Mercer Bay-Comans-Taraire Tracks

Catchy title right? I have started calling this track the stairs of death but more on that later.

Being the early bird that I am we started this walk around 8 am. Why do I do early walks you ask?

Well early walks mean we miss the heat of the day. Ed is very susceptible to temperature change and does not cope well. It also means we are back early enough to do other things with our day. My favorite reason though is that I can have a nap when we get home and still feel like we have done heaps with our day.

Anyway the walk started off in the Mercer Bay Loop car park. To get here you head out into the Waitakere ranges as if you are going to Piha Beach. Then turn off onto Te Ahu Ahu road and do a slight right to go down Log Race road. It is pretty well sign posted for all of our tracks.

We decided to do a large walk down to the Karekare waterfall and back along the look out to the car park. We couldn't find to much information on these walks and were a little unprepared for the trail but it was fine. We walked down a steep rocky hill of the Mercer Bay loop. While I tried not to slip down the rocks the boys enjoyed the light breeze and all the sniffs of a new walk (along with a few morning poops hence the little green bags).

The views on this walk are amazing, however you are really exposed to the elements. 90% of the walk is along the winding cliff faces of the Waitaks. We were naughty and forgot to put sunblock on.....luckily we were back in the car before the peak UV levels hit (10am-2pm). For our international buddies NZ has one of the worst UV levels in the world over summer. Anyway we carried some human water and the boys had their snacks and a Thirsty dog bottle.

After about 10-15 min we arrived at the turn off from Mercer Bay and onto the Comans track. The views on the Comans track are stunning, I read that there is a way to get down to this beach (Mercer Bay). You need to be an advanced climber though and have climbing and hiking gear... which was not us and there is no way I am hooking Ed up to a harness and lowering him down haha.

After walking along the up and down cliff face track we came across a stone wall that we had to scale up. These crazy people were actually running this track. Comans is a easy track it is well maintained and is partially shaded. The only issue is it is straight down (Kinda). You know what that means .... straight back up. At-least the start of the track was a nice meander along the cliff up and down. Apart from the rock face it was reasonably nice. Just get to the waterfall and then deal with the hundreds of stairs straight up coming back.

After climbing down what felt like an eternity of stairs we landed at the northern end of Karekare beach known as Union Bay. It started to get extremely hot and we were tempted to go swimming but there was no way I was going to go back up all those stairs wet. So we stopped and had some water and then continued onto the waterfall.

After going through another die back wash station we were back in the suburbs and walked down the rd along to the waterfall track. This track is a short 5min stroll from the road to the waterfalls pond (is it a pond, maybe a pool?). There seem to be a few Karaka trees around so if your dog eats things off the ground keep an eye out. They are extremely poisonous . The falls are in two tiers, there were some others at the top level so we just came straight down to the main falls so the boys could have a quick dip to cool off.

After the falls we headed right back the way we came. It is a bit of a back track trail at the moment due to the die back but in future hopefully we can connect it back to the Ahu Ahu track and onto the Mercer Loop.

While walking along I was wondering how many steps we actually climbed to get down to the falls. We then joked about it and Sarah the crazy wonderful friend that she is counted them. You go up and down roughly 831 steps. Thank you for counting while me and the boys were slowly climbing up the stairs. Maybe 400 stairs up I stood on little Ed and there was a massive squeal. He started limping I felt so bad. I still do. I carried him on my shoulders until he had stretched it out and rested enough to want to go down.

When we hit the rock wall I thought I would throw treats down the bottom so that Sarah could give them to the boys while I came down. The light air dried beef did not make it down to the bottom ... it landed in a gorse bush half way down and sweet little Hux shoved his face in it to get the beef. Luckily there were no thorns stuck to his face... I keep imagining like porcupine needles sticking out of his face ha. The views coming back seemed to be even better then the views going down the hill. You look out over mostly native bush and lovely bright blue water.

After what seemed like a life time of stairs we reached the turn off to the Mercer bay loop and headed along the track we hadn't done to the look out. By the time we reached the look out it was so so so busy. There is a reason this is one of the busiest places (beautiful 600m walk loop) but man I have never come across so many people on a trail. Another reason to get up and leave earlier. While we were walking back to the car along the cliff looking out to Piha it was silent (thankfully) all of the visitors were at the look out. However there was a council lady at the car park telling people this is the best way to do the loop.... which seems odd because the way we started is a horrible loose gravel path and is slippery so going up it would be a nightmare. Anyway we had lovely views over Piha in a Manuka and Kanuka (tea tree) forest. Then into the car for a nap. Our legs were shaking from bracing up and down the stairs, were hot and tired but man was it a lovely and beautiful way to start our Saturday.

Just a little side note: Kauri Die back is a very serious thing in New Zealand.

The pathogen can sense a Kauri tree’s roots, and swim towards them using a tail-like flagella. There is no cure for Kauri dieback disease, and the disease kills most if not all the Kauri it infects. It can be spread by just a pinhead of soil, and although there are physical symptoms, you can't tell just by looking whether a tree is infected or not. Kauri dieback disease is threatening Kauri with functional extinction. But Kauri will be saved – by people like you.

You must clean your shoes at the cleaning stations and make sure you stay on the path.

To Summarize this Hike:

• Mercer Bay Loop Carpark

• Mercer Bay to Comans to Karekare Falls (Taraire Tracks)

• A lot of stairs 831 ( time 2 for going up and down)

• 124 flights (one flight is 3m so 372m up)

• Dieback means that you have to back track along Comans

• Total walk of 8.72km (5.4 miles)

• Walking time of 2 hours total time of 2 hours and 38min

• From -86m to 157m above sea level

• Dogs must be on leash on all three tracks.

• Exposed to the elements and slippery after rain on Comans