No Fixed Abode: Coast to Coast Auckland

Tue 24 Nov - The Auckland coast to coast walk.

Jumped on the bus from Ponsonby to Onehunga, the start of the Coast to Coast walk from one side starting at the Tasman Sea across the land to finish at Auckland Harbour and the Pacific Ocean. A hike of about 10 miles that took us through landscapes shaped by 600 years of Māori occupation, and some of the finest natural and built heritage areas offering panoramic views along the way.

Onehunga looked a bit of a dodgy area at the start point but the route took us up through some nice urban areas to Cornwall Park and up to the summit of One Tree Hill. This is a Maori hotspot has british settlers chopped down a sacred totara tree in 1852 and replaced it with a Monterey pine. Various Maori groups had tried to remove this imposter, finally succeeding in 2000, and talks are still ongoing about its successor.

Onwards to Mount Eden - the highest volcanic cone in Auckland. The summit still has an impressive 50m deep crater remaining but it is a sacred site for the Maoris and access is not permitted. We had to detour off the trail to Newmarket region to visit the World Travel Clinic to get the vaccinations that we hadn’t had time for at home. We then retraced our steps back up to Mount Eden to the summit for some amazing panoramic views. We followed the trail back to the Auckland Domain, that we visited yesterday for the Winter Gardens and Museum, and sat awhile to watch cricket. There were several games being played simultaneously with overlapping boundaries and often fielders in one match were standing at the crease of the bowler of a completely different match. There were lots of shouts for lbw, missed catches and can we have our ball back please.

After a full day on our feet pounding the pavements we toddled off home to Ponsonby for a cuppa and an early night.

BTW Yvonne doesn’t think that was only a 10 miler…..