A Cycle Ride from Portobello to Taiaroa Head
It is a 20 minute car drive from town to Portobello. Leave the car here and head off by bicycle towards Taiaroa Head, 13km away. There are a few small hills as you pass harbour bays and cycle past old farm houses and huge macrocarpa trees. At the Otakau fishing wharf hundreds of gulls surround a fishing boat, and many wading birds including Royal spoonbills look for food in the shallows. The water is crystal clear. Further along is Wellers Rock where in 1831 the Weller brothers set up the whaling station that became the first European settlement in Otago. The Maoris had been coming to this area for the last 700 years and although the pa has gone from the heads there is still a marae here at Otakau.
The road passes houses, cribs, lean-tos and add-ons with their million dollar views and then it is a hard push up the bluff of Harington Point. The views are great - the harbour, Aramoana, the mole and the ocean, especially when the bright orange pilot boat speeds into sight with its rooster tail of churning water. The hill has its own reward with a rapid descent to Pilot Beach and back up the other side to the Albatross Centre. In 1914 the Royal Albatrosses were first noticed visiting the site. It wasn't until 1937 that efforts began to protect the birds so that they could breed and it is a quite a success story now with up to 100 birds coming back each year. In April the chicks are growing fast and it is an ideal time to view the parents coming and going, to and from the sea, bringing food. The centre offers lots of information and excellent refreshments as well as tours.
The cliffs beyond the car park offer fantastic views of the lighthouse and keeper's house which were built in 1864, by a Dunedin builder Hugh Calder, from locally quarried stone. They were painted white and lined with kauri and have distinctive red roofs. The original light was red - to be different from the one at Cape Saunders – and was brought out from Scotland by James Balfour who had been appointed Provincial Marine Engineer.
Look down to see fur seals on the rocks below, the giant bull kelp swirling in the waves, and spotted shags in crevices in the cliffs.
Cycling back to Portobello, the steep bits are short and the return is comfortably made in two and a half hours.
