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Wairere Boulders is a geological nature park planned by Felix and Rita Schaad in 1999. The park was built between 2000 and 2003. Wairere Boulders allows visitors to have a close encounter with the basalt blocks known as the Horeke basalts that are scattered all over the property of Felix and Rita.

Walks
There are several walks ranging from 40 minutes to a maximum walking time of two hours. The gigantic rocks are surrounded by subtropical rainforest. There are some information panels along the track and lots of trees are labelled in Maori and English.

Bouldering
Part of the farmed area is open for bouldering, which has become more and more popular in recent years. The bouldering area is vast and offers climbing to beginners and experienced boulderers.

Location
The Wairere Boulders are located at 70 McDonnell Road (the end of the road), at Wairere, a small ancient settlement near Horeke in the Hokianga, in the far north of New Zealand. The walks are through the Wairere valley which features an unusually large assemblage of basalt rocks.

Construction
Rita and Felix undertook to create private walkways in highly dangerous surroundings. Therefore, they had to overcome many legal and design obstacles. As Felix was a registered civil engineer, he was able to design the 24 bridges, ramps and stairs and a viewing platform to NZ building standards to guarantee the safety of the visitors.

In March 2000 they got the “green light” and construction started. It took 4 years of hard labour. They dug and metalled all tracks by hand. Also, they singlehandedly built all 25 structures themselves, which was a backbreaking effort. After a rigorous test of compliance by the Far North District Council, the Wairere Boulders finally opened towards end of 2003.

Geology
For geology, go to Horeke basalts.

Public Relations
To get known was the bigger hurdle to overcome, than to build all the structures, dig and metal the tracks. At least a hundred invitations were written to journalists with an offer to a free guided tour. Also famils were organised for staff of information centres, other tourism operators and accommodation providers. PR started even before construction was completed and only a part of the tracks could be visited. One of the first articles was published already in December 2002 in the tourism paper ″Look North″ Just before the official opening some major news papers and magazines started to write about the Wairere Boulders. On 12.March 2003, the ″Dominion in Wellington″″ On 18 Sept 2003 ″The Northland Age″. From then on many other papers followed and alerted scientists to the odd nature of the basalt blocks in the Wairere valley as well as the great opportunity to see them on the walking tracks through the Wairere Boulders. On 01.March.2008 the ″Advocate Whangarei″. In 2008 Wairere Boulders reached one of their goals to get qualmarked. The stepwas announced in the ″Northern News″.. According to the article of the ″Bay of Islands Chronicle″ on 08 Aug 2008, many scientists got alerted to the previously unknown formation for rocks in the Wairere valley. . One of the best articles was written by ″Jim Eagles″ Senior Tourism Writer of the ″NZ Herald″ on 06 Oct 2009 One of the most recent article was published on 22 Dec 2011 in the ″Bay of Islands Chronicle″.

The tour company ″Great Sights″ was so impressed by the quality and uniqueness of the Wairere Boulders as an attraction that they decided in 2009 to include the basic walk of the Wairere Boulders into their Hokianga Tour. The walk has become so popular that Great Sights is now considering to do a special Wairere Boulders tour.

Also most magazines started to write about the Wairere Boulders. An extensive article written by ″Elizabeth Light″ was Published in the prestigious magazine ″North and South″, March 2005. Other magazines like ″Autocar″, ″NZ House and Garden″, ″Walking New Zealand″ followed.

In 2008 the ″Lonely Planet″ started to write in the New Zealand edition about the Wairere Boulders (Eastern Hokianga, page 187). In 2009 the German New Zealand guide ″Michael Müller″ (2009 2.Auflage Seite 225) was one of the first German guides writing about the Wairere Boulders. From 2010 on the attraction can be found in almost every tourism guide of many languages and also on most maps of Northland, New Zealand.

Wairere Boulders appeared also on TV. On 09. January 2007 their park was announced on ″TV ONE NEWS″.

On 26. June 2010, they were featured on ″TV NZ - Country Calendar″ and seen by around 750’000 viewers. All the hard PR work over 10 years paid of, Wairere Boulders ranks now on top of attractions in Northland of New Zealand  Wairere Boulders also realised that they were unable to build up their business without a fast internet connection. They decided to contact Rural Link to help build a broadband system in the area. As it was financially not viable for Rural Link to do so, Wairere Boulders contributed a big junk of money towards the construction of the system, now used by various businesses, 2 schools and over 40 households. Rural Link on Country Calendar 

Eco Sustainability
Wairere Boulders was chosen as one of the 6 businesses to take part in the Sustainable Tourism Charter Pilot Programme 2003/2004 organised by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment and Enterprise Northland Tourism Charter Pilot Project 2003/2004  The park was chosen due to its unusual nature as a tourism attraction, to make sure the future charter will cover a wide range of tourism operations.