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He went on in and his request was simple. Bream Tail Farm stood between the Brynderwyn Walkway and the Mangawhai Cliffs Walkway. He needed a walking corridor through 3 km of land to join the two.  The response was also simple – leave  Bream Tail Farms right now, or be thrown off.

Now, almost exactly ten years later, he was back, crouched in the bushes.

This was his own crazy scheme. No-one else knew. A plan to simply open the link through Bream Tail,  the last significant block to a walking corridor that would then stretch over 200 kilometres from Puhoi to Marsden Point. Mentally, he practised his speech. 

He’d been promised a crowd who – according to the Mangawhai Walking Weekend’s famous Jean Goldschmidt – had  signed up to the 2009 MWW’s first feature walk, the so-called “Mystery walk”. That crowd wouldn’t know where they were going. Nor was he sure he knew what he was doing. Where was the crowd anyway? He’d been waiting an hour. Maybe everyone was lost.

It had been, after all, a last minute brainstorm. Miriam had rustled up a few Te Araroa stickers and a bit of rope.  Jean produced red ribbon. Rex Fairburn’s daughter Dinah had handed him a top hat. No-one was quite sure what he was up to, but they wished him well. He tramped in, and now he worked alone under the hot sun of late March. He stretched the ribbon out between the guard rails either side of the farm road, then crawled back under the bush. The crowd was  to come up the Mangawhai Cliffs walkway – already open and legal – but this was the new bit that suddenly diverged to cross Bream Tail. His plan was to emerge and address the crowd.

He crawled under the bush and suddenly realised he’d become covered by a kind of white fungus. Wasps seemed to be interested in the fungus.  Kereru entered the kauri trees just a short way downhill with a thud. The plan was starting to go awry. A passing quad slewed to a halt just past his hidey hole, and a voice called out –

Someone was obviously shocked, amazed and in need of immediate calming before he tore the fragile opening arrangements to bits.

He emerged from under the bush.  Two farm dogs were staring at him. The next pair of eyes shone from under a leather stetson – farm manager Dave Burchett, awaiting an explanation.  He adjusted his top hat and began to talk.

 He recalled how he’d spotted the sale and subsequent subdivision plans for Bream Tail Farm – with no through route allowed.  How he’d  contacted Mike Elrick of Lands and Survey Ltd, the managers of the development. How Mike undertook to convince the developers to yield a through route. How locals Jean Goldschmidt had then driven a persuasive local campaign for the route, and Kaipara District Councillor Tom Smith had given powerful support. How DoC’s Shaughan Anderson  had come into the picture to formalise the arrangements and begin marking up and construction. How Te Araroa's northern project manager Fiona Mackenzie had kept the pressure on. How the Bream Tail Farm developer Birnie Capital itself deserved thanks after paying for an upgrade of the Mangawhai Cliffs walkway, then further allowing the through route. He gave thanks also to Alan and Lynley Lee, owners of an adjacent farming property that the  new connecting trail had also to cross.

And with that, he cut the ribbon and declared the Mangawhai Connector open.

                                                                                                           Pic: Shaughan Anderson

                                                                                          Pic: Dianne McKinnon

The track is not yet finished. The kissing gates destined for fences bordering the Lee farm have not yet been installed, and everyone should be most careful to cross beside the strainers so as not to damage the fence.

 And keep to the marked route. We leave you with the parting words of Dave Burchett before the farm manager hopped back on his quad and made off.

“Look mate,” Dave told the man in the top hat, “I don’t mind, just so long as they keep to the track and don’t go wandering all over the farm.”

                                                                                                                       Map: Kim Ollivier

Key - A-C: Mangawhai Cliffs (a loop track when the tide is right)

         B-D: New Mangawhai Connector

         D-E: Brynderwyn Walkway