A family outing to Long Bay

We have been taking turns at organising a family walk/beach trip recently, to some of the (former) Auckland Regional Council, parks. It is good that we have been 'taking turns', because otherwise I would want to organise an outing and a walk every fortnight, at least, as I just love walking and especially in our beautiful regional parks.

Today it was Mum's turn to decide on our destination, and she chose the very popular Long Bay Regional Park. We walked first, and then went to the beach for a lovely refreshing swim...followed by fish and chips at the beach. All good. Thanks Mum!

Cathy - it's your turn to choose the next outing! Here are some pics from today's walk.

PS Leanne and Sz you would like this walk/beach.

Long Bay Regional Park

Hamish, Mum, Emma, Bruce, Zak and Cathy

Looking back towards Long Bay beach

Emma

Mum and Cathy

Pohutakawa trees

Atiu Creek Regional Park

Today we went to visit our friends Murray and Rachel and their daughter who live in the Kaipara Flats, near Warkworth. Rachel and Jessica were out giving their pony, Rainbow, a work out in one of the paddocks when we arrived.  For brunch, Murray cooked us up a delicious chorizo hash on the BBQ, with poached eggs. Very yummy. After a catch up with them we then drove north towards Wellsford, and went west to head towards the Atiu Creek Regional Park.

This park is the newest regional park in Auckland, and was gifted to the region by Perre and Jackie Chatelanet in 2005, so that the public could enjoy access to the Kaipara Harbour. It's quite a drive to get there...but well worth it as it is a beautiful part of the country and has fabulous views of the huge Kaipara Harbour.

We went on the Reservoir Walk, which took just over and hour and a half. I had wanted to go on the longer Oruawharo River Trail, but just as well we didn't, as it was a sweltering hot day and quite steep in parts of the track. We'll go back another day to do the longer walk.

Here we are at the start of the walk, overlooking the Kaipara Harbour.

Here are some images from the walk, which started off following the ridge track through a few grassy paddocks, then went down through a pine forest to the reservoir, followed by a steep up hill stretch at the end to get back to the car park.

One of the two Pou Kaitiaki (Guardians)