it the first initiative that might have national significance, given that that distinction might arguably go to Ronald Harry Locker’s Jade River: A History of the Mahurangi, which Mahurangi…
Wicked coastal-trail progress thanks to Sir Peter
Sir Peter was reluctant, he said, to use the term wicked problem, lest it imply insolvability. He did allow that addressing climate was very difficult, otherwise it would already have been. Speaking at the Te Muri Crossing charity cocktail party, Distinguished Professor Sir Peter…
Free regatta shuttlebus to Tu Ngutu Villa
Until Scotts Landing locals came to the rescue in 2019, the free Mahurangi Regatta shuttlebus was driven by Mahurangi West locals. Such was the commitment of one of those sober drivers, Lex Marshall, he would kayak across the harbour to do his shift…
Crossing splendidly preserves Te Muri sense of isolation
Walk along Te Muri Beach on a sunny Sunday, and on up the gentle hillside to the saddle overlooking Wenderholm, and the contrast can be breath-taking. Outside of the summer school holidays, and when the tide slides into Te Muri Estuary smooth and crisp and early…
Donald’s depraved indifference indiminishable at 100 000/day
Ahead of itself, but by less than two months, the Mahurangi Magazine, 5 July, predicted: The depraved indifference of Donald Trump means that, come 5 September when New Zealanders begin flocking to the polls for 13 days of early voting, it will be against a backdrop...
Sir Peter is Te Muri Crossing cocktail party guest of honour
Self-identifying as a Westie, Distinguished Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, after 21 November, hopefully, will also identify as a Mahu Westie. Time was running out, and the Mahurangi Coastal Trail Trust was facing the ignominy of sending out invitations to its charity...
Regional parks review round-1 feedback deadline extended
Round one of Auckland Council’s 10-year regional parks management plan review began 1 September. It was to end next Monday afternoon, close of play, but has been extended to 26 October. The 12 October date continued to appear in the discussion paper linked, but has...
Sweet Te Muri Crossing consensus
In its 33-year story, the Mahurangi Coastal Trail has seen some meaningful milestones. Last Thursday’s is one such significant trail marker. Circa 1987, Auckland Regional Parks management had decided where a bridge was to cross Te Muri Stream; it was to run smack…
Fourth Thursdays 3rd time lucky after 20 June
The clash wasn’t discovered until after 20 June was locked in for the Mahurangi Coastal Trail Taking Shapely town-hall talk. Having cheerfully ceded their second-Wednesdays slot to bpw Warkworth, the town-hall talks have found that…
Mahurangi Coastal Path taking shapely
Most of the Mahurangi Coastal Path is already in use, and has been for decades. This, thanks to the entire coastline from Waiwera to the Mahurangi Harbour becoming regional park between 1965 and 1973. Within that time, built by park staff…
Interim river-mouth scow and mussel restoration research
At first blush the roles would appear to be impossibly disparate. One role is as a testbed for a Pūhoi River Mouth reaction ferry. The other, is as Mahurangi Action’s all-purpose scow, for everything from mussel-reef restoration research to…
Exploring a plan-b Pūhoi Rivermouth ferry
With a long-term solution calculated to cost $2 million, it is time to consider a plan b. This not to suggest that $2 million is too rich to realise the magnificent potential of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail. It is too much, however, given the…
On the coastal trail to the Mahurangi Regatta
For 45 years, the Mahurangi coastline between Waiwera and Ōpahi has been in public ownership, begging to host a nine-kilometre coastal trail, linking 900-hectares of regional parkland. But while the potential of the trail has existed since the 1973…
Tidal-river power and grid electricity
Most public transport in Aotearoa is fossil-fuel powered. But that would not excuse the key component of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail, the ferry, being fossil-fuelled. Fortuitously, as described in Minimum Impact 100% River-Powered, a fossil-fuel-free…
Mahurangi Action president’s report
The planned fivefold increase in population of its tidehead town is critical to the future of the Mahurangi watershed. If, within a couple of decades, a town of more than 20 000 has an attractive, swimmable river as the hero element of a broad linear…
Minimum impact 100% river-powered
