Scandretts Regional Park
Călin / 04 August 2024
Today we joined the Auckland Sports Club for a tramp circumnavigating Scandretts Regional Park. Why circumnavigating? Because Scandretts Park is very small – it is the tip of a small peninsula, a former family farm. George Scandrett, came from Ireland, bought the land in 1863, and the family farmed the land for four generations (each generation having one member named George!). In 1998 the Auckland Regional Council purchased the land and turned it into a park. It has many of the original farm buildings, the homestead, the barn, the shed, and the cow shed, all with nice photos of the epoch and of family children helping around.
The day, as most days this winter, started with a bit of sun and then turned clody and gray. We had 16 people in the group, a larger crowd than usual. A fair number of the trampers were dreading the weather, but came walking anyway – for the company!
As visiting the former farm was not our main goal – we primarily wanted to walk, we started by waking away from the farm, toward Martins Bay. Martins Bay hosts a holiday park with a large number of baches. In the summer the greens are full of tents and the beach is full of people. The attraction here is that you can swim regardless of the tides – the bay is sheltered by the three islands you see in the next photo, and even at low tide you have a nice dip.
This time of the year the only people at the beach were us and a couple of dog walkers. But the pōhutukawa trees were as magestic as always and keep providing superb backgrounds for photos.
Getting back to the circumnavigation, we spent some time on Martins Bay Beach waiting for the tide to go out so that we can go on the coast around the peninsula. We started our bouldering journey right of the beach, on the coastal shelf exposed by the low tide. The rock formations were a combination of sediment rocks and volcanic lava. Quite the design patterns!
The low tide also exposed tide pools, teaming with life – plants, clams, and all sorts of other creatures.
Low tide doesn’t mean you are not going to get wet, especially if you get close to the water.
The views were spectacular though, the clouds and light shifting changing the color of the sea all the time.
Much of the way was jumping from one rock to another – bouldering. I had a really good time, Victor not so much, but he did stick with it and in the end he did great!
Even though the distance was not that long, the boulders and the wind wore some of the people down. As we reached Mullet Point, everyone was happy to see the tail end of the hike.
Every now and then, a ray of sun would peek through the clouds.
After studying the displayed materials on the farm, we got up on the hill toward the parking lot. The views were worth the climb.
This was a perfect example of how to turn a less than promising day into a really good one. We did get rained on a few drops, however, it never rained seriously enough to get wet; the wind blew most of the way, but we were properly dressed and no one complained that it was too cold. We talked, we walked, we jumped, we laughed, and had a fabulous day.