Windy Tops

Tag: belmont regional park

  • A miscellaneous Belmont and Hutt River walk

    Yesterday was fairly sunny, as winter days in Wellington go, and I found myself on a fairly miscellaneous wander through parts of Belmont Regional Park and (eventually) Lower Hutt.

    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/20100821-dry-creek-hutt-river.gpx%5D

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    One of at least four Kereru that were
    very noisily flapping around near the
    road at the Kelson entrance.

    I thought I might catch a train out to the Dry Creek entrance to Belmont Regional Park (most easily accessible from Manor Park Railway Station), and see where I ended up. It wasn’t until after I’d bought my day-rover ticket that I remembered many commuter trains in Wellington are being replaced by buses right now, at least on weekends, while they’re continuing various line upgrades. So I hopped on the Rail Replacement bus to find that due to various road layout issues, it wasn’t going to stop at Manor Park railway station. Instead it’d drop me at Silverstream (the next station along) and I’d then have to look for a “dinky little purple bus” to get back to Manor Park. It turns out the dinky little purple bus wasn’t very well synchronised with the other buses, and the person driving it had never been to Manor Park Railway Station before. Myself and the other poor guy on that bus eventually ended up in the right place, well over an hour after the train-bus had left Wellington.
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  • No time to get out this weekend

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    Today I went for a walk with Shaun around Belmont Regional Park, starting at Korokoro and up to Belmont Trig, then over to Cannons’ Head and back through the valley. I’d taken annual leave from work, and it was a really nice day for it. More photos are over here.

    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/20100309-belmont-trig-from-korokoro.gpx%5D

    Shaun’s temporarily here from New York, to where he migrated (from Wellington) about 7 years ago, but it’s really cool that he’s come over. He did most of the work for organising a bachelor party last weekend, and I was able to drag some people along part of the Skyline Walkway. Everyone kept up.

    All this walking around, of course, was an ulterior motive to make it on topic for me to write that I’ll have a few other things on my mind over the next few weeks, and probably won’t get out walking or tramping much during that time unless things are hideously wrong. Not that this is a problem as far as I’m concerned. 😛

  • Daywalk: Wellington to Whitby via Belmont Regional Park

    Yesterday I went for a walk, a week after returning home, to try and get back into the swing of things. It first took me to Ngauranga (I needed to buy something from LV Martin), but then I just kept on walking. It turned into quite a nice day, although by the end I had a couple of blisters on the soles of my feet, and ache in a few places. I think this is symptomatic of me having been a few weeks without much exercise, but hopefully I’m on the way to loosening up.

    I found a new way into Belmont Regional Park that I’d previously not known about, heading up through Granada North where there’s a new sub-division going in, then just following the roads until they fade away. In hindsight I think I might have accidentally crossed about 50 metres of private land (hopefully no more), which I realised upon emerging at the end of someone’s driveway, so I’m not 100% sure if there’s a complete public access corridor going through there.

    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/20091122-wellington-to-whitby-via-belmont.gpx%5D
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  • Daywalk: Belmont Trig via Bridleway and Stratton Street

    Belmont Regional Park is an awesome place for getting out for a walk in Wellington. It’s central (literally), very accessible on most sides from public transport, and from Belmont Trig it’s possible to see how a large number of pockets of the Wellington Region all fit together. Wellington’s roads are laid out to divide the Porirua side of the region from the Hutt side in a way that causes many people to assume that they’re a long way apart. For myself, it really wasn’t until I walked through Belmont Regional Park that I really appreciated just how close the Hutt Valley is to Porirua. Being able to see them both from a central point and then be down on either side in the time of an hour or so is a really cool thing.

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    From Cannons’ Head down to Stratton Street.

    I had some free time during rather nice weather on Sunday, and decided to drive out to Petone and spend it doing exactly this. With the opportunity, I also decided to do some red lining and take a look around a few areas of Belmont Regional Park where I haven’t yet been.

    Date: 19th July, 2009
    Location: Belmont Regional Park, from Cornish Street.
    Route: A clockwise loop up to Belmont Trig via Bridleway, over to Cannons’ Head, down to Stratton Street and back to Cornish Street via Korokoro Dam.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • Daywalk: Korokoro to Dry Creek, Belmont Regional Park

    This is going to be a quick trip report because it was a fairly quick trip. The fact that the park was getting completely thrashed by a southerly helped to ensure this, I think. We didn’t really want to stop.

    Date: 19th April, 2008
    Location: Belmont Regional Park, Cornish Street to Dry Creek (Haywards Turnoff).
    People: Sarah, Mari, Edwin, Nicole and me.
    Intended route: Start at Cornish Street, walk up to Belmont Trig via Baked Beans Bend, continue around Cannons Head and Boulder Hill via the Puke Ariki Track, then exit via Dry Creek at the Haywards turnoff from State Highway 2.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    I’d originally had 9 people interested in doing this walk, but as the weekend approached we eventually filtered down to 5, through a combination of flu, weekend work issues, and one person simply not showing up. It was a good trip, albeit a little windy.

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  • Daywalk: Belmont Crossing – Porirua, Belmont Trig, Korokoro Stream, Petone

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    Bird life at the Korokoro Dam.

    I’ve walked from Petone to Porirua a couple of times now, and both times I’ve gotten lost on a farm on the Porirua side and ended up walking down some random farmer’s driveway. This time I thought I might do it in the other direction, so that maybe I could finally figure out where I should have been going.

    Date: 1st January, 2008
    Location: Belmont Regional Park, Cannons Creek Lake Reserve to Cornish Street.
    People: Just me.
    Intended route: Start at Cannons Creek, walk up past Cannons Head and Belmont Trig, then down one of the routes near the Korokoro Stream, and out at the Cornish Street exit in Petone.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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