ABFoz
Forum Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2018
- Messages
- 955
- Location
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Car Year
- 2005
- Car Model
- Forester XS
- Transmission
- 4EAT
This is the delayed part 2 of the Black Foz’s Kaipara Harbour exploration. I should have posted it last week but my workload level had skyrocketed.
South head’s Waionui Lagoon is around 1hr 45 mins (1hr 30 mins to the gate) away from us but it is still technically part of Auckland. It on the bottom of this image. Manukapua is on the upper right. It can be unfair to the locals to be called part of Auckland as, after Hellensville, the place is just too quiet to be called such.
I visited the area with 2 brothers in November 2018 and we tried getting to the end of the trackable lagoon as the south-western part of the area is a bombing range. There are dunes, though, but can be accessed illegaly if one is brave enough to tread the unpredictable tidal saltwater.
These tracks are of 4x4’s and ATV’s.
If it’s the lowest tide, this island can be visited but quicksand is going to be the enemy. The hills in the back are of Pouto Point’s, the other side of the harbour and is part of Northland.
The tiny white dot is the Pouto Lighthouse, the oldest wooden lighthouse in NZ. That’s another target but it’s at least 3 hours away from my home and 5 hours away from where we are as we have to go around Northland.
These plastic bits lie around the area. Track is properly corrugated and some parts are rutted. This one is from an Audi A6 or A8. I can imagine this car scraping toward the bottom part of the trail.
That is from a Patrol. I am not sure how the driver managed to damage that. There are plenty of playable sand mounds in the area and they are usually soft but then get instantly hard around such vegetation. Still, I am not sure how they manage to damage that.
This is the SG on top of this shelly bar. Behind are the dunes for the bombing range.
This is another shot of the SG and Woodhill forest’s northern tip is in the background.
We decided to setup our lunch around this area overlooking the greener part of the lagoon, looking west.
After lunch, I had to tip-toe to get a shot of this bird. It is extremely sensitive to movements so I had to use max zoom.
This is now playtime at Woodhill. The track is OK until this part where there isn’t really enough room to gain momentum and there is almost just one line. There are 2 stumps at the back just enough to fit the SG and the ground is somewhat too powdery. This part of NZ is just built on compacted sand throughout the years, anyway.
I tried to get enough traction as much as possible then decided to just vLSD all the way. I am still on my corrugation pressure at this moment.My old FJ40 and Jeeps would clear this like it's a pothole. I was told by the ranger who dropped by that he has seen 4x4s got stuck here as they are too big for the stumps and they had baller tyres on luxury-style vehicles, just like most of the utes or SUVs that you will see in Auckland. He just said they were city people with 4x4s.
The vLSD is triumphant.
The exploration is more of a break for me as Auckland can be too busy and there’s just too much people for a geographically challenging terrain for infrastructures. I would go back again but I may spend time on other parts of the South Head instead.
South head’s Waionui Lagoon is around 1hr 45 mins (1hr 30 mins to the gate) away from us but it is still technically part of Auckland. It on the bottom of this image. Manukapua is on the upper right. It can be unfair to the locals to be called part of Auckland as, after Hellensville, the place is just too quiet to be called such.
I visited the area with 2 brothers in November 2018 and we tried getting to the end of the trackable lagoon as the south-western part of the area is a bombing range. There are dunes, though, but can be accessed illegaly if one is brave enough to tread the unpredictable tidal saltwater.
These tracks are of 4x4’s and ATV’s.
If it’s the lowest tide, this island can be visited but quicksand is going to be the enemy. The hills in the back are of Pouto Point’s, the other side of the harbour and is part of Northland.
The tiny white dot is the Pouto Lighthouse, the oldest wooden lighthouse in NZ. That’s another target but it’s at least 3 hours away from my home and 5 hours away from where we are as we have to go around Northland.
These plastic bits lie around the area. Track is properly corrugated and some parts are rutted. This one is from an Audi A6 or A8. I can imagine this car scraping toward the bottom part of the trail.
That is from a Patrol. I am not sure how the driver managed to damage that. There are plenty of playable sand mounds in the area and they are usually soft but then get instantly hard around such vegetation. Still, I am not sure how they manage to damage that.
This is the SG on top of this shelly bar. Behind are the dunes for the bombing range.
This is another shot of the SG and Woodhill forest’s northern tip is in the background.
We decided to setup our lunch around this area overlooking the greener part of the lagoon, looking west.
After lunch, I had to tip-toe to get a shot of this bird. It is extremely sensitive to movements so I had to use max zoom.
This is now playtime at Woodhill. The track is OK until this part where there isn’t really enough room to gain momentum and there is almost just one line. There are 2 stumps at the back just enough to fit the SG and the ground is somewhat too powdery. This part of NZ is just built on compacted sand throughout the years, anyway.
I tried to get enough traction as much as possible then decided to just vLSD all the way. I am still on my corrugation pressure at this moment.My old FJ40 and Jeeps would clear this like it's a pothole. I was told by the ranger who dropped by that he has seen 4x4s got stuck here as they are too big for the stumps and they had baller tyres on luxury-style vehicles, just like most of the utes or SUVs that you will see in Auckland. He just said they were city people with 4x4s.
The vLSD is triumphant.
The exploration is more of a break for me as Auckland can be too busy and there’s just too much people for a geographically challenging terrain for infrastructures. I would go back again but I may spend time on other parts of the South Head instead.
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