Windy Tops

Tag: skyline walkway

  • States of the air out there

    This is one of the views available from the top of Mount Kaukau. It’s not my favourite view from here, but it’s still quite good.

    11228888505_ed4ec6b5ae_c-2494267

    Panoramically, Newlands is mid-way to the foreground on the left. Lower Hutt is behind it, and identifiable here because it’s on fire. Panning across the harbour is Matiu Somes Island, one of our predator free scientific and historic reserves. The Kaukau transmitter, without which many of us could not experience the convenience of 24-hour shopping broadcasts directly into our homes, hovers above suburbs like Ngaio and Khandallah. Neither is visible here.

    Further along is Wellington’s CBD. The Tinakori Hill is in the foreground, with part of the town belt along the top and suburbs like Wadestown and Wilton on this side of it. Wadestown, as I understand things, is one of many suburbs which had its street grid drawn up on a flat piece of paper in merry old England of the 1800s. This shows in how amusing it can be to walk through. Beyond the end of this photo would be Karori, including deepest darkest Karori, but I didn’t swing the camera that far.

    14042274620_b28db0bce1_n-9760475

    Sometimes the scene from the top of Mount Kaukau, this time seen from the other side, will look similar to this. From not far away there will be a faint outline of the transmitter, if even that, surrounded by its ever-diminishing orchestra of pine trees which become fewer and more bent-over after every storm. It’s also not my favourite view from here, but it’s still quite good.

    Fewer people visit the top at these times, but even last Saturday with rain equal to some of the heaviest I’ve experienced anywhere, I met a sizeable handful of drowning people. They might have been up for a run, being walked by their dogs, or simply out walking themselves. After a few occasions, you start to pick out familiar faces.

    Mount Kaukau is also one of the places where the MetService measures wind speed. The peak is exposed to the edge of all the air being channeled through the Cook Straight. From time to time we’ll see exclamations like these.

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The Met Service measures the wind from right at the very top of the transmitter, and its facilities were originally installed to provide wind information for aircraft at an elevation of 2000 feet. This doesn’t seem to prevent the measurements sometimes being used to label Wellington in popular media as a very windy place, even if nobody actually lives on the top floor of the Mount Kaukau transmitter.
    (more…)

  • Wellington from Mt Kaukau

    4355159223_b3e24a9fc0_m-3188800

    I’ve been on call at work in the past few days, which means I wasn’t supposed to wander too far from civilisation last weekend just in case the building burned down and somebody needed to trundle into town and validate the parking of the fire trucks, or something like that. Sunday was otherwise boring so I ended up going for a wander along the Skyline Walkway, which I figure should be okay because it’s relatively civilised and there are many exit points in case I needed to get back to a road or anything. Here are some photos (biased towards the Kaukau end of the walk), and here’s the map of the day:

    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/20100214-otari-skyline-kaukau.gpx%5D

    I put on my number three pair of boots, which tend to get used if I think I might need to walk on some road, and headed down the hill. Having left home at around 11.30am after hanging out the washing. This began with a walk down into Otari Wilton’s Bush, not far from where I currently live, then straight up the other side of the valley up to the ridge-line where the Skyline Walkway is situated.
    (more…)

  • Windy on the Skyline Walkway

    I had the second half of an afternoon to kill earlier today, and went for a short walk down to Otari Wilton’s Bush, not far from where I live. Somehow I ended up on the Skyline Walkway, maybe because I forgot to stop and turn around, but it all worked out okay. This morning was calm and sunny, but by now there was an increasingly strong nor-westerly in the air, which makes sense given a southerly’s due here soon. (ie. Air circles around low pressure systems clockwise in the southern hemisphere so it was characteristic that the wind was coming from the north-west right now… I’m slowly getting better at this, heh heh.) I’d left my camera at home, but took my GPS and so ended up with this map.

    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/20091003-skyline-chartwell.gpx%5D

    Along the ridge-top of the Skyline Walkway, the wind was really starting to blow — not to a leaning-against-it level, but certainly enough to cause the odd stumbling. It also wasn’t enough for the turbines over at the Makara Wind Farm to be switched off. The area’s full of high-tension power lines, and they make a major racket when the wind’s blowing through them to that extent.

