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Kapuni Loop & Wilkie’s Pools, Dawson Falls, Stratford

Mark Eaglesfield

Dawson Falls is on the southeastern slopes of Mt Taranaki, underlined in cyan. The trailheads for my other two hikes are also indicated.

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

Mt Taranaki (Taranaki Maunga) is an active stratovolcano in the Taranaki region of western North Island. There are several trailheads on the slopes of the mountain, for a variety of hikes, most of which do not go to the summit. The southeastern trailheads are at Dawson Falls visitor center, 30 minutes from Stratford and 60 minutes from New Plymouth.

  • From the visitor center, I followed the Kapuni Loop past Dawson Falls (the actual waterfall).

  • After returning to the visitor center, I then followed part of the Wilkie’s Pools Loop Track out-and-back to Wilkie’s Pools, which at around 1030m of elevation was the high point of my walks. The pools are formations of dried lava, through which Kapuni Stream flows, before reaching the waterfall.

Dawson Falls is known as the trailhead of Fantham’s Peak, which is the only major break in Mt Taranaki’s picturesque cone shape. I decided against hiking to Fantham’s Peak to conserve strength to summit Mt Taranaki the next day.

Time

DOC reports that Kapuni Loop takes around 60 minutes. It took me around 50 minutes, including a break at the foot of Dawson Falls.

Kapuni Loop is in red. My Wilkie’s Pools route is in purple, with a small cyan extension beside the pools. The remaining part of the Wilkie’s Pools loop is not highlighted; it is beside the upper part of my out-and-back walk.

I’ve included the wide image to contrast these two short walks with the steep hike to Fantham’s Peak. I also underlined the visitor center in cyan.

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

DOC reports that Wilkie’s Pools Loop Track takes around 80 minutes. As an out-and-back, it took me 70 minutes, of which around 20 minutes exploring the pools and 10 minutes photographing spider webs.

Kapuni Loop route

DOC reports that Kapuni Loop is around 1.4km. I followed it clockwise.

From the visitor center parking lot, I walked for 1-2 minutes back down the access road (Manaia Rd) and turned left into the forest at a sign. From there, continuing downhill, I was on a well-constructed but sometimes moderately muddy path. There is a long staircase down to the base of Dawson Falls. This is a detour off the main track, which I thought was worthwhile, because the view from below the Falls is more impressive than the view from the track. I missed the view from the track at first - it was only a few meters wide.

After the Falls, the track crossed Manaia Road and turned right, heading back uphill toward the visitor center. At some point the track split, with the left route exiting the forest to walk through a grassy area. I regret taking this for the last few minutes of the walk.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this hike a 2 at worst.

Wilkie’s Pools route

DOC reports that the full loop is around 1.9km. My out-and-back route was a bit shorter, including the off-track portion.

This track starts on the far side of the visitor center from the parking lot, and is in great condition. A swing bridge crosses Kapuni Stream.

After that, I exited the track to the left to clamber upstream beside the pools, without crossing the stream, i.e. staying on the true left of the stream. I turned around when I felt the nuisance of clambering on slippery walks had outweighed the novelty of seeing further lava formations. Wearing shoes with a better grip than tennis shoes is useful for this, more for going down than going up. One unprepared walker had to slide their way back down the rocks, and this was on a day without rain.

I decided against walking the full loop track to avoid the unbridged stream crossing. It doesn’t sound difficult from the DOC website description, but I didn’t see any point when I could just stay on an easier path.

Take care when crossing the Kapuni Stream as the river bank may be eroded, making access difficult. There is no bridge across this stream. It may be impassable after heavy rain.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this hike a 4 for the off-track portion and a 1 on-track.

Kapuni Loop

Wilkie’s Pools

Hunting

The entire route is in a hunting area (for goats and possums). Hunters are forbidden to “discharge firearms near tracks, huts, campsites, road-ends or any other public place.” I have hiked in more than 30 hunting areas, and only passed hunters twice - this wasn’t one of those hikes.

Here is the DOC topomap with all hunting areas visible.

Other pages about these hikes

Pages about other hikes from Dawson Falls

Other nearby hikes