16 /7/2025. Taieri Mouth. Grade 2.5. Hikers. Leaders: Alex Griffin, Adrienne Ensor.
25 hikers were greeted with a lovely sunny day when we assembled at Knarston Park in Taieri Mouth, with only a slight breeze coming off the sea.
We had a short walk along the beach, with a great view of Moturata Island. While you can walk out to Moturata Island at low tide, you are not allowed onto the island as it is now a protected nature reserve and home to many protected seabirds.
We then diverted down one of the many tracks from the beach, through the Taieri Mouth Beach Holiday Camp to Moturata Road where we stopped at Alex and Liz Griffin’s new house for morning tea on their deck. Another great viewing spot of Moturata Island. They haven’t moved in yet but plan to after they get the power on, hopefully Friday this week (18th July).
After morning tea, we headed back down another track to the beach…
… and along the beach as far as we could walk…
… to the rocky headland, which you can only walk around at very low tides. It was beautiful down that end of the beach no wind at all.
A short back-track down the beach to another track took us past houses and up a wee incline and back onto Moturata Road, further down the township. We continued along Moturata Road, passed the Taieri Beach School, which now only has about five pupils and two teachers.
Then it was up Akatore Road to Forestry Park, which was once the Forestry Headquarters. It is now privately owned and has four families living there along with wildlife. Today we saw peacocks, llamas, sheep, miniature ponies and quails. We had our lunch here on the front lawn of locals, Wingy and Janet Adams. One of the miniature ponies wanted to share our lunches.
After a lovely rest in the sun, we headed back down Akatore Road to Moturata Road, down the wee incline and along Palmer Place to Livingstonia Park for a comfort stop and to admire the new mural recently completed on the storage shed. The mural was done by Koryu, a renowned Japanese mural artist based in New Zealand.
The mural is inspired by the natural beauty of Taieri Mouth, especially the estuary where the river flows from the mountain to the sea. The concept tells a simple story through a child fishing, capturing the gentle transition from forest to river, to ocean. A child catches a fish in the estuary, a sealion chases fish in the sea and spoonbill take flight, startled by the child’s movements. Together these scenes celebrate the timeless connection between people and nature in this special place.
From Livingstonia Park we walked along two more tracks to the beach.
Altogether we walked along five different tracks to/from the beach. We arrived back at the cars just as it started to rain, although it didn’t last long.
We then drove our vehicles to the Fishermans Wharf on Marine Parade, where local fisherman, Glen (Paddy) Patterson hosted us in his iconic ‘Taieri Tavern’, the red boat shed beside the wharf.
He has been fishing the Otago / Southland coast for over 20 years. He sails the Lady Jane from the Taieri mouth. You can pick up his fish from the shed and this is the link to see what is available to order Fish Local – Direct To You
We finished the day with yummy refreshments from the Brighton Beach Cafe and Shop. Altogether we walked 10km’s in beautiful weather; a good time had by all.
Adrienne
Link to background information and earlier tramps and hikes in the same area.