Duder
Located on the pohutukawa-fringed Whakakaiwhara Peninsula, which juts out into the Tamaki Strait, Duder Regional Park is a 162-hectare coastal farm park.
If you want to experience an escape to the Hauraki Gulf without leaving the mainland, come to Duder Regional Park and enjoy some of the region's most spectacular 360-degree views.
Its landscape, including rolling pasture, high coastal ridges a remote headland, adds to the feeling of isolation and tranquility, almost as if you were on your own Gulf island. The peaceful setting provides for a number of recreation opportunities including walking, picnicking, horse riding (by permit only), mountain biking, orienteering, fishing, exploring the rocky shore and swimming at high tide.
Duder Regional Park takes its name from the European family who owned the land for almost 130 years.
Park facilities
- Mobility access (partial)
This is a coastal farm park with beautiful views of the Hauraki Gulf and few man-made structures. The land is predominately gently undulating grassland. Parts of the Park are accessible to mobility impaired visitors, particularly on the well-structured paths, even if the ground is wet. Click here for a PDF fact sheet about limited mobility access at Duder.
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- Accessible picnic table
The picnic area adjoining the car park is on a flat grassed area and is wheelchair accessible.
- Beaches
Umupuia Beach is a sandy beach available at low tide along the coastal walk. Good swimming available here. Also a couple of sheltered sandy bays off the farm loop track.
- Interpretation
- Limited mobility parking
The surface is small, loose gravel throughout, but it is accessible in a wheelchair. There is no defined parking and none designated for mobility parking.
- Limited mobility toilet
The main car park has wheelchair accessible toilets.
- Long drop / vault toilet
- Native bush
- Notice board
- Parking
- Pram access
It is possible to access the stockyards with a pram, possibly beyond.
- Toilet block
History
In the 14th century, this was the first place in the Waitemata Harbour to be visited by Tainui canoe. Its crew went ashore and harvested forest foods, which led to the peninsula's name - Whakakaiwhara meaning ' to eat the bracts of the kiekie vine'.
Some of the descendants of the crew settled in the area and became known as Ngai Tai. They lived on the peninsula until the 1860s, taking advantage of its abundant food resources (including seasonal shark fishing) and its strategic location near the Wairoa River mouth. Ngai Tai's affiliation to the land is reflected in the many archaeological sites on and near the park.
The most significant of these are Whakakaiwhara Pa at the tip of the peninsula and Oue Pa several kilometres to the south. The Kauri forest on the peninsula was logged in the 1850s. In 1866 the Duder family began its association with the area when Thomas Duder, a survivor of the HMS Buffalo wreck (1840), bought the 243-hectare property from Ngai Tai. His descendants farmed the property until it was sold to the Auckland Regional Council and became a regional park in 1995.
In 2010, the ARC added another 13.7 hectares to the original park with the purchase of an ‘L’ shaped block at the park entrance and beneath the foothills to the Whakakaiwhara Peninsula. This will offer increased recreation areas, better access to the park and its historic woolshed and greater protection for the spectacular peninsula.
Read the PDF below to find out more about the history of the Whakakaiwhara block:
Wildlife
Resident native birds include silvereye (tauhou), kererū, morepork (rūrū), tūi, fantail (piwaiwaka), grey warbler (riroriro) and kingfisher (kotare).
Inter tidal mudflats around the park are important feeding and roosting areas for shore and wading birds such as pied shag (kāruhiruhi), white-faced heron, South Island pied oystercatcher (tōrea), pied stilt (poaka), godwit (kuaka) and gulls (tarapunga). Small numbers of the endangered tuturi whatu New Zealand dotterel (there are only about 1500 of these birds in the world!) breed on shell banks south of the park. This area is not accessible to the public. On the farmland you are more likely to see magpies than tui. The small forest remnants in the valleys are home to a good range of native birds.
Native bush
While most of the park is pasture, pohutukawa fringe parts of the coast and there are remnants of original native forest cover in the gullies. A few kauri remain but the patches of coastal forest scattered around the park mostly consist of taraire, tawa, kanuka, puriri and karaka.
