Explore Tāwharanui Regional Park
On the Matakana Coast of the Hauraki Gulf, between Ōmaha and Matakana, the Tāwharanui Peninsula is one of Auckland’s most beautiful coastal escapes — a mix of white-sand beaches, rolling farmland, and restored native forest alive with rare birds. At its heart is Tāwharanui Regional Park, one of the 28 regional parks operated by Auckland City. The park is a predator-free open sanctuary bordered by the Tāwharanui Marine Reserve, offering superb walking trails, safe swimming, and rich history stretching from centuries of Māori occupation to its farming past and transformation into a wildlife haven.
A Scenic Open Sanctuary
Tāwharanui Regional Park is one of Auckland’s largest and most popular coastal parks. The northern coastline offers stunning white-sand beaches such as Anchor Bay, with sheltered swimming, rock pools, and a campground. The park is crisscrossed with walking trails, including the superb Ecology Trail, which loops through regrowth forest and takes approximately an hour to complete. Other tracks, such as the North and South Coast Tracks, Fishermans Track and Takatū Loop Tracks, explore the farmland, wetlands, headlands, and beaches.
In the 1990s, the park was transformed into an “open sanctuary” — a working farm enclosed by a predator-proof fence, with public access retained. Pest eradication and extensive native planting have brought spectacular results. Bellbirds, once absent from Auckland’s mainland, now thrive, and rare birds such as tīeke and takahē are easily seen. Kiwi are present and sometimes heard or sighted at night, alongside kererū, native robins, dotterels, and many other species. Offshore, the marine reserve protects rich coastal waters first safeguarded in 1981 as New Zealand’s first marine park.
Early Māori Settlement and Abundance
Māori lived here for over 800 years. Ngāti Raupō, a hapū of Te Kawerau, occupied settlements around the Mangatāwhiri Stream until the 1870s. The area provided abundant marine and forest resources, celebrated in the saying, He wha tāwhara ki uta; he kiko tamure ki tai — “the flowering bracts of the kiekie on the land, the flesh of the snapper in the sea.” Pā sites such as Ōponui guarded the entrance to the peninsula, while Waikokowai (Anchor Bay) supplied valuable red ochre for decorative and ceremonial use.
Musket Wars and Displacement
In the 1820s, Ngāti Manuhiri and Ngāti Raupō allied with other hapū from the Mahurangi–Matakana region during the Musket Wars. After initially repelling Ngāpui incursions and killing the Ngāpuhi rangatira Te Koriwhai in 1820, they suffered defeats at Te Kohuroa (1822) and Kaiwaka (1825). The survivors fled both north and south and began to return by the mid-1830s.
Land Loss and the Great Reserve
Ngāti Paoa, which had long been engaged with the shark fishery along the coast, took advantage of the disruption in local occupation, and wrongfully sold large blocks of land in the area to newly arrived European timber traders in the 1830s and to the new government in 1841 (the Ōmaha–Mahurangi purchase).
The local hapū did not accept this, and in 1845, the rangatira Parihoro undertook an act of muru (ritual plunder) of Thomas Millon’s Tokatū Peninsula sawing station. Parihoro also sued the government in court. In 1853, the government recognised Māori customary ownership of an enormous reserve from Ōmaha Spit to Lagoon Bay and inland toward the Kaipara. The Thai claim was even larger than Te Hemara’s restored reserve at Mahurangi, which had also been wrongfully sold to the government and then recovered by local hapū.
A Historic Rescue
Through the 1850s–60s, Māori engaged in Matakana’s timber, boat building, and farming economy as Europeans arrived in the region, while maintaining a subsistence lifestyle. In 1864, a final major incident occurred when the rangatira Tauwhitu honoured a debt to Waikato rangatira Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, who had protected refugees during the Musket Wars, by helping government-held prisoners from the Battle of Rangiriri escape from prison ships off Kawau Island to Māori Bay at Tāwharanui. This had the potential to turn into an even bigger incident as the escapees built a pā at Mt Tamahunga and stood ready to defend it. However, the government chose to grant them safe passage home, rather than engaging in battle.
Farming Years and Park Creation
Between 1873 and 1877, Māori sold Tāwharanui to Europeans, and the Martin, Jones, and Young families farmed it for decades. Kauri milling, firewood cutting, and shingle extraction were mainstays. Coastal trade was important until roads were pushed through in the 1900s.
Auckland City purchased 600 hectares of the farmland on the peninsula in 1973, and large-scale native planting began in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the idea of transforming the park into an “open sanctuary” for native birds, while maintaining public access and a working farm, was investigated and implemented. This resulted in a predator-proof fence across the Peninsula, with access by car through an automatic gate. This was followed by further planting and the eradication of mammalian pests.
Getting There
Tāwharanui Regional Park is about 85 km from Downtown Auckland. Drive north on the motorway to Warkworth, then take Matakana Road to Matakana. Continue on Leigh Road towards Leigh, turn right onto Takatu Road after 1.5 km, and follow it to the Anchor Bay car park inside the park.
