Windy Tops

Tag: daywalk

  • Daywalk: Makara Beach Loop

    With a need to find a reasonably easy place to walk in my new shoes, I thought I might go for a wander around the Makara Beach loop. The last time I tried to do this I discovered I was a week too late, and the farm-land section of the loop had been closed for lambing (which happens between 1st August and 31st October). So thanks to transport difficulties I’ve had in the past, this was the first time I’d actually walked the ridge part of the loop.

    3623418557_fc17ef519e_m-6954472
    The Makara turbines of Project West Wind.

    It’s hard to talk about the Makara Beach Loop these days without talking about Project West Wind — the initiative of Meridian Energy to build a giant wind farm on Wellington’s south coast. It took years to get through the consent process, and my most vivid memory of this was one of the few meetings I attended of the Tararua Tramping Club back in 2007. The meeting involved a representative of Meridian who described the wind farm proposal with a slide-show decorated by a large photo of a cute and happy dog basking in the wind, many noisy people whom I was later informed were not regular attendees of TTC meetings, and a lot of angry heckling.

    Date: 14th June, 2009
    Location: Makara Loop Walk, from Makara Beach.
    Route: Just doing the loop clockwise starting from the beach.
    [Photos and Videos]

    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.

    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Point Dorset and Wellington’s Eastern Walkway

    3352245195_9e07a2e99c_m-6219588
    Waves breaking north of Point Dorset.

    I haven’t been tramping for over 2 months thanks to some logistics, and it feels like ages. I hoping to get away to the Ruahines next weekend, and that’ll be nice. Meanwhile however, I had reason to drop Stacey off at Seatoun near Wellington’s south coast and next to the harbour entrance, and I thought that I might go for a walk around there rather than heading straight home. It was really only a 2 hour walk, but I’ll label it here as a daywalk because it could consume a day for someone who wanted it to do so.

    Seatoun is a Wellington suburb out past the airport. It lies on the eastern edge of the peninsula jutting into Wellington Harbour. It’s very accessible to the coast, and there are a few walking tracks nearby which provide a really good experience of interaction with the sea both from beach-level and from the hills above, especially during a strong southerly where the wind comes directly over the sea from Antarctica and thrashes the coast. There was something of a southerly today but not a strong one and it was rather pleasant wind mixed with the sunshine and high cloud. My basic plan was to go for a wander around Point Dorset somehow, then come back along the coast to Tarakena Bay near the Wahine Memorial, and back to where I started (Seatoun) via what Wellington’s city council calls the Eastern Walkway.

    Date: 14th March, 2009
    Location: Wellington’s south coast.
    People: Just me.
    Route: Looping clockwise around Point Dorset starting from the Pass of Branda, then looping clockwise around the coast and up over the Eastern Walkway.
    [Photos and Videos]

    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.

    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Pencarrow Head and Lake Kohangapiripiri

    One of the places in the Wellington region that I’ve never properly visited, which I’m almost embarrassed to admit, is the area around Pencarrow Head within East Harbour Regional Park. Though it used to be remote, it’s now very accessible from Wellington, just down the road from Eastbourne on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour. It’s still very unpopulated though, despite the accessibility.

    3289242739_11fa459da3_m-8311170
    Lake Kohangapiripiri.

    I arrived back in New Zealand from the USA at 8am Tuesday morning and it was an awesome day for blue sky and sunshine. As I’d already decided not to go to work, I thought I might try and go out for a walk instead rather than just sit around at home and try to sleep off any possible jet-lag. I’m very glad I did, because I think I needed the recovery time after being trapped in a concrete jungle for so long. I like coming home.

    I think it’d be possible to catch a bus to Eastbourne and do the entire thing with public transport, but I drove there on this occasion. The legal part of the road ends a few hundred metres south of Point Arthur, at a gate called Burdans Gate. From here it’s necessary to get permission from the Hutt City Council to drive any further, but it makes more sense just to park a car and start walking.

    Date: 17th February, 2009
    Location: East Harbour Regional Park, Wellington.
    People: Just me.
    Route: Along the coast to the Pencarrow Lighthouse, around Lake Kohangapiripiri, and back the same way along the coast.
    [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.

    (more…)

  • How to be less insane

    Apoligies for the double negative. The work things have finished and I’ve met up with Shaun and Sarah. We’ve already been to DC for a couple of days, which I heartily recommend — the Smithsonian Air and Space museum and the Spy Museum are both awesome. I won’t dwell on these in this post, however.

    After 2.5 weeks stuck in cities (or hotels), I finally had an opportunity to get out and go for a walk. This is good, because being stuck in hotels and in the city has been driving me insane. The only problem is that I don’t know exactly where I went. Shaun suggested the Blue Mountain Twin Summits Trail, which is part of Blue Mountain Reservation. I caught a Metro North train from New York up to a town called Peekskill, on the edge of the Hudson River. From the local railway station at Peekskill, it’s a roughly 1.609344 km walk to the entrance of Blue Range Reservation at the end of Lounsbury Lane.
    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Pouakai Hut from Mangorei Road

    I’m presently in Taranaki, where Stacey’s family lives, so I’ve been going for walks around here in the last short while. A few days after I returned from a 2 night solo walk around another part of Egmont (which I’ll write up later), Barry (Stacey’s dad) took me for a quick walk up to Pouakai Hut this morning. I’ve been there before and it’s not really a daywalk so much as a before-lunch walk, but haven’t really written much about it so I thought I might note some things here for the record.

