[2] The area was one of the first places in the Auckland Region visited by the Tainui canoe, becoming an important settlement for Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki.

[5] Small numbers of the endangered tuturiwhatu (New Zealand dotterel) breed on shell banks south of the park, which is not accessible to the public.

[2] The peninsula was first visited by the Tainui ancestral canoe in the 1300s, where the waka took shelter from a storm while it was travelling northwards along the coast of the North Island.

[2] The peninsula's name, Whakakaiwhara, refers to the crew of the Tainui waka coming ashore to eat tāwhara, the edible flowers of the kiekie vine.

[2] Hapū within Ngāi Tai moved around the rohe, settling in areas seasonally to harvest from the forest and beaches, fish, hunt sharks and farm.

When the Māori Land Court was established in 1865, the Ngāi Tai Native Reserve was subdivided into 10 blocks, owned by individuals instead of the iwi collectively.

In July 1866, rangatira Hori Te Whētuki sold the Whakakaiwhara Peninsula to Thomas Duder, a former boatswain who had emigrated to New Zealand in 1840 when his ship, HMS Buffalo, was shipwrecked.

[2] In 1942, the Royal New Zealand Air Force selected the lower Whakakaiwhara Peninsula as a suitable space to construct an underground seaplane base.

[1] The park has original native forest and birdlife, and views of surrounding hills, the Hunua Ranges and the Hauraki Gulf islands.