Auckland City Walk

The Waitakeres offer heaps of excellent walks and trails, and to the locals this one is known as The Cascades. I did this walk with my family when I was kid, and back then all we wanted to do was go swimming in the rock pools. These days you’d have to pay me a million bucks to get in the water because it is absolutely freezing. But the waterfall is pretty and all the rocks make for a beautiful setting. The walk itself is easy but if you keep a good pace, you’ll warm up and get going pretty quickly. We take my dog here; dogs are allowed but make sure they are on a lead, just make sure you bring doggie bags because if your dog goes for one, you best be picking that crap up. Unlucky for me my dog likes to poo as much as she can in areas where there’s lots of smells, especially places she’d never been before, so I was picking up plenty.

Although it’s not an arduous walk in summer you still warm up pretty quick. A swim starts to seem pretty appealing, and that’s where the walk tricks you — it seems like there are ample opportunities for swimming, either in the creek by the bridge or in the pool by the waterfall. But there’s a Goldilocks situation at work here — the creek is too shallow, and the pool is too cold. And there’s no option that we found which is just right.
But this is a minor complaint, if it’s even that. You’re here to walk, not to swim, and the walk itself is nice, plenty of shade and nice little scenes of water and trees. There are kauri trees out here, so they’re doing what they can to fight the dieback — there are shoe-​washing stations at the beginning and end of the walk which you’ll need to use if you don’t want to be a nature-​hating tree killer.

A really nice 1.5km walk in the Cascade area of the Waitakeres. It says it takes an hour but that would have to be at a pretty leisurely pace, which is actually a nice speed to take in the area. It’s a pleasant walk that follows a stream for a ways and also past some impressive kauri trees. It’s a flat, easy trail so works well for all ages and is also pram-​friendly. There’s a toilet at the track start (by the bottom car park) and there are grassy areas at both ends if you fancy coming for a picnic. And for the more adventurous, there’s a side trail about 15 minutes from the start which goes to a waterfall that cascades (funny, that) out of a steep rocky nook. It’s a quick walk to the waterfall but you’ll have to clamber over some large boulders (can be very slippery when wet) and even get into the water to see it properly. There’s a great (although small) pool to jump into, but be warned: it is SUPER COLD, even at the height of summer.
To get there, drive past the golf club and keep going to the end of Falls Rd (which is off Te Henga Rd).