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Clevedon Scenic Reserve circuit, Auckland

Mark Eaglesfield

The short purple line is the track for the side-trip to Thorp’s Quarry.

Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Clevedon Scenic Reserve (Te Nīkau Pā) contains the southern end of a forested range of hills 45 minutes southeast of downtown Auckland. Puriri Track and Tōtara Track ascend/descend two neighboring flanks of the southernmost hill, forming a short circuit hike. The high point is around 225m. Some people call the ascent the Stairway to Heaven, for indeed there are a lot of stairs.

Nestled between the two flanks of the hill is the disused Thorp’s Quarry, to which we took a short side-trip.

Time

AllTrails users report an average of 1 hour 21 minutes.

We ascended in around 30 minutes, rested for 10 minutes, and descended the other flank in around 30 minutes. The path to Thorp’s Quarry took around 3 minutes each way.

Route

AllTrails reports a gain of 214m over 3.4km.

Ash, Natasha, Sasha, Bogdan, and I drove up Thorp’s Quarry Rd to the parking lot. Here is the medium-sized parking lot just before the Camp Sladdin buildings; there is a smaller lot with 4 spaces just after the buildings. There are toilets and a water fountain.

At the beginning of the track, there is a disinfection station for boots, meant to kill the microorganism that causes the kauri dieback disease. After that, we crossed a small wooden bridge and took the right fork, so we could hike counter-clockwise up Puriri Track, as per advice in a few AllTrails reviews. I believe this ascent is the one called the Stairway to Heaven.

The climb was on a good track, comprising around 1000 wooden stairs and short dirt stretches, through a dense forest with trees such as nīkau palms. There were one or two benches along the way. The track flattens out somewhat as we approached the high point. The map above shows a turnoff to Kimpton’s Track, but I didn’t see it.

The high point is a wooden platform offering hikers a bench and views over the forest. From the platform, we could see the Sky Tower and urban Auckland to the northeast; Whitford Forest to the north; the Hauraki Gulf where the Wairoa River enters it to the northeast; the Hunua Ranges to the southeast; and the dairy farms of the Wairoa Valley to the south.

After descending the wooden platform, we continued along the circuit by descending Tōtara Track. The descent seemed to have somewhat fewer stairs.

At the foot of the descent, we came to a T-intersection. We turned left and followed a path beside a brook to Thorp’s Quarry, which is surrounded on 3 sides by the flanks of the forested hill. The brook comes from a mossy waterfall. There are several picnic benches. However, the quarry seems to be a mosquito haven in the late afternoon due to its moisture and its protection from the winds, so we didn’t rest long.

Returning along the access track, we passed our descent route on the right, and came back to the original fork. We turned right for the parking lot.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this track a 1 throughout.

Circuit hike

Thorp’s Quarry walk

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