Windy Tops

Tag: wellington

  • 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.
    (more…)

  • Completing a Kaiwharawhara Stream Walk

    It’s good to read (via The Wellingtonian and Stuff) that some positive effort is being made to open up a small section of land on the harbour side of Wellington’s incoming motorway. The article doesn’t mention it, but the beach being referred to is, I think, just around the corner from the harbour outlet of Kaiwharawhara Stream. Although it’s public land, this stretch (here’s a map) has been almost completely cut off from public access thanks to the barrier of 4 lanes of moderate speed regular traffic on the old Hutt Road, 6 lanes of motorway, 4 railway lines, and some Centreport land in the vicinity of the Interislander vehicle loading area on the south-western side. Presently, the only legal way to access the coastal section is from the sea.

    Several years ago, I made an effort to walk the greater part of the Kaiwharawhara Stream, down from the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary (aka Zealandia), through Otari Wilton’s bush, a feast of suburbia and Trelissick Park around the Ngaio Gorge. It’s a very nice and relaxed journey which tells a story of history and local ecology. For me, it was rather frustrating to discover that after all this, the entire thing ends behind an ugly and impregnable industrial wall, just before the stream enters the harbour. The stream flows underneath all of this and through a channel between the various commercial/industrial properties, but sadly no provision has been made for any practical form of walking access.

    If an access way can ever be created so that people can see where the stream finally enters the harbour, it’d make it possible to have a nice sense of closure for the journey.

    3051254847_476a627851-6943208
    Goodbye, Kaiwharawhara Stream!

  • Just for a few days

    I’ve been back in New Zealand for the last few days. We came back mostly for a wedding (in the Coromandel) which has been and gone. After that we drove down the North Island via Taranaki, turning many corners and driving over many hills, which is something else I’ve really missed. Thankfully the frequent Taranaki sunshine relented for a day, providing an unusual day of low cloud and heavy rain for me to hop up towards the mountain and read a few pages my book. I’ll write something more properly about that later once I have a chance.

    Now I’m in Wellington for a few days, just hanging around and enjoying the place.
    (more…)

  • Spooky Friday

    Friday. One day as I was walking to school I saw a track that I hadn't seen before. I don't know why but I just started to go down it. The track was very dark and gloomy. I had to go to school then but I am going back to that track another day with Fred. * Great Work Michael.

    It’s lacking in plot, and provides no explanation of this “Fred” person who’s suddenly been inflicted upon the protagonist. I don’t rate the narrative aspect of this novel highly.

    On the other hand, consider the correct use of full stops, apostrophes and capitalisation, as well as impressive adherence to keeping between the lines. Visible evidence of text erasure also shows the author’s commitment to appropriate spacing between words, despite battling with his own impatience to express ideas. Added together these elements ensured a star-spangled reception from the public.

    6/10.

  • Skimming the Akatarawas

    Yesterday, being bright and sunny, I was looking for something to do, and thought I might attempt to find the proposed location of a new water catchment dam on the Whakatikei River in the Akatarawas. Such a dam is one of three options being put forward as part of the Wellington City Council’s Draft Water Conservation & Efficiency Plan, which is being consulted on until 15th October. The other two options are to make everyone install water meters to encourage everyone to use water more efficiently, or to live with periodic water shortages in the region.

    Unfortunately my plan didn’t work very well. I started with this great map (below) of the proposed dam site from page 28 of the plan’s PDF discussion document, and I think my admittedly slim knowledge of the Akatarawas didn’t help too much.


    Maybe they thought nobody would bother to go out and try to look for this proposed dam site.
    5046178315_1f1798b4a2_m-8383628
    Wainui Stream.

    From the map, I thought it looked as if the dam site was somewhere off the end of Bulls Run Road, a few kilometres off Provincial State Highway 58 between Pauatahanui and the Hutt Valley, so that’s where I started. The road’s nice, it ends in a gate followed by a short walk to an almost immediate stream crossing (not the Whakatikei — I think it’s the Wainui Stream). It’s actually a ford for vehicles, but still at least knee deep and today at least it was flowing quite fast, despite there not having been much rain for a day or three.
    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Colonial Knob to Kaukau

    4944153253_d4423d8a75_m-2296738
    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

    4944094117_9164a4d621_m-3036369

    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.
    (more…)

  • Daywalk: East Harbour Lakes Block

    3761651228_1240d77249_m-4724574
    Lake Kopangapiripiri.

    For some reason I never got around to posting about a walk around the East Harbour Lakes Block back in July 2009, so this report will be more photos and less report. The future mother in law was paying a visit, which was reason enough (as everyone involved agreed) for me to escape and do something else. Back in January 2009 I’d been for a walk out to one of the lakes shortly after hopping off a plane, and I thought I might go and do it properly.

    Date: 27th July, 2009
    Location: East Harbour Regional Park.
    People: Just me.
    Route: Walk along the coast to Pencarrow Head, walk clock-wise around both lakes, then back along the coast to the car-park.
    [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.
    3760826449_e7343f0f81_m-4074490
    Pencarrow Head, with the older
    lighthouse in the top left.

    The only down side of the East Harbour Lakes Block is that there’s a good 90 minutes of walking along a long, flat, coastal road on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour, almost to the Pencarrow Head Lighthouses. There have been two lighthouses since 1906, when a second was built lower to the ground after it was noticed that the original 1858 lighthouse would sometimes be obscured by fog. Due to the long hard road, it’s probably nicer in some ways on a mountain bike than walking, or the getting there at least. Once actually to the lighthouse, the ground gets softer and the terrain more diverse, and the walking’s fascinating. Many people stop at the lighthouses, however, and make it a walk to the lighthouses and back. If you’re up early, though, there’s a wonderful walk around the Parangarahu Lakes Area of East Harbour Regional Park.

    (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…)

  • Flapping birds

    This evening I was walking home over the Tinakori Hill — part of the town belt between my workplace and home. It’s interesting to see how the various tracks change. Some tracks are officially recognised and always well maintained, but others come and go. Last year, my most direct route was almost straight up a gully on what was a fairly wide four wheel drive track, even though I never saw a vehicle. It’s never been a very accessible road because it’s so steep, but for a long time the only other route was comparably indirect.

    About 6 months ago, the local city council built a new well graded track (it even has a handrail) that switches up the end of the spur at one end of the valley. It switches so much that it takes longer, but it’s less steep. The original route, which I still try to use because of its directness, gradually becomes overgrown as time goes on. It will probably be inaccessible within a year or two if it’s not properly cleared, but meanwhile I’m continuing to use it. Earlier tonight, I must have disturbed about 50 small birds as I walked up, which never happened in the past, and it occurred that the high grass and scrub growth is becoming a haven for them as the bush takes over once again.
    (more…)

  • 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
    (more…)