Metservice had the morning looking the best with the clouds due to roll in as the afternoon wore on so as per usual I turned up nice and early for this one.
The site description of the track is very accurate, I simply popped over the bridge hung a right when it came to the Pohutukawa glade walk and kept an eye out for the Zion Hill track. From there it is a reasonably easy climb. As you go up, if you see what appears to be a small track leading away to the right, I think there was about two of these, take it, it’s only about four or five paces and you will be at a lookout. One of them even had a bench and the view was a fantastic Karekare beach!
Anyway before you can say “what peak” you will have bagged it, and as the site suggest from here things did get a bit more muddy and some care was required to stay upright. Absolutely worth it, the hill part of the track was give any Fauna-file what they want, and with Tuis, Woodpigeons, Parakeets and even a playful Tomtit. Also the Kauri grove was pretty cool.
Best part had to be once you get out of the hills and enter a wetland area and then climb a pretty awesome black sand dune. I followed the track over some more dunes and scrub areas before getting to the camping area and the tunnel. A helpful jogger mentioned the track from there was flooded so I simply headed in the direction of the ocean and crossed some more dunes and avoided some wet bits before reaching the beach, from there it was a pleasant walk up the beach and once I got to the Watchman rock a simple right hand turn followed by a quick walk by creek got me back to the car park.
Being still early I did a quick walk up the road and checked out the awesome 25m waterfall. It won’t take you more than about 5-10 mins to get to it and it is very much worth the effort.
It says the circuit should take for hours and even with stretching it out as much as I could I did it in just over 3 hours, but I would advise anyone to try and make it last, on a nice day you won’t want to leave.
