The Waitakere Ranges above Piha

The hills you cross on the way to Piha are the Waitakere Ranges, and they are far bigger than they look from the city. Tourism New Zealand sizes the regional park at 16,000 hectares of rainforest and coast, and puts it a 40-minute drive from central Auckland.^1,7 Drive Scenic Drive on a clear morning and the bush runs unbroken from the ridge to the Tasman.

The forest has a name older than the park. Auckland Council refers to it as Te Wao Nui-a-Tiriwa, the Waitakere Ranges forest, and at Arataki a carved pou speaks of the guardianship of Te Kawerau ā Maki over the Great Forest of Tiriwā.^8,9 Knowing that changes how you walk in it: this is a living cultural landscape as much as a nature reserve.

The rainforest near Piha Beach is not jungle in the tropical sense. It is temperate forest, cool and damp, with tall conifers, palms that look out of place this far south, and a thick understorey of ferns. Rain arrives quickly from the Tasman and the canopy holds the moisture, which is why the tracks can be muddy long after a shower has passed and why good shoes matter here.

The tree that defines this forest is the kauri. The Department of Conservation ranks kauri among the mightiest trees on earth: they top 50 m, reach trunk girths of 16 m and can pass 2,000 years of age.⁴ Kauri forest once spread over 1.2 million ha of the upper North Island.²⁸ Young trees are straight poles with a narrow cone of branches; mature trees shed their lower limbs and carry a crown high above a clean gray trunk.²⁵

Europeans valued kauri as raw material. DOC explains that sailors prized young trunks for masts and spars, settlers felled mature trees for timber, and kauri gum became essential for varnish and resin products.^29,30 The old trees that survive matter all the more for it.

Kauri also shape the ground around them. DOC notes that their long lives and tannin-rich leaves change the soil they grow in, creating their own habitats.³¹ For scale, the largest remaining kauri, Tane Mahuta in Northland's Waipoua forest, stands 51.5 m high and measures 13.77 m around.¹⁸ DOC calls kauri a taonga species for Māori.³²

Tourism New Zealand's advice for the ranges is short and clear: remove soil from shoes and gear, use the hygiene stations, stay on tracks so you are not touching the forest floor, and keep dogs on a leash or leave them at home.^34,26 Tourism New Zealand says a number of tracks are still temporarily closed because of kauri dieback; its page is undated, so check the council's map before you pick a walk.^52,33

At each hygiene station, follow the instructions on the sign to clean soil off your soles, on the way in and on the way out, since soil carried out of a forest can infect the next one. Keep to the boardwalks around big trees to protect their roots. Pack food scraps back out, and keep voices low if you want to hear the birds.

If you would rather have a guide explain the forest as you walk, our featured tour spends 5 hours on the round trip from Auckland, with pickup, pairing bush tracks in the rainforest with Piha's black sand, from $118. A longer 8.5-hour small-group tour adds city sights and the Arataki Visitors Centre, from $173.