    Date: 1st January, 2009
    Location: Egmont National Park, Mangorei Road end to Pouakai Hut.
    People: Barry and Me.
    Huts visited: Pouakai Hut (0 nights).
    Route: From Mangorei Road up to Pouakai Hut and back.

    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.

    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Walking the length of the Kaiwharawhara Stream

    I was supposed to be going up to Mt Ruapehu this weekend, but pulled out at the last minute because I’ve not been feeling too well over the last week. I wanted to try and get some fresh air when I woke up yesterday morning, though, so I thought I might have a go at walking along as much of the Kaiwharawhara Stream as I was able to.

    http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=63881
    Bird songs near part of the Kaiwharawhara
    Stream in Otari Wilton’s Bush.

    The Kaiwharawhara Stream is one of the main water catchments flowing into Wellington Harbour, and it’s named after the suburb of Kaiwharawhara, where it finally exits into Wellington Harbour. It collects most of its water from around Karori and (especially after joining with the Korimako Stream) from many of the western suburbs of Wellington below Mt Kaukau. Its path through that part of Wellington is quite diverse. Some parts of the stream have a mildly remote feel to them, whereas others are heavily affected by built-up areas and the engineering projects that have caused it to be diverted and re-routed. Walking along it is a joining-the-dots exercise that I’ve wanted to do for a few months, and I’ve been waiting for a convenient time. Ultimately I found several places where it was impossible to follow because it was piped underground for long distances. In several places the stream had no formed track, and I gave up on following it directly once it seemed unlikely that it’d go anywhere except into another underground tunnel.

    Date: 22nd November, 2008
    Location: Wellington’s Western Suburbs, from Karori Wildlife Sanctuary to Kaiwharawhara.
    People: Just me.
    [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.

    The main part of the catchment starts well up within the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. There’s a charge to get into the sanctuary, and I’m also not 100% certain how accessible the stream is, so I instead decided to begin from just outside the sanctuary where the stream enters the free world. Note that I’ve put a lot more photos directly in this article than I usually do, because I think the photos tell much of the story of the changes in the stream from beginning to end.

    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Kapiti Island, from Rangatira Point to Tuteremoana Trig

    We finally got there. The third attempt wasn’t cancelled. Kapiti Island was sunny and with appropriate charm. Last Sunday morning we drove out early at the Kapiti Boating Club, from where both ferry companies leave, and caught our ferry over to the island.

    3001370121_6b91f15e06_m-5922008
    Looking South-ish from
    Tuteremoana Trig.

    Date: 2nd November, 2008
    Location: Kapiti Island, Rangatira Point to Tuteremoana Trig and back.
    People: Stacey and Me.
    [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.

    Kapiti Island has a varied and sometimes violent history. It was the base from which Te Rauparaha ruled much of the lower North Island and upper South Island of New Zealand. With the island being relatively central and accessible to the Cook Straight, he used its strategic location to secure trading opportunities with visiting sailing ships, and this gave him a huge advantage over other Maori tribes, as well as giving him a higher status. Most of the island has been farmed in the past, and the bush that covers most of it is still re-generating.
    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Walking the Skyline Walkway

    2780261447_503cf08f0d_m-6990143
    The Rimutaka Range seen
    behind Wellington Harbour from
    the Skyline Walkway.

    I haven’t written about the Skyline Walkway before, which runs along the ridges between Karori and Mount Kaukau. This is a shame because on a good day it’s a very nice walk, and very accessible. On a bad day it can be very exposed to strong westerly winds, especially in a couple of saddles towards the northern end. I’ve walked it a few times now, most often starting from the Karori end and once from the Kaukau end. The most recent time was last Sunday when I decided on a whim that I felt like doing something.

    Date: 17th August, 2008
    Location: Skyline Track, Karori to Mt Kaukau.
    People: Me.
    [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.

    The Wellington City Council advises that it’s a “5 hour strenuous walk”, which is certainly true if you’re planning a family trip or an occasional outing. If you’re the sort of person who does a lot of walking and is reasonably fit, however, you could reasonably expect to get from the Karori end to the Kaukau end inside a couple of hours at a reasonably fit pace and if you had nothing better to do (not necessarily including getting down from Kaukau). It’d be feasible to do it quite a bit faster if you’re a crazy mountain runner, which some people are.

    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Wellington to Plimmerton (via suburbia)

    I haven’t been out tramping for a while and this morning I ended up with a free day on my hands, so I decided to just walk North towards the Kapiti Coast for a while and see how far I’d get. This is actually the third time I’ve done this, and the second time in the Kapiti direction, but it’s the first time I’ve written anything about it.

    The general idea is to just walk through suburbia, keeping reasonably close to bus routes and/or railway lines so it’s easy to bail out and go home whenever it’s convenient. I quite like doing this on occasion because it involves minimal organisation and it’s not necessary to arrange any special gear. Just some contingency money for a bit of food and public transport home is all. It’s also just quite a nice change from walking through the back-country, I think. Suburbia changes quite a lot as you walk through it (at least it does on this route), and I find it interesting wandering along the streets and watching things going on as the day progresses.

    Date: 6th July, 2008
    Location: Wellington suburbs (Northland, Johnsonville, Tawa, Porirua, Plimmerton).
    People: Me.
    Intended route: Start at Northland and walk north along suburban streets in the general direction of Kapiti, keeping near public transport.

    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.

    (more…)

  • 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.

    (more…)