Scandretts Bay is the central part of Scandretts Regional Park on the Mahurangi Peninsula. It combines the park's historical buildings with a 400-metre beach, bounded by Mullet Point to the east and an unnamed point to the west. Scandrett Road, accessed from Martins Bay Road, takes you directly into the main car parking area at the east end of the bay, close to the historical Scandrett family homestead.
A grassy reserve runs behind most of the beach, with a metal road providing access to three bachs, which can be rented online, at the west end of the bay. You can walk along the reserve as well as the beach. At the west end of the reserve, a track leads to a lookout on the point at the west end of the beach. Behind the reserve is a section of regrowth native forest. You can also connect to three linked tracks, the Kawau Bay, Mullet Point and Orchard Tracks, which provide a 2-hour loop walk around the coastal edge of the park.
The historical homestead, built from concrete by the Scandrett family around 1885, is at the east end of the bay, less than 50 metres from the edge of the beach. It is enclosed within a garden and includes panels describing the house's history and the park.
Several farm buildings and a boat shed are between the house and the beach. The farm buildings include a barn, milking shed, calf shed (formerly a hen house), implement shed, dairy, and cream sheds. When the farm was developed, the only access was by boat, with the road only being developed in the 1930s, hence the proximity of the buildings to the beach. Each building has an explanatory panel and old photos of the Scandretts at work and play. The Scandrett family farmed the bay and surrounding land until it was sold to Auckland City in 1998.
The beach is attractive at high tide, with pōhutukawa trees right on the edge of the high-tide line, where the grassed reserve meets the sand. It is less attractive as the tide goes out, as it’s pretty muddy in some places and rocky in others. Swimming is safe, but it would be best at high tide. From the beach, it is easy to walk below the cliffs to Mullet Point at low tide, or around the point at the west end of the beach.
