Tuff Crater: Whinging children, disgruntled parents and a maar.

After the enthusiasm of our first climb, week two proved less invigorating. We had planned to head up Big King, but after a busy Saturday, a Sunday morning visit to the North Shore, and it just being so damn hot, we couldn't face dragging ourselves up a relatively steep hill. So we thought, maybe let's just take the kids to Onepoto Domain, because a) it's on the way home, b) it's a reclaimed crater or maar, and c) it's one of the best playgrounds in Auckland. Then my brother suggested we go to Tuff Crater over the ridge from Onepoto, which despite being just off the motorway and maybe five minutes drive from where my in-laws live, we had never been.* Never even seen beyond the mangrove swamp harbour entrance near the Esmonde Rd off-ramp.

So Tuff Crater it was, with the plan for a cheery walk around its edge and a stop-off at Onepoto to give the kids a play on the way back home. As a treat.

The minute the words "as a treat" escape your lips, you should know it ain't happening. 

Looking across Tuff Crater to Mt Victoria in the distance

Fulfulling our Auckland suburban requirements, we popped into a cafe in Birkenhead Point to fuel ourselves for this less than taxing lagoon saunter, steeling myself with caffeine and bribing the children with a gingerbread man and fizzy raspberry drink, and a gingerbread rocket and chocolate fluffy respectively. Then we drove down through Little Shoal Bay, back up to Onewa Rd and past Onepoto to find this fabled mangrove swamp lagoon crater surrounded by Northcote houses and the motorway.

Tuff Crater is named Tuff Crater because it is a tuff ring, or a maar: a low profile volcanic vent located in a lake or coastal region. It is also known as Tank Farm, because of the petrochemical tanks stored there during World War II, but shouldn't be confused with the other prosaically named petrochemical tank storage facility on Wynyard Wharf in the city called Tank Farm.

In Te Reo Māori it is Te Kopua o Matakamokamo, the basin of Matakamokamo; a hotheaded chap whose domestic squabbles ran afoul of Mahuika, the goddess of fire. Onepoto is the basin of his equally tempestuous wife Matakerepo.

Disgruntled child with drink by mangroves

We were a squabbling family by the time we found a street with access to the walkway. One child storming off ahead to see how far her legs could take her from the other child who didn't want to walk or to move and didn't want to be there and why couldn't we just go home now. Mock enthusiasm and idle threats abounded from the parents as we set off through a little grove of native trees around to the viewing platform. Where we discovered that the proposed bridge at the mouth of the lagoon was still very much a proposal, so we couldn't walk the full circumference anyway. Back we trod with one child crying foul play and the other child crying about anything he could think of at the time.

And no we didn't go to the park. NO ONE IS GOING TO THE PARK WITH THIS BEHAVIOUR.

So we went to my parents, who offered to take the kids out to Clevedon. Not for geological, but for geographical and genealogical betterment.

That was Tuff Crater.

P.S. Click here for a link to a much more informative description from the people at Bike Friendly North Shore.

* It is important to remember that my husband grew up in Takapuna and Tuff Crater is in Northcote. They are divided by more than just the motorway. My excuse is that I'm not from the Shore. Hey, how many times have you been to Pigeon Mountain or Stockade Hill, eh?