A stile over a fence at the southern end of McNicol Road takes you onto the Wairoa River Track. (Note: as yet there’s no signage but the track’s marked through to the Hunua Ranges Regional Park).

The track follows the true right of the Wairoa River, through some pretty stretches of bush, and is flat through the first 2 kms, before leaving the river to skirt around a gorge section, then climbing to a track intersection.  

At that junction, the track heads steeply downhill and back towards the river.  At the bottom of the hill, it splashes across a small stream draining an interior swamp, and enters a small pine plantation. The track is not particularly well marked here, but if you trend right, towards the unseen river, you’ll soon break out of the forest.

From there, it’s easy going on a grassed terrace with the Wairoa River in view below.  

Continue on through an old farm gate, then a final stretch along what was once a bulldozed access road. The boundary of the Hunua Ranges Regional Park is marked by the track going back into bush. You need to pay attention to the markers here; there’s also one slippery scramble down to and across a stream, before you can ascend on newly installed steps up to Cossey Access Road.

 The track southern end of the track is accessed by Hunua Road from Papakura, then the White Road turnoff just before Hunua township, turning right into Falls Road, then left onto Cossey Access Road (sometimes called Massey Road).  Park just before the cattlestop on Cossey Access Road, and the track begins (or exits) onto the road about 50 metres uphill of the cattlestop.