Fifteen people took the opportunity of visiting Tapapakanga Regional Park, a place the club had never been to before. We left The Bracken right on 1:30 p.m. and to pick up some people at Clevedon then carried on to the regional park where we arrived soon after 2:30pm We set out from the car park by the Ashby Homestead and headed back along the road a short way before going on to a farm route that crossed some historical stone fields. It is believed that these heaps of stone were possibly cleared by both Maori and European occupants for gardening and farming purposes.   After coming onto a service road we went on to the start of the farm route that climbed all the way up to the trig. From the trig we enjoyed a panoramic view all around - we could look back to Ponui and Waiheke Islands, across the Firth of Thames to the Coromandel Peninsula, and Mt Te Aroha in the distance to the southeast. As it was quite cold and windy we did not stay too long at the track but began to drop down towards the coast following the Coastal Walk.  This was an up-and-down bush track that followed the margin between the farm paddocks and the foreshore.

We stopped to have a look at the Ashby cemetery which had the graves of the family who had bought the Tapapakanga farmland from the Maoris at the beginning of the 20th century.   From there we dropped down to the foreshore and across the mouth of the Tapapakanga stream before the final short beach walk back to the car park. We finished with quick look at the Ashby Homestead which was built in 1900 and now preserved as a historic place. We were unable to go inside the house as was locked, but the rooms inside were largely bare.

This brought to an end a lovely afternoon enjoyed by all. We were back at the carpark with about half an hour to spare before the gates were locked at 5pm. Cost: $9