Hellyers Creek Path from Shepherds Park
Auckland
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Auckland Council’s own wording: “Auckland Council, Hellyers Creek Reserve park page, dog walking table: “All other areas … All times … Off-leash” and “Foreshore and mangroves … All times … On-leash. This covers the foreshore and associated mangrove areas of Hellyers Creek.” The walkway this loop is built on is the Hellyers Creek Foreshore Reserve Walkway and it runs the foreshore the whole way, so it is the on-leash half of the reserve, not the off-leash half. The road leg is on-leash too: Policy on Dogs 2025, Schedule 1, rule 1.3(1)(a), dogs “must be kept under control on a leash” on “formed roads (including any street, highway, access way, service lane, and on any footpath, cycle track, bus stop and berm within the boundaries of the road)”. Shepherds Park at the start is listed off-leash (Policy on Dogs 2025, section 2.8.2, item 131, Kaipātiki Local Board area, and the park’s own page: “All other areas of the park … Off-leash”), but its playground and sports fields are “Prohibited” at all times and on-leash in the vicinity when in use. Council adds on both pages: “Always follow the rules shown on our website for where you can walk your dog, even if the information on park signs does not match.” Read 7 September 2026”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Hellyers Creek Path from Shepherds Park
Hellyers Creek Path from Shepherds Park covers 3.3 km, in Auckland.
A 3.3 km loop out of Shepherds Park in Beach Haven, down onto the Hellyers Creek Foreshore Reserve Walkway, along the tidal edge of the creek, then back up to the park by road. JC and Elio sent it in and put it at about 3.5 km. We make the line 3.27 km, so his eye was good. It is flat, gravel and boardwalk most of the way, and it takes a bit over 40 minutes at a walking pace. One thing to get straight before you go, because the council uses this name for something longer. Auckland Council publishes a Hellyers Creek Path of 6.0 km and 60 minutes starting at 120 Beach Haven Road, which carries on further around the coast. This page is the shorter loop JC actually walks: out of Shepherds Park, onto the western end of the walkway, 1.96 km of continuous track east along the creek, then back to the car park on the footpath. If you want the council’s full 6 km, keep going where our line turns for home. The track itself is proper estuary walking rather than coastal. Gravel underfoot with short wooden boardwalk sections over the wet ground, mangroves and pohutukawa either side, and at low tide you are walking above mudflats worth stopping for if your dog will let you. It is a clean continuous line with no junctions to get wrong, and it ends near Beach Haven Road at the far end. The lead stays on for this one, and the reason is worth knowing because it is narrower than it looks. Hellyers Creek Reserve is an off-leash reserve, but the council carves out “the foreshore and associated mangrove areas” as on-leash at all times, and the walkway runs the foreshore for its whole length. The road section home is on-leash as well, footpath and berm included. Where your dog can come off is back at Shepherds Park, which is off-leash everywhere except the playground and the sports fields, and dogs are not allowed on those surfaces at all. So: lead on for the walk, off for a run around the park at the end, and on again near the fields if anything is being played on them.
It sits at the easy end and gains roughly 60 m, and takes about 45 min to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because JC & Elio suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.