In one respect, it could not be easier. Build a coastal trail linking three regional parks, all on publicly owned land. However, if it had in fact been easy, it would have happened soon after Mahurangi Action first suggested it, three decades ago. The first big hurdle—convincing senior…
Coastal trail and the river-mouth ferry
The urge to walk the coastline is as old as humankind. Within three years, the 4500-kilometre England Coast Path will be opened, initiated in 2014 under a Conservative – Liberal Democrat government. Aotearoa is geographically twice…
Criteria for crossing Pūhoi River revisited
The principal objective of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail is to provide primary access to Te Muri. Based on vehicle counts, Wenderholm Regional Park receives an estimated 225 362 visitors per year, and Mahurangi Regional Park 59 595. It is probable…
Te Muri officially splendidly private-light-vehicle-free forever
If they understood the momentousness of their decision, there was no outward indication. On Tuesday morning, Auckland Council, without discussion, voted to adopt the recommendations of the independent commissioners on Te Muri. Given that between its purchase…
Criteria for non-footbridge crossing
There were good and obvious reasons for considering a footbridge. But there were also a good many reasons why a footbridge across the Pūhoi Estuary, as part of the long-proposed Mahurangi Coastal Trail, was a less-than-optimal solution. Firstly it would have had…
Fire station Givealittle-athon dry run for coastal trail
Mahurangi West has much to thank Pūhoi for. Historically, it was one of two watering holes achievable. Locals, on reaching the Notice Tree, would know whether to head to Pūhoi, or to Waiwera, to find the evening’s frivolities. This year, support from…
Car-free Te Muri with coastal trail no mirage
The indications were entirely auspicious, even before the wrap-up. Then the commissioners, who had just finished hearing submissions on the future development of Te Muri, outlined the points they expected Auckland Council’s planning officers…
Convince the commissioners and Te Muri car-free forever
Auckland Council and the community are now in accord. Scheduled to be published today, are the council’s recommendations to the commissioners who will effectively determine the future of Te Muri. When the draft management plan was published in November 2015, most…
Garnering major help to connect this coast
You read it there first, in a full-page spread in Junction Magazine, profiling ‘uber-human’ Tessa Berger, the 21-year-old chair of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail Trust. Anyone reading the glossy Matakana-based magazine’s description of Tessa’s achievements…
Submission on Te Muri draft management plan variation
The following is Mahurangi Action Incorporated’s submission, as lodged in PDF format on 18 March, but without the executive summary provided here. In the pursuit of transparency, this submission was published in instalments as a work in progress as each section was…
Mahurangi Action on draft variation in respect to Te Muri
The submission needs to begin by putting the planning process in context. The timing of the Auckland Regional Parks management plan variation in respect to Te Muri, coinciding as it does with the regional parks 50th anniversary, presents…
forParks Te Muri walk-in open day single-issue issue
Because of the urgency and importance of the upcoming Te Muri open day, we are breaking with our usual practice and making this a one-issue issue. There is, however, much going on in the regional parks, particularly during Seaweek Saturday 27 February to…
Share Te Muri with walking Aucklanders or their cars
It’s been timed for low tide that day, at 12.22 pm. Because, despite the Auckland Regional Authority’s citizens advisory group 29 years ago embracing the concept of developing Te Muri for walking access only, there is still no all-tide access across the access across the estuary from…
Long-form formal submission supporting coastal trail
Auckland Council has provided an online form that short-changes the Mahurangi Coastal Trail. While it allows submitters to respond to the primary actions and developments contemplated in the draft variation to the Auckland Regional Park, the Mahurangi Coastal Trail is not…
Reasons to believe footbridge will receive fair shake
Prospects for the Mahurangi Coastal Trail aren’t as dismal as they appear. Or at least as they fail to appear, in the ‘primary actions and developments contemplated,’ in the draft variation to Auckland Regional Parks management plan published yesterday. While…
Disdaining community input council plans new group
Simultaneously, it’s one of the best and the most preposterous proposals of the draft plan: Establish a friends group for the park and wider network of Mahurangi regional parks. Preposterous because, having relegated the concept most widely supported by community…
Until March to counter plan to relegate coastal trail
Anybody who’d read the summary of phase-1 submissions would be utterly flummoxed. Of the 140 who made submissions to the Auckland Regional Parks management plan, 101 explicitly supported the concept for a Mahurangi Coastal Trail as the…
21-year-old president rocks coastal trail dream
Her Facebook lit up. It is clear from the rapturous response to the New Zealand Herald article featuring newly elected Mahurangi Action president Tessa Berger, that Facebook is an essential tool in spreading the Mahurangi Coastal Trail message. To land a glowing…
Re-imagining the Mahurangi Regatta beyond coastal trail
That the Mahurangi Regatta is a regional event is beyond dispute. The venerable event’s region-wide appeal is now backed up by data, collected at this year’s regatta by Auckland Council following its decision to grant $4000 towards the costs of hosting the…
Celebrity fundraiser rescheduled then reimagined
This proposed event was rescheduled, then reimagined following the spectacularly successful ‘Buy this beach’ campaign that has seen Te Awaroa Beach become part of Abel Tasman Nation Park. Long story short, the timing of the event will be determined only…
Feedback supports coastal-trail primary Te Muri access
Notification of public consultation on the intention to undertake a variation to the Auckland Regional Parks Management Plan to include Te Muri was undertaken in mid-July 2015. Information about the consultation went live on the Shape Auckland website on…
Mahurangi Action phase-1 Te Muri submission
Mahurangi Action Incorporated is well known to be the initiator of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail concept. This unapologetic focus on the proposed coastal trail and Judge Arnold Turner Footbridge across the Pūhoi River, however, is symptomatic of the society’s comprehensive…
Views sought on long-term future of Te Muri
It is only the first phase, but it might also prove to be the most important. When, in its dying days in 2010, the Auckland Regional Council purchased the $15 million, 383-hectare Schischka farm, a large part of the motivation was to take pressure off…
Invitation to join the Mahurangi Coastal Trail 100
There will only ever be one, Mahurangi Coastal Trail one hundred. In one hundred years’ time, the 100 visionaries who, on 1 November 2015, pledged to support the bid to make the Mahurangi Coastal Trail the Auckland Regional Parks 50th anniversary, legacy project, will…
Need for coastal trail celebrity fundraiser 1-pager
There will only ever be one, Mahurangi Coastal Trail one hundred. One hundred years from now, the 100 visionaries recorded as having made the Mahurangi Coastal Trail the Auckland Regional Parks 50th anniversary legacy project will be the same 100 who attend on…
Mahurangi Coastal Trail celebrity fundraiser
The Auckland Regional Parks 50th anniversary, legacy project. That is what the Mahurangi Coastal Trail must become, if Aucklanders are to mark the first fifty years of their incomparable network of regional parks in a manner befitting its scale and vision…
Embolden parks chief by bussing in bridge supporters
The Mahurangi Coastal Trail has been paid a considerable compliment. Friends of Regional Parks, in addition to making the coastal trail its flagship project, is making the concept the subject of its annual general meeting, on 29 June. Amongst the speakers will be civil…
How trail can help save a habitable planet
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Guardian is throwing everything at it. Well, nearly everything. While its ‘Keep it in the ground’ campaign is all over its environment section, there is no trace, on the newspaper’s main online masthead, of the millennial moral…
3 separate vs one magnificent Mahurangi Regional Park
Waitākere Ranges Regional Park is more than 19 times the combined size of the three Mahurangi regional parks. Waitākere Ranges dwarfs the combined 900 hectares of the largely contiguous regional parks of Mahurangi, Te Muri and Wenderholm, including the…
Roll on the regional parks rolling 50th celebrations
Auckland Council is planning to push the regional parks 50th boat out. But rather than one grand event, or weekend, the celebrations will likely take the form of a season of events, rather like the way Warkworth’s 150th anniversary was celebrated. For…
Wenderholm celebratory sunrise breakfast
There were very good reasons for celebrating in 2016. Thirty-first of March is the 50th anniversary of the purchase of Wenderholm Regional Park, meaning that the main celebratory event could justifiably been held on Tuesday. But while…
Trail trustees sign on and board votes to support
This week sees concrete step number three, with step four imminent. Concrete step one towards the Mahurangi Coastal Trail was last November, when Christine Fletcher’s parks, recreation and sport committee voted for work to proceed on the…
Second concrete step as coastal trail wins Friends
Friends of Regional Parks is strictly a high-level, umbrella group. It was formed to ensure that the Auckland Regional Parks network survived and flourished under the new unified governance arrangements for the region. So for Friends of Regional Parks to make a local…
Next step on coastal trail is trust and working group
Trust is the essential element in any successful collaboration. And it is never more so when that collaboration involves various community groups, elected council representatives, and council staff. Trust was clearly a key factor in Mahurangi Coastal Trail…
Coastal trail gains first concrete step
No better proof could possibly be had. Sat in the top-floor council chamber in the Auckland Town Hall, nine supporters of a $0.9 million coastal trail could have been excused for feeling unsure as to whether Auckland Council’s busy parks, recreation…
Mahurangi Coastal Trail high-tide Seaweek walk
Last year’s was a low-tide walk, and wade, with the odd wallow. Partly to demonstrate that the Pūhoi River can be readily be crossed at low tide, and partly to avoid the need to arrange for craft to ferry folk across, the Mahurangi Coastal Trail was…
Resolving outstanding practical problem
It’s nine years six weeks since it was signed. So there is every likelihood that, by the tenth anniversary of the signing of heads of agreement, what Justice Rhys Harrison described in his declaratory judgement as the outstanding practical problems…
Low-tide walk to sample low-hanging fruit
Mahurangi can best ease the region’s growing pains by not housing its share of Aucklanders. According to the introductory video on the new unitary plan website, Aucklanders want a high quality, more compact city, in the face of the expected 30-year growth rate…
First draft of report for coastal trail discussion at club
Te Muri is the centre of four regional park identities: Mahurangi East, Mahurangi West, Te Muri and Wenderholm. Mahurangi Regional Park was extended by a $15 million purchase of 407 hectares of adjacent farmland during the latter part of…
$15 million Te Muri purchase lucky Te Araroa break
An additional argument has surfaced for the coastal trail. Between Pūhoi and Wenderholm, it was planned that Te Araroa should follow the south bank of the Pūhoi River. However, that plan unravelled when a property holder along the route refused to…
Ten minutes and local board agrees to walk
A coastal trail, for the most part, should be built close to the water. But not only is it necessary to skirt the steep and cliff sections of the coast, the elevation gained rewards walkers with views that more than compensate for the slight exertion involved. The…
After a century or more ferrymen to work Sunday
Once, they were an essential part of the roading infrastructure. Ferrymen were paid the princely retainer of £15, or more if they were very lucky, to be on hand to transport travellers across the region’s various rivers. Pūhoi River ferryman George Ryan received £20…
Road would ruin future for Mahurangi coastal trail
The grandest entrance to the harbour is from the sea, under sail. Coming a sublime second is to discover the Mahurangi on foot, from Waiwera. Currently, this requires closely judging the tide and some determined wading, to cross the Pūhoi. Once across the…
A unique role for Mahurangi and public transport
The public transport needs of the Mahurangi, in most ways, are unremarkable. Warkworth and Mahurangi East have long needed both a local bus service as well as better connectivity to Auckland’s bus system. But what is unique about the…
Te Muri acquisition key to coastal trail
It was to have formed part of a scenic coastal road. In 1973, when the regional council secured 63.8 hectares of coastal land at Te Muri for that purpose, such car‑centric thinking went unchallenged. Subsequently, the regional council’s ardour for the coastal road…