    Funnily enough, I notice that Erick Brenstrum recently wrote a short piece over on the Met Service Blog about ridge top winds, and how they operate.
    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Makara Peak and Skyline Walkway

    3822260785_bf2e8d022d_m-3626058
    Wacky Mountain Bikies have their
    own sense of humour.

    I’ve already written about the Skyline Walkway at least a couple of times [1, 2], so I’ll focus more on the parts around Makara Peak.

    Date: 15th August, 2009
    Location: Makara Peak and Skyline Walkway, Wellington.
    Route: Walk up to Makara Peak from South Karori Road, down via Zac’s Track, then along the Skyline Walkway to Mt Kaukau, and Johnsonville via Old Coach Road. (Also see the map at the end of this post.)
    [Photos]
    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/20090815-makara-peak-and-skyline-walkway.gpx%5D

    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.

    Makara Peak is a dedicated Mountain Bike park, choca-full of mountain bike tracks that are maintained by the community. This is the second time I’ve been there. The first time (before I was really writing things down), I wandered into a few areas that caused me to be really worried that a speedy bicycle pilot would come careening around a blind corner and run me over. It didn’t feel quite the same this time, though, possibly because I had a better idea of wanting to stay to the wider tracks, and perhaps because there seemed to be less people around.
    (more…)

  • Rain rain rain

    I like rain, and so far it’s been raining a lot this weekend. I have several friends spending their time in the Tararuas this weekend, mostly in the region of Totara Flats. It’d be really nice to have been able to be there, but unfortunately I’m still catching up with a few things that fell behind during the few weeks I was overseas. Last time I visited Totara Flats was also a weekend full of weather warnings, and we nearly became trapped there as a consequence of rising side-creeks flowing over the tracks, which made the excursion a nice little adventure. I imagine they’re having quite an exciting time right now, and a few days from now I look forward to inquiring as to how it went.

    I did get out for a walk in the rain this afternoon, however, starting in Otari Wilton’s Bush (a 10 minute walk from our current residence), and walking up towards the Skyline Walkway. The Kaiwharawhara Stream was as full as I’ve ever seen it — probably still safely crossable (not that there’s a need with all the bridges), but much higher and faster than its usually tame appearance. Walking along it for a few hundred metres was a telling experience, every so often seeing another temporary ad-hoc creek racing down the hillside and crashing into the stream valley at the end, making a lot of noise.
    (more…)

  • Buying packs and buying spinach

    Wow — the Tararuas have had three weekends of fantastic weather in a row, and I haven’t been there for any of them. I guess I did at least get out to the Ruahines a week ago, though. This Saturday and Sunday I stayed at home, however.

    For a while now, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a new pack to replace my disintegrating Macpac Glissade. It’s not really disintegrating, but I’ve patched it up with tape in a couple of places despite it only being a couple of years old. The major problem I’ve been having is that if and when I replace it, I want to make sure I’m getting something that I really want, and honestly there’s not a lot of selection in Wellington retailers right now as far as packs go. Just about everything is the same basic design, with pockets and openings all over the place. This is unfortunate because in essence I’m looking for a simple, relatively light single-access-point tramping pack without lots of zippers (which add weight unnecessarily) and without lots of bits hanging off it (which add more weight, and get caught on things).

    (more…)

  • Even more track consultations for Wellington

    If you’re like me and spend much of your spare time wandering around local tracks in the Wellington region, you might be interested to know that the Wellington City Council is currently consulting on its Draft Recreation Activities Policy, which governs how the WCC balances the needs of walkers, cyclists, horse riders, 4WD enthusiasts, and crazy mountain runners throughout Wellington’s track network. Consultation is open until Monday 22nd September, and an Online Submission Form is being provided.

    The consultation covers tracks throughout most of Wellington’s Town Belt such as the Tinakori Hill, parts of the Southern Walkway, parts of the Skyline Walkway, Wrights Hill, Te Kopahou Reserve, and a few others. Actually after a brief scan, at least part of the proposals look to be opening up certain areas to mountain bikes which frequently get used by people on mountain bikes already.

    If you’re interested in the tracks around the area, it might be worth your while to have a browse of the draft policy and make a submission, either in support of the proposals or not. Additional related WCC policies that are up for consultation during the same time period are the Draft Walking Policy and the Draft Cycling Policy, which respectively aim to frame the policies around encouraging walking and cycling in Wellington and making them safe.

  • 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…)