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| Oneroa Track Pillbox |
Following last week’s excitement I decided to walk locally this weekend, we met at Toroa Street in Torbay and walked down Cliff Road into the Oneroa Track. This track takes you past one of the Long Bay gun emplacements which is adjacent to Vaughan Anglican Retreat with MERC on the other side. Apparently over 60 emplacements were built between North Head and Orewa, and 118 in total were built around Auckland, some of which are still standing today. They were built of concrete, usually had turf on the roof and would have been covered in camouflage nets. Each pillbox housed a Bren or a Vickers .303 calibre machine gun, the Vickers gun had a range of 4 km. Originally there were three pill boxes at Long Bay, and a concrete gun emplacement was built in the middle of the beach but only the two of them are left now, this one and the other on the Coastal Walk Track.
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| Oneroa Track Gun Emplacement |
The weather was fair on Sunday and we continued our walk along the beach at Long Bay to the Coastal Walk track at the north end. It’s interesting to note that originally this area was once a rural location and as such it was used as a holiday destination. The hilltops and land surrounding the Regional Park had baches (holiday homes) dotted along facing the beach, once the leases on the baches expired the land was bought by the council, you can just see in the above photo that they are actually building on land around this area and there has been much activity during the summer, a lot of the hillside has been dug into to make way for new homes. However Long Bay Regional Park is a great place to visit with access to the beach and the park with barbeque and picnic areas available for public use.
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| View of Long Bay Beach from Oneroa Track |
Long Bay-Okura Marine Reserve shore and waters are typical of those of the sheltered inner Hauraki Gulf. The coastal habitat is quite diverse along the beaches of both Long Bay and Karepiro Bay; rocky reefs are situated at the headlands either end of the lengthy and sandy Long Bay together with the contrasting mudflats of Okura River and the estuary.
The southern end of Long Bay at Toroa Point is exposed, however in comparison the Okura River estuary at the north is very sheltered as it extends inland for quite a way and the murky waters are an ideal environment for mangrove forests and for the saltmarsh grasses and bush.
We came off the beach and walked across the park continuing along the path towards Vaughan Homestead where we then followed the Coastal Walk track up the steps and across the cliff top.
Long Bay continues on to the Okura Estuary and has three beaches along the way, Long Bay, Granny's Bay and Pohutukawa Bay.
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| Some of our Nordic Walkers on the Coastal Walk Track Pillbox |
We took a side track along a narrow path to take a look at the other WWII gun emplacement building; it had been cleared recently and we could get full access to the concrete pillbox. It was full of water and we couldn’t get a look inside but it stands there still after all these years silently watching the bay, so we took a few minutes to watch the boats come and go. It must have been quite a different sight that the soldiers must have had during World War II, the gun emplacements would have housed bunks for three soldiers and they would have taken turns watching the sea for signs of enemy ships. The gun fields were positioned to crossfire or overlap to make it difficult for a ground invasion, they were never used and in 1942 after the Pacific battles and the defeat of the Japanese the emplacements were decommissioned.
After a few minutes we turned back onto the track and came to a clearing at the top of the cliff just before Granny's Bay. It appears that the council have cleared the area recently of pine trees and made the track more accessible, you get a great view of the hillside and farm land now and a better much view of the beach. You can actually walk across to the other beaches from Long Bay beach at low tide but it can be slippery and not ideal for Nordic Walking.
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| View of Long Bay from the Coastal Walk Track Pillbox |
Pohutukawa Bay is a 15 min walk along the coastal track, it’s a beautiful sandy beach and if you’re not careful you could get more than a scenic view along the track if you venture down to the beach there, and we have had to avert our eyes on a couple of occasions! There used to be a sign that did state that this area could be used for nude bathing but that seems to have gone astray, so if you decide to take this path do be warned.
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| The Nordic Walkers salute! |
The Coastal Walk track carries on right down to the Okura Estuary and this too can be very slippery underfoot especially when it’s been raining, so we decided to head back. We came across a number of other walkers from Papakura on their way over to the estuary. This walking track is very popular and people come a long way to use it plus it’s well used by joggers. There are a lot of high and muddy steps, I wouldn’t recommend running; a friend and I once encountered a chap jogging in his Speedos, not a sight to be witnessed by the squeamish and I did feel compelled to shake my head and pass a comment or too as he passed us, not a young chap either - sadly!
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| Long Bay Beach from the Cliff |
We headed back for stretches and a coffee, very few of us ventured out on Sunday, it seems that the cold damp weather maybe putting a few people off walking, and I suspect next weekend will be a quiet one too; it’s the Queen’s birthday weekend and a lot of people take to their baches for the holiday, I’ll be chucking another log on the fire!
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