Traffic is just getting busy. It's half-past seven in the morning. It's a cold winter morning with a visible layer of frost over the lawn surfaces, quite like a layer of white cream frosting on a green tea cake! Who makes green tea cakes? Well am not sure about cakes, but I have definitely come across green tea ice cream and that was it, let it be a one-time experience. ETA is looking good, let's just say that the destination is somewhere in Te Puna.
After we got the business done at Te Puna, we came across a place that was quite magical. As I was looking out at random in google maps for any areas of interest, like how some iconic flagship landmarks show up as you zoom in or zoom out in the maps app, a striking layout of the water body got our attention, spread out all around our location of interest. There is a reserve!!
The place is Waitui Reserve, a beautiful waterfront area with an outstanding specimen Eucalyptus tree which is an art of its own, and boat ramp access. The estuary was teeming with native birds, we spotted plenty of Tui, local kingfishers and Pied Stilt's to name a few. It's quite easy to get this Waitui Reserve mixed up with the Waituna Wetland Scientific Reserve, the natural habitat of Awarua Waituna of Southland with lagoons, ponds, lakes, and peatland.
The area has a line of houses and hence a small community living with the benefits of having one of the most impressive views you could get in the eastern Bay of Plenty region. A perfect waterfront paradise, to sitback, relax and bask in the sun. Against the backdrop of the iconic tree specimen, there is the Mount Maunganui aka Mauao (meaning ''caught by the morning light''). The story of the Mauao, with the genesis chapter where three mountains living together in the Hautere forest is a legendary story of its own and never fails to astonish me.
The reserve has allowance from the council and the community to occupy campers with ample space available. The site comes equipped with the ncessary facilities for the freedom campers in campervans and motorvans. There are maximum stay restrictions of 3 nights for such campers over a period of 4 consecutive weeks. This comes free of cost and hence be kind with the community and the nature itself. I like it best when the reserve is on a high tide with water body teeming with life and other species of life chasing after it!
It was quite handy to have my backpack with all the basic camera gears. The views and the bird songs were so magical and didn't want to miss capturing this. Took out the tripods and shot a couple of videos, relaxing ourselves while the camera does the job. There were some children playing on the streets, however there wan't much noise to disrupt the nature sounds. The one with the beach waves came out to be nice as the wind wasn't too bad. The bird songs too came out well other than the visulas being a bit cloudy making it hard to notice a Tui or other natives making those lovely songs.
There were couple of campervans stalled at the place and as it was morning quite a few local people from the community was found having their daily walks and bike rides. The scene was so calm and refreshing with friendly community and serene nature vibes. More visits are definetly planned to this place as there are some walks that still need to be explored. From the maps, there seems to have quite a few tracks that spreads out along the waterbody and the place is close to some nearby parks as well.
