There is a long tradition in this part of Northland of knowing what the land and sea around you can provide. Not in a survivalist sense — in a culinary one. The Waimanu Valley and the coastline nearby have always been productive country, and with a bit of knowledge, a walk here becomes something more than exercise.
This isn’t a definitive foraging guide — please don’t eat anything you can’t identify with absolute certainty — but it’s a starting point for what’s out there and when.
Watercress
Watercress grows prolifically in the slow-moving streams and drains of the valley. It’s most tender in cooler months and has a pleasantly peppery bite. Pick the young tips, wash thoroughly, and use it in salads, soups, or wilted quickly in butter with garlic. Check your source — watercress from waterways near intensive farming can carry contaminants, so know where your water is coming from.
Kawakawa
This native plant — identifiable by its heart-shaped leaves, often riddled with insect holes, which is actually a sign of health — grows throughout the bush margins of the valley. The leaves are used in Māori cuisine and medicine, with a flavour somewhere between pepper and aniseed. Kawakawa tea, made by steeping fresh or dried leaves, is warming and distinctive. The berries, when ripe and orange, are edible and intensely flavoured.
Pūhā (Sow Thistle)
A traditional Māori green, pūhā grows as a weed in disturbed ground throughout the area. It looks like a thistle but without the aggressive spines. The young leaves are eaten raw or cooked — boiling removes some of the bitterness — and it’s often served alongside hāngī food. It’s one of those plants that most people walk past assuming it’s just a weed. It is, technically. But it’s also food.
Coastal Foraging: Pāua, Kina, and Pipi
The coastline within easy reach of Waimanu is rocky in places and sandy in others, which means different shellfish in different spots. Pipi and tuatua can be found in sandy beaches at low tide — you feel for them with your feet and pick them up. Kina (sea urchin) clings to the rocky reefs and has a flavour that divides opinion: intensely briny and rich, it’s beloved by those who grew up eating it and bewildering to everyone else on first taste. Pāua requires freediving to reach good specimens and is subject to legal size and bag limits — check current regulations before harvesting anything.
Feijoas
Not wild, exactly — but feijoa trees grow in almost every garden in this part of New Zealand, and from late March through May the ground under them is carpeted with fallen fruit that nobody is going to collect. Ask. In this part of the country, offering someone feijoas is a social obligation; they have too many and will be grateful for any takers.
A Note on Caution
New Zealand doesn’t have the terrifying array of toxic plants that some other countries do, but misidentification is still possible and some plants are genuinely harmful. The general rule applies everywhere: if you’re not completely certain what something is, don’t eat it. The plants described above are unmistakable once you know them — kawakawa in particular has no dangerous lookalikes — but do your reading before your walk, not after.
The most important foraging skill, in any case, is simply noticing what’s around you. This valley rewards attention.