Oakley Creek Walkway - 28th Apr 2007

Yesterday I decided to do a short walk not too far away, so I set off for Waterview. I parked down Cowley Ave, walked up Great North Rd a bit, and took the walkway across the road.

Then it was down, beneath the level of the road, and along the Oakley Creek Walkway. Billed in a City Council brochure as containing the isthmus' only natural waterfall, it's obviously undergