About an hour into our hike at Shakespear Regional Park, we came across a group of sophisticated Hereford cows.
These black-and-white beauties grazing on green-green hills had a cow's-eye view of no fewer than two gorgeous bays, the volcanic island of Rangitoto and even Auckland's famous Sky Tower. To say they have the life would be, well, true. And the fence surrounding their domain had a poignant way to describe it: "Faraway," it read.
Which is exactly how it felt tromping around this amazing nature reserve.
Only 45 minutes from home yet seemingly a world away, this city-run park on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula makes for a great Auckland day-trip escape. The landscape is beautiful. The wildlife really interesting (even kiwi birds live here). And it's perfect for hiking, biking, beaching, picnicking and otherwise enjoying the day outdoors.
But, to be honest, our hike last Sunday started a little rough.
We set out aiming to reach the Lookout Tower, about a 25-minute walk from where we parked the car. I know what you're thinking: "25 minutes doesn't sound too bad. I could probably hike that without complaining."
But our two grumpy kids complained and collapsed and cried and generally made the first 10 minutes of our hike a bit...trying. (I may have yelled and dropped the F-bomb. I don't *think* any other tourists heard me, but I'm still not proud. ;)
As we got closer to the tower, walking through fields of free-ranging sheep and baby lambs, birds the likes of which we definitely never saw in Virginia, the kids perked up a bit. Surprisingly, the real fun started when we took a wrong turn, choosing a path that, instead of taking us back to the car, led us through the entire rest of the park.
We nearly tripled the length of the hike we set out to do -- which, based on the first 10 minutes of the day, should have been a disaster.
But actually it turned out to be really fun.
Our wrong-turn trail followed the coastal rim of the peninsula. We sidetracked for about 30 minutes to explore Pink Beach on the Okoromai Bay. It was low tide, and the water was way out, exposing some incredible rock formations. The kids and I climbed on the rocks while Shane investigated the marine life (no doubt, looking for bait ;). We even saw what looked like hermit crabs crawling through the muck. Super cool.
Back on the trail, we saw more birds (including wild parrots), more sheep, of course, and our cow friends. I took over the navigation and got us on a trail that led to the other side of the peninsula and a different bay, Te Haruhi Bay. We walked past some super fit bikers, went through a tranquil camping area and finally reached a picnic spot near our parking lot.
This put us at about the 3-hour mark for our hike, and we. were. beat. The kids and Shane waited at the picnic/beach area while I fetched the car (another 10-minute hike uphill). And then we treated ourselves with an ice cream cone in town.
Day well done, I'd say.
And good thing we weren't faraway from an ice cream parlor :)
