Ōrewa Estuary Path, Te Ara Tahuna

Edmund Carter-Anderson
Feb 2, 2020
3 min read

This walk follows our usual themes, getting slightly lost and getting sun burnt. There were actually no stairs on this walk (Surprising right?).

For those of you that followed our story today - I fixed my glasses so I can actually write this now haha. If you do not here is what I did :

Anyway after talking to Jess (who owns Albi and Erie the Griffons) we thought we would catch up with them over the shore for a walk around Orewa Estuary. It is a council shared cycle path around a estuary lake thing and looked amazing. Looked.

Anyway more on that later, let me introduce you too Albi and Erie - Albi the griffon on Insta

Courtney and I want to borrow (steal) these little cuties.

Our walk started off with me putting sunblock on (only to find out 4 hours later that it was expired, I tried guys). Then Courtney picked the boys and I up, we were a little early so the fluffs ran around in the UNITEC fenced area for about 5 minutes to toilet and blow off some energy. Then we headed over the shore to pick up Jess and the girls. This was my view in the back seat.

We picked up some iced coffee from Maccas (amazing if you haven't had it) then off to Orewa. The tide was out when we arrived which lead to that "lovely" mangrove smell but otherwise it was pretty good. The start of the walk in the car park is well sign posted, there are toilets and changing rooms, a cafe, and multiple bins. Just down the road is the main beach and more shops, parks and other fun things.

Across multiple bridges and along the well maintained path you follow it in a loop. The signs start to vanish and more side paths appear. There are lots of wide open grass areas but the leash restrictions are a bit touchy. Some people are on leash and some are off. The council site is not helpful so I am not sure what the laws are. I believe they vary as you move around the path.

There is not a lot of shade on this path, we were lucky there was a bit of a breeze going and quite early in the morning. At low tide there is barely enough water for the dogs to cool off in so make sure you carry lots of water, you can fill it up along the way. We had 2x Thirsty Dog bottles.

We did a little loop at one of the parks, as there were no signs saying which way was the correct way. This meant we were heading towards a residential area. Oh well an extra 500m was added to our walk. After this loop we managed to get back on the actual path and cross over the bridge. The nice open path ends up in a new development and down side streets, there isn't much of a view but the houses are nice.

From the residential area you then re join another part of the path. This last little bit connects back to the start and is sign posted again. Who knows what happened to the signs about 5km in? The tide had started coming in by the time we made it back to the car park and the temperature was increasing. We headed across the road at the car park and went to the river/estuary entry.

Everyone enjoyed a quick cool off and Hux wanted to swim across (in the strong current) to see the dogs on the other side. Hux isn't a very confident swimmer and was on leash so that didn't happen. After swimming for a bit Hux did some on leash grass zoomies, this started off fun but it was actually grass with seeds. Hux ended up covered in grass seeds, this kept me entertained on the drive home.