Dan Jones Bluff

The Gumdiggers Trail starts at Rothesay Bay

I was a tad late on Sunday, the weather was superb and we met at Valley Road car park in Browns Bay.

Alan from the Northcote Nordic Walkers joined us and was introduced to some of the North Shore Nordic Walkers before we started  our walk across Browns Bay Beach and onto the steps up to Dan Jones Bluff.  It was an extremely busy morning with heaps of people out walking with dogs on the beach and it can be a little disconcerting when a pooch comes over for an inquisitive sniff of your pole. 

In fact last year my walking buddy and I encountered a rather nasty dog out on Long Bay beach and my poles are now sporting teeth marks which I have neatly hidden using a strip of red insulation tape.  Actually it’s a great way to disguise chips and marks on your poles if they are starting to sport a few scars.

Cliff Walkway Rothesay Bay

The beaches on the Shore have clear rules about dog walking and I don’t think that a lot of people are aware of the restrictions, during certain hours dogs can walk with a leash - but must be under the owner's control - in parks, reserves and along the foreshores, dogs are allowed any time outside of daylight saving hours but are not to be exercised between 10am and 6.30pm during daylight saving on beaches, foreshores and public places within 20 metres of a beach (not including public footpaths).  The council website has a list of parks and public place where you can take your dog unleashed and where dog walking is prohibited.

The steps up to Beechwood Road are very steep and I advise unstrapping to ascend if you are not too confident either climbing or descending and to hold onto the hand rail for support. Once at the top of the walkway and past Dan Jones Bluff we started our walk to Rothesay Bay along the clifftop walkway.

The only interesting reference that I can find to a Dan Jones is an article about the Forfarshire, a ship that left with emigrants for Auckland in 1875, the ship’s captain was Daniel Jones.  He made his passage to New Zealand on 18th March 1875 from London in what appears to have been treacherous weather and the ship sustained some considerable damage.  They left London with 203 passengers and were at sea for 108 days and during that time they sailed though a terrible cyclone, they also sadly lost four children and an adult during the long voyage.  Once the North Cape was in sight the ship was anchored in the Tiritiri channel.  Perhaps the ship's captain is connected to the name of this area and I daresay that someone will tell me if I have the connection wrong but it’s an interesting piece of local history anyway and incidentally, the ship only ever made six trips to New Zealand.

Rangitoto from the Cliff top Walkway Mairangi Bay

We made our way along the pathway and onto Rothesay Bay and yep, the traffic cone was still  perched pertly on the same tree.  We crossed the road and turned left to take the Gumdiggers trail following the footpath into Murrays Bay, we briefly stopped at the toilets, then quickly made our way across the concrete causeway and into Mairangi Bay.  This is where we came across an elderly gentleman who was adamant that we were actually doing ourselves a great deal of harm using and relying upon our ‘walking sticks’, and despite us trying to convince him that the poles were part of an exercise regime and that we didn’t actually need to use them every day, he still continued to try and warn us about the probability of us having to use walking frames in the future because we were in fact training our brains to make ourselves reliant on walking aides! 

The Footbridge Campbells Bay

The sand at Mairangi Bay was quite soft and hard going underfoot for a while but we continued on over to Campbells Bay, where we took a picture of the footbridge that had caused a lot of kerfuffle a while back. Pam E posed on the controversial bridge for me, it’s really quite nice, but very small; and apparently cost an awful lot of money, but  it was built to provide a safe crossing over the creek during high tide.

We made our way back to Browns Bay without any further distractions and funnily enough we did see one old gentleman using a couple of walking sticks but we passed by without comment!

We had coffee at Ben Gusto and reluctantly made our way back to our cars, the cafe was really busy and the renovations outside made the cafe look even more appealing from the roadside, we may have to start our walks much earlier in order to grab a coffee there on a Sunday morning once summer sets in.

More Information & Sources:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzbound/forfarshire.htm

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ourstuff/Forfarshire1875.htm
http://www.yesteryears.co.nz/shipping/pictures/forfarshire.html
http://www.searlecanada.org/sunderland/images/forfarshire1.jpg
http://www.searlecanada.org/sunderland/sunderland049.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/north-shore-times/805647/Up-in-arms-over-footbridge