Tāwharanui Regional Park - A bird lover's paradise

The plan for today was to drive out to Leigh and jump aboard the glass bottom boat to explore the Marine Reserve around Goat Island. Unfortunately, due to some sort of mechanical issue, the boat wasn't running, so we decided to stop at Tāwharanui Regional Park instead. 

The peninsula is situated between Whangarei and Auckland, turning off in Warkworth and following the signs. It's completely predator free so birdlife can flourish in abundance. The 558-hectare big park itself was founded as a sanctuary in 2002 and happens to be New Zealand's forst integrated open sanctuary on the mainland island. It combines farming (sheep), public recreation and conservation. 

Once you drive through the automatic gates (which are designed to keep out rats, possums, stouts etc) you have several options. We drove all the way to the end, to Anchor Bay. What a beautiful white sandy beach - though very crowded. No surprise...

Near the beach was a little caravan run by local volunteers. Not only did they provide us with maps and info material about the park, one of the ladies was a fountain of knowledge when it came to native birds. She demonstrated us the calls of birds such as robins, saddlebacks, dotterel... (with the help of the displays within the caravan). She also told us the best places to hear and even see each species and she gave us the best walking route according to our fitness level. What a wonderful service!!!

We spent a couple of hours following mostly the North Coast Link and Eco Trail and we did indeed spot and hear a range of birds, some pretty rare! The first part of the walk led us through sheep paddocks with amazing views over the ocean, until we turned into bush that has been untouched for more than 100 years so is very much original NZ bush.

What a wonderful day we had. So peaceful and tranquil. Definitely coming back, next time with togs to enjoy a swim after our hike...

Anchor Bay