Travel Blog

Today we went to Mangawhai Heads. That's pronounced MANG - a - fie, by the way.*. Another amazingly beautiful place.

Getting there was interesting. We headed north on Hwy. 1, the main/only highway north of here. We took the turn-off to Mangawhai. Turns out it was only the first turn-off, and it definitely took us the scenic route. But we got there in the end, and it was well worth it.

There's a great circle walk. You can go in either direction, but you need to account for the tides because half is on the top of the cliffs, and the other half is along the shoreline, some of which is impassible at high tide. No problem. We arrived with at least four hours of accessibility.

We did the shore bit first. It was a mix of glorious, hard sand, bouldery beach, and rough volcanic rock. Thank goodness we had on our hiking boots. (Mind you, it sure was tempting to take off one's shoes and socks and walk barefoot.)

The sand beach had the most amazing patterns of pale gold overlying black, glistening sand (magnetite, perhaps?) Gorgeous.

When we got to the turning point, it was up, up, up to the top of the cliffs. (Think the bleak back staircase to Mordor, but without the bleakness. It was a really good workout for the legs.) Then a lovely walk back along shady glades and open clifftops with incredible views. All told, it took close to three hours, but it was well worth the effort. We may very well go again!

Mangawhai Heads

TODAY'S TIDBIT*

"Wh" is pronounced "f". Must be from the Maori.