My Favourite Walk: Mount base walk doable for families
What to do on the last day of the school holidays while visiting with grandchildren in Tauranga?
It had to be a walk around the base of Mount Maunganui (Mauao). It is just 2.9km around the base of the Mount with a predicted walking time of 45 minutes so totally doable.
However, the children needed some persuading and I won them over with the promise of an article sent to the Walking New Zealand magazine in the hope that article and photos would be included in a future publication. I am not sure if such an incentive constituted bribery or was it simply a clever enticement to be outdoors on yet another beautiful day, learning to appreciate the beauty of Aotearoa New Zealand?
Having agreed to the walk, we put on walking footwear and the grandson and I donned suitable walking attire. The granddaughter, on the other hand, chose to wear her pretty dress due to her need to prove she still wore it and thus avoid a favourite dress being thrown out of her “becoming too full wardrobe”.
People were already swimming when we arrived at Pilot Bay and the children told me they would never swim there again. On a school trip other children had thrown starfish at them.
At that point I stopped thinking it would have been a sensible idea to have taken swimming togs for a refreshing dip after our walk around the Mount.
After a study of the walking routes displayed at the Pilot Bay side of the walk, our slow walk began.
We started on the designated track, but, as we neared the historic jetty, the children realised they had missed the fun path up and over, and around a large pohutukawa tree, so running back to almost the start of the path they once again began their walk, this time using the little shelled track possibly only used by children and sheep.
They continued on the slightly higher track until barred by thistles when they grudgingly had to drop down on to the more level, wider path chosen by parents with child buggies, joggers, and myself. This then was the way it was to be for our ramble and scramble around the Mount.
I walked the landscaped path and they scrambled their way on the harder, sheep created track. The children willingly dodged thistles and pohutukawa limbs, rocks and small landslides, and probably covered at least a third more territory than myself.
While keeping one eye on the children’s antics I kept the other on the ever changing panorama.
Together we noticed the red and green channel markers, marveling at how such big ships could negotiate such a narrow channel into the respective wharfs.
On the day we walked, there was still a sea surge coming into the nar- row shipping channel.
We were just one day after the re-opening of the lower path around the Mount, after the storm passage of Hurricane Victor had thrashed the coast line and destroyed part of the walking path. (The promise of viewing the damage had been yet another enticement to walk.)
There were signs to let us know we needed to take care but the damage had been repaired. The path narrowed slightly where the sea had claimed the land for its own.
In this repaired section the path was still wet indicating that there had been some waves attempting to claim more land during the night. There was also, what looked like a recently uprooted tree, lying below on the rocks.
As we rounded the Mount, and the channel began to open up, the waves became more exciting to watch.
On Matakana Island the spray was easily visible and we occasionally felt the soft drift of salt spray upon our skin. At this point, we debated as to whether the tide was coming in or going out and as I couldn’t access Google, we had to rely on our senses to confirm the state of the tide. I still claim it was an incoming tide.
The children began to tire and, fortunately, there were seats located along the walk at reasonable distances
from each other.
With all their extra scampering the children also needed refreshments and their grandmother certainly welcomed the opportunity to sit.
We found an empty seat, ate our snacks and rehydrated, while watching the yellow customs boat head out to sea.
There were three large ships outside the channel and we guessed the wrong ship as the focus for the custom’s boat visit. It was the ship further to the east that needed to be visited by customs. We later saw that same ship enter the harbour.
Time passes fast when there are so many things to talk and marvel about.
During this beautiful walk with its changing landscape - grass kept short by sheep and rabbits; large ancient pohutakawa trees; the ever changing size and shape of boulders and rocks
below, and with the sea as constant companion- there is much to occupy ramblers and scramblers.
And then, “At Last”, the children exclaimed, the looked for marker of nearing journey’s end: the small red light house securely anchored to a rock just a little way off shore, which signaled we were now not far to track’s end.
As we passed under the pohutukawa tree decorated with shell wreaths, we remembered the little boy so cruelly swept from the beach below us and I did not allow the children to scramble down on to the sand to hunt for shells with the unpredictable swells still present.
The children then remembered the interesting shutting mechanism on the final exit/entrance gate and hastened their walk despite that last short uphill slog towards the end of the track.
Another “nearly there now” marker came into sight: Moturiki Island (or Leisure Island as some people still call this island – a legacy from Marine World days).
A bit more uphill, through the final gate, and there was the surf club house flanked by row upon row of stacked kayaks.
With Anniversary weekend beginning the following day some fit young people were preparing to pit their skills against the surf and one another.
Then, with the walk completed, we were off to visit the Copenhagen icecream shop for freshly baked waffle cones filled to the brim with ice cream, whipped cream, and toppings. Yes, this treat was yet another incentive to keep walking once the sun had become hotter and there were no more shelled sheep tracks to explore and keep the children diverted.
There had been plenty of opportunities to stop and admire the ever changing views. My favourite part was the walk into and under the arch of venerable pohutukawa trees.
The track was almost consistently a couple of meters wide and very even under foot. There was lots of room for the buggies, complete with babies and/ or toddlers on board, to pass us as their respective parents completed their daily walk and talk.
Frustrated joggers had to negotiate the path between slow amblers like myself and the faster paced child buggies.
We three had a great time and a fun walk in and out of the shade of those amazing pohutukawa trees with the sea sounding in our ears, tui guiding us from above, and black backed gulls keeping their disdainful distance.
I will never tire of this walk and hopefully, the children having absorbed such beauty, will have a keener interest in protecting the beauty of Aotearoa New Zealand.