Well, what can I say about the Mahurangi Open Day for newbies except that it was hugely successful! We had a good turnout of club members and big turnout of newbies, both novice and experienced trampers joining in for the experience.

Breaking into a few groups, we warmed up the muscles with a gentle hill climb, enjoying the stunning view from the top of the first hill and dropping down the other side to a low-tide knee-deep stream crossing. A new experience for some, they opted to take off their shoes, while the non-leathershoe people left theirs on.

With wet feet, my group explored the new area above Te Muri Beach, recently gifted to Auckland Council with some fun new tracks to explore, including a new bush track. We dropped back down through the long grass to the beach and headed around the foreshore to Pudding Island, and enjoyed a fantastic cooling shower on the way.

Pudding Island can only be accessed at low tide, and it’s still a wade through knee-deep water to the island—good fun!

By now everyone was ready to put their nose bags on to scoff down some lunch, so we headed back to Big Yellow (the bus) parked at Sullivan’s Bay.

After lunch, we headed off to catch the last of the low tide and walked around to the very pretty Mita Bay, then tackled the short but steep (80 metres) climb up to Tungutu Point. The killer views kept everyone’s cameras lit up.

By now, we were all feeling overly toasty in the very warm weather, so we went straight back down via the bush track to Sullivan’s Bay for a very refreshing swim. The perfect way to finish a summer tramp!

For those who missed out, or who haven’t been to this park before, it’s stunning and very much worth the visit for the variety of tracks and safe swimming, plus campgrounds.