Windy Tops

Tag: te araroa

Daywalk: The Complete Paekakariki Escarpment Track

Typical.

Saturday 9th April 2016 was the official opening day of the Paekakariki Escarpment Track—a new connecting track between Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki, above the railway line along the coast. Intense interest meant that organisers had to restrict entry for the initial day, but it’s now fully open to the public.

Date: 10th April, 2016
Location: Paekakariki to Pukerua Bay.
People: Just me.
Route: Walk south from Paekakariki to steps under the SH1 road bridge, onto the Paekakariki Escarpment Track, then follow it to Pukerua Bay.
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/20160410-paekakariki-escarpment-track.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.

I never felt the desire to follow a narrow, steep track with squillions of other people on Saturday 9th April… or 400 as it turned out. I did, however, spontaneously decide to jump on a train on Sunday the 10th of April, to go and check it out.

For me, this track is a welcome addition to the network of walking options in the Wellington region. It naturally connects together two locations (Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki) which, until now, really had no practical on-foot connection short of walking alongside State Highway 1. I’ve walked that stretch several times. It’s not very exciting.
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23 April, 2016
Daywalk: Johnsonville, Spicer Forest, Colonial Knob to Porirua

Mooooooooooo!

We’ve now been back in Wellington for a couple of months, and have finally found somewhere to live in Johnsonville. I’m enjoying being back, and I’ve already been for a few scouts up Mt Kaukau for some fresh air. It’s been a busy time getting everything sorted, but I’ve been trying to fit in some outdoor expeditions in-between times (a combination of just wandering around the nearby hills and more significant tramping), to the extent that I’m slightly behind in writing things up.

Today, I went for a north-ish walk. We now live fairly near the official Te Araroa route, as it comes up Rifle Range Road and across Mt Kaukau, so I thought I might follow it back towards Porirua and discover how long it’d take. For me, this meant walking through a short stint of streets to reach the end of Old Coach Road, at which point I’d just follow the main route via Spicer Forest, up to Colonial Knob, and down to somewhere like Elsdon behind Porirua.

Date: 5th October, 2013
Location: Spicer Forest and Colonial Knob (Wellington).
Route: Old Coach Road in J’ville, along Rifle Range Road and Ohariu Valley Road to Spicer Forest. Up to Colonial Knob, down to Elsdon, and back to J’ville via the front roads.
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/20131005-jville-colonial-knob-porirua.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.

I began at about 10am. Visibility wasn’t terribly good, with clouds channelling over the ridges above about 200 metres, but this first part of the route which weaves around farm-land is fairly easy to follow. I passed a couple of people riding their horses up from Rifle Range, but that was it.
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6 October, 2013
Checking out the Paekakariki Escarpment Track

Iconic coastal scenery, albeit without the
iconic coastal exposure to the elements.

[Note, 23rd April 2016: If you’ve stumbled on this page whilst looking for an account of the newly-opened track, I’ve more recently posted a more complete trip report of the entire thing.]

Another of the things I found myself doing during the recent visit, besides this Easter tramping trip, was to check out the new Paekakariki Escarpment Track, one of the contributing sections of the Te Araroa Trail. When completed, this route will provide a dedicated walking corridor between Paekakariki and Pukerua Bay, alongside the coast north of Wellington. It’ll make the most of both iconic coastal scenery and iconic coastal exposure to the elements, and it’s completely accessible at both ends by Wellington’s metropolitan commuter train network.

I’d not even considered visiting this track until I noticed in the DomPost that the access was about to be partially opened, although its pending construction has been in the news since at least mid-2011. My only available day was Saturday 23rd March, so I bought myself a Day Rover ticket, hopped on a train to Paekakariki, and went off to hunt for it. As an aside, the Kapiti and Johnsonville metro lines in Wellington are both very interesting tourist lines when you’re not a daily commuter.

As is typical for me when I do things on a whim, I messed this up. It was a few days before the Te Araroa Trust had posted this on their website, which would have been useful information to have had in advance. In my haste I’d assumed I knew where I was going without making the effort to check. I mean, I’ve been to Paekakariki heaps of times, and I imagined that the obvious starting point for such a track would be near the intersection of SH1 and the Old Paekakariki Road. There was nothing obvious there, however, and I spent an hour walking around Paekakariki searching for a vantage point on the hill across the road, thinking it must somehow begin from further north. Failing to find it, I then spent 40 minutes walking up the Paekakariki Hill Road before I finally decided I was going the wrong way.

Part of Kapiti Island.

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12 May, 2013
Walkability, Connectivity, and Te Araroa

Two months ago I wrote about Te Araroa (The Long Pathway), and it seems apt to point out that there’s now a set of forums which attempts to build a community of people wanting to discuss walking of the route. I heard about it during a typically tangenting discussion on the NZ Tramper website, which caused me consider more clearly what Te Araroa is for me.

I guess it’s possible to perceive that Te Araroa is (or should be) a top-down consistently-designed, clearly-marked and well-managed walking track. Perhaps this will be the case some day with sufficient motivation throughout its length, but presently it’s a bottom-up effort to link together a massive collection of smaller walk-ways. Much of Te Araroa already existed, but the project (approaching 20+ years of effort) ensures that individual routes and walkways are connected and defined as part of the network. In places where there’s been no reasonably direct or useful connection between sections, access has been negotiated or built to complete the continuity.

Being a bottom-up creation rather than a top-down creation, Te Araroa is not automatically a sparkly, consistent and necessarily easy-to-locate walkway for the entire length, despite ongoing efforts to improve it. What it does mean, however, is it’s actually possible to walk legally between any two places along the route with the exception of occasional bodies of water. At no place is it necessary to stop and get a bus, or drive a car between two points.
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23 October, 2012
Te Araroa and skimming the edge of the Tararuas

For people who, like me, are interested in recreational walking areas in the vicinity of Wellington and the Manawatu, I noticed this morning that Matty T of the Wellington Region Cycleways blog, has an interesting photo heavy post which shows off the Levin to Palmerston North section of the Te Araroa trail.

Matty walked the route in reverse from how it’s presented on the Te Araroa website, so it’s necessary to sort-of read each of the following pages in reverse, but the sections covered from south to north were (I think): The Arapaepae Lookout Track, The Mangahao-Makahika Track, Burttons Track and Fitzherbert Bridge to Burttons Track.
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26 August, 2012
Te Araroa to open (officially)

If you’re in Wellington on Saturday December 3rd, you could pop over to Shorland Park, Island Bay at 10am for the official opening of Te Araroa—The Long Pathway.

Te Araroa is a magnificent effort that’s been in progress for decades now since it was conceived as one of the goals of the NZ Walkways Commission in 1975. Since 1994 the goal has been administered through the Te Araroa Trust (combined with several regional trusts), to link the length of New Zealand with one continuous, officially recognised walking trail. People have walked (or run) the length of New Zealand using various routes and for many reasons throughout history, and in the last few years the unofficial Te Araroa route has been walked more than a few times. This official opening is symbolic of the route’s “completion”, after nearly endless work, frequently by volunteers, covering manual labour, legislative changes, negotiations with national and local government entities, private landowners, clubs and organisations, and any number of other problems, to allow for public walking access along the entire route.

It’s an impressive feat by all involved that this connected walkway exists at all. Few people will walk the entire length of New Zealand (although some certainly will), but countless people will benefit from all of the walking access opened as a consequence of the project.

25 November, 2011
Daywalk: Colonial Knob to Kaukau

Spicer Forest.

I haven’t been up Colonial Knob for some time. It happens to be on the one Topo50 map in the Wellington Region that I never got around to buying, being just a corner around Porirua. At 468 metres, Colonial Knob is the highest point along Wellington’s western hills, it’s home to a radar outpost of the Airways Corporation, and on a nice day there are some good views over to the south island, including features like the Kaikoura Range. There’s a loop’ish track that leads up from Porirua, but recently thanks to negotiations with landowners towards the establishment of Te Araroa — the project to connect a continuous walking route along the entire length of New Zealand — it’s now possible to get through some private land and onto the side of Mt Kaukau. Actually this has apparently been possible for some years, but I hadn’t realised until now. I’ve walked out to Porirua and beyond several times, but always through suburbia, and I was really keen to see where Te Araroa would direct people. It turns out there’s a 6km road walk in the middle of the Wellington section, but at least it’s rural roads.

Date: 29th August, 2010
Location: Wellington Region.
Route: Starting at Elsdon (Porirua), get up Colonial Knob, then follow the Te Araroa route through Spicer Forest to somewhere in the vicinity of Mt Kaukau.
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/20100829-colonial-knob-to-kaukau.gpx%5D

I like getting to places with public transport where possible, and this walk’s a good candidate. I walked to Wellington Railway Station through 30 minutes of torrential rain, but still had hopes of a nicer day. Having caught a late morning train to Porirua, it took maybe 15 minutes to walk across various streets and arrive at the Elsdon Youth Camp (by now about 11.45am and only very light rain), from which the walking track entrance has an entire car-park alongside the camp and is quite well signposted.
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4 September, 2010