Mt Donald McLean via Karamatura Track, Auckland, NZ

Southeast toward Manukau Harbour. Manukau Heads at right. Karangahape Peninsula center-left. Central Auckland’s Sky Tower and Rangitoto Island volcano are visible at high zoom at far left, against the whitish sky.

Te Rau-o-te-Huia / Mt Donald McLean (/məˈkleɪn/) is a low forested peak (389m) in the Waitākere Ranges. It is about 40 minutes southwest of downtown Auckland. Starting from Karamatura parking lot, I reached it on a medium-length hike along the Karamatura Track and then Mt Donald McLean Track.

On my return, I made a side-trip to Karamatura Falls.

These tracks were reopened after some sort of soil decontamination aimed at preventing kauri dieback, which is when soil microorganisms slowly kill kauri trees. (Other tracks in the area remain closed.) Please cleanse your boots and trekking poles of soil before hiking here. A boot-cleaning station can be seen at the start of this video.

Time

AllTrails users report taking an average of 4 hours 9 minutes return. Including all breaks and the side-trip to Karamatura Falls, it took me around 4 hours.

Route

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

AllTrails reports that the hike involves 602 meters of elevation gain over 11.2km return.

I parked at Karamatura parking lot. The turnoff is on the right, just before Huia Settlers’ Museum (on the left).

The track is in forest throughout, and there is only a decent view through above the trees every 30 minutes or so. Karamatura Track involved a lot of good-quality steps up to the Karamatura Forks intersection of trails. From there, Donald McLean Track undulated gently until it met the end of Mt Donald McLean Road (the shortcut to the peak). From here it was a few minutes uphill to the peak. There, I got the best view of the hike.

On the return, I visited Karamatura Falls. The track is short. It was a more popular destination from the parking lot than the peak was, probably because there is less distance to cover.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give the Donald McLean and Karamatura tracks a 1 throughout. I can’t remember what the short side-track to the waterfall was like.