Tramping? Horse-riding? Mountainbiking? Road cycling? Rugby? Netball? Golf? We have it all. Below we are building a collection of contacts related to our outdoor activities for your use.
Pirongia Te Aroaro o Kahu Restoration Society Hear the stories behind our mountain and gain fascinating insights into New Zealand’s natural world. view Pirongia's natural world (picture) and fauna (picture). Our members offer guided walks on Mt Pirongia with commentaries, by arrangement. See our website for more details. Address: PDC 2450, Pirongia Telephone: Email or phone (07) 8719133 Costs: By donation
Karamu Trail Track - Horse Trekking, interesting affordable guided horse treks for all abilities. Children's lead ponies. Canoes. Walks. Weekends, public holidays, school holidays or by arrangement
Smith Road Karamu, 15 minutes west of Hamilton. Phone 07 825 9809. Email bookings.
Tramping.
This link shows the many beautiful walks available on our mountain. Click on the numbers or letters to see full information.
Heliworx Helicopter Rides, Heliworx Waikato offers scenic flights tailored to suit your needs. Choose from a range of options from a 20 minute flight over Mt Pirongia, to a 1 hour flight along the beautiful west coast harbours and over Hamilton city. We also offer trial flights for the helicopter enthusiast. Gift vouchers available.
See our website for more information. Email us here. Ph: 07 825 9997 Located at 427 Te Pahu Road, RD5, Hamilton.
A sample of what you might see from the helicopter:
Aukati Farms - See real kiwi farming in action. Modern dairy shed fully automated with observation platform built in. Owners available during milking to inform visitors and answer questions. Hours are 2.30 - 4pm, 7 days. Bookings essential. Frontier Road, Pirongia. Cost: $5 / pp. Phone: 021 671 976 or Email
HighGate GardensTwo acres of attractive all year garden. There are facilities for groups to enjoy their picnic lunch. Wonderful views of Mt Pirongia in a beautiful serene garden, as in this photo. Open Wed - Sun 10am -4pm or by arrangement. $5 entry" 167 Bird Road, Pirongia, RD6 Te Awamutu ph 07 871 9771 e jan_d@clear,net.nz
The Waipa Mountain Bike Club (popularly known as WAMOs) is a club started in 2008 intending to open up new trails on the mountain, in the Sainsbury Road area. The sport of off-road cycling is rapidly growing in popularity and is a very social way to keep fit and active while embracing any level of competitiveness from purely social to Olympic level.
Road Cycling Pirongia is surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of beautiful tarsealed, low-traffic country roads roads, ideal for road cycling, with a choice of hilly, rolling or flat terrain, so it's not surprising that cycling is hugely popular. Some of our nation's best cyclists train via the nearby Te-Awamutu Sport Cycling Club on these very roads. Traffic volumes are low if you steer clear of the main highways, which is not difficult. Watch out for occasional milk tankers on even the quietest of roads - but they are usually very carefully driven by our local tanker-drivers, some of whom are cyclists themselves. As they often say - "Cycling - its what we do round here"
So make sure you bring your bike when you visit or even consider a purist cycling holiday in our area. There are people in the area whose main reason for moving here was the cycling environment.
Pirongia Golf Club Pirongia Golf Club is a place of quiet tranquillity and has Mt Pirongia as a backdrop, also the historic Waipa and Mangapiko Rivers along two boundaries. Course layout caters for the racetrack and the golf club assists in staging the Annual Pirongia Boxing Day Races. There are a number of trees adding to the charm. The Course has undergone many improvements and developments and continues to provide members and visitors with good golfing facilities.
Missing the Beach?
And okay we are considered an inland village but it is only a 42k drive over incredibly scenic country roads to reach the glorious west coast sands and surf of Kawhia where you will feel as if you have gone back in time to all the best aspects of 1950s NZ. There you will find great cafes, glorious surf, and at low tide, you can dig a hole in the wet sand and sit in geothermal hotwater right there on the beach, admiring the wild ocean and listening to nothing but the surf and the cry of the gulls, all without paying a bean. (Woopsy! Just spilt one of the region's best kept secrets!)
