This trip was to have been from Titirangi to Glen Eden, but aerial spraying for the painted apple moth was planned for the same day and this would have caused allergic reaction to some people. Therefore the trip was changed to include Titirangi Beach, French Bay and Wood Bay, which were outside the spraying zone. Eleven people came along - a nice size for a group, but if the Americas Cup yacht racing had not been on the same day, a group at least twice the size would have come along. Everyone met at Park Rd in Titirangi at 2pm, there was no meeting at The Bracken at 1:30pm this time. Our walk started with the lovely half hour bush track through Atkinson Park, dropping down to Titirangi Beach. About five minutes into the bush we passed what would have been a nice waterfall in the winter months when Auckland’s predominant weather is cold strong W or SW winds, passing showers and fine intervals. But there had been a succession of hot sunny days with no rain, and the waterfall was completely void of water! The tide was out when we arrived at Titirangi Beach. In years gone by, Titirangi Beach had been a popular picnic spot (in the 1950s schools have been known to hold their annual picnics there) but the aroma of the beach when we arrived would tend to make prospective picnickers go elsewhere! The walk around the rocks to French Bay was easy going. We could look across the Manukau Harbour to the South Manukau peninsula, and to Mangere Mountain, Puketutu Island and Otuatua Stonefields in the distance. We carried on to Wood Bay for our afternoon tea stop in the shade of a tree on the foreshore. We roadbashed our way back to Park Rd along Wood Bay Rd and Otitori Bay Rd, a gentle steady climb. A number of little walkways linking streets shown on the Wises map we had carried, which we hoped to use as short cuts, apparently don’t exist!

We were back at our cars at 4:30pm, having enjoyed a lovely summer afternoon’s tramp.