Treats and tweets on a Thames trail
Cycling the rural Hauraki Rail Trail, Eleanor Hughes finds mangroves, plenty of birds, and an area with a lot of history to share.
feathers, a squawking magpie swoops just above my helmet, and cyclists ride in the opposite direction.
Thames, a distant whitish blob ahead, becomes more distinct, the Coromandel Ranges are a dull green beyond. Then the Piako River intervenes and the trail takes us in a different direction.
At Pipiroa, we take a break from bike seats, lying on the grass below road level, to enjoy a snack. A sign advertises fresh flounder but there’s none to be seen. Down the road Bugger Cafe has a few customers. Thames is only 15 minutes by car from here.
Mangrove coastline, mud-coated green or the brown of drought-ridden grass, continues. The trail turns a number of times. Thames remains distant.
Another information board tells me Lieutenant James Cook travelled by longboat up the Waihou River, naming it the Thames, in 1769.
Back then there were apparently ‘‘boundless’’ kahikatea trees along the riverbanks. Now, it’s grass.
I look down from Kopu Bridge spanning the river at carved Ma¯ ori figures, pouwhenua (weapons), looking fearsome at the head, on to the old Kopu Bridge.
Completed in 1928, it’s the last remaining swing span bridge in New Zealand. It opens, gate-like, to let river traffic through.
I have memories of hot Boxing Days waiting at the traffic lights at its western end, sometimes for an hour, to travel over the rickety one-lane bridge, heading to Coromandel.
Built in 1869, and one of 112 hotels operating in the area at the peak of the goldmining era, The Junction Hotel in Pollen St, Thames’ main commercial street where a number of late-1800s buildings still stand, is a welcome sight. It has been a six-hour ride.
We dither the next morning, not keen to cycle again so soon. We could explore Thames – the School of Mines sounds interesting, as does the Goldmine Experience that takes visitors underground. But worried the car might get towed from the free camping spot in Kaiaua, where only one-night stays are allowed, two of us get back on our bikes. Ingrid happily books a shuttle with her bike back to Kaiaua.
She meets us, about 3pm, at Miranda Hot Springs. Apparently, the largest outdoor thermal mineral pool in the southern hemisphere, the current complex was developed in 1959-60. The hot springs were used by generations of Nga¯ ti Paoa for cooking and swimming before Europeans arrived.
Having visited only weeks earlier and finding it too hot at about 37 degrees Celsius, on this hot, sunny day I decide to ride to the Shorebird Centre while the other two soak and meet me later.
Open until 5pm, there’s plenty of time to read the information on migratory birds and the coastal area at the centre.
I discover bar-tailed godwits fly here from Alaska, and red knots come from China and North and South Korea. Miranda is renowned for its ‘‘wetlands of international significance’’ and is busiest in March, with up to 20,000 Arctic and New Zealand migrant birds.
The one-hour return walk to the bird hides at Robert Findlay Wildlife Reserve is too much for weary legs, so we drive.
It’s two hours before high tide. We join others, who are armed with telescopes and cameras, visiting three hides a distance from the water.
What looks to me like many small rocks on the white chenier (a ridge made of shell and sand on marine muds, I learn), are dozens of godwits when spied through a telescope.
I think I spot a wrybill, but it turns out to be a black swan.
City-bound, we leave the rural peacefulness of Hauraki, more knowledgeable about an area travelled through frequently but never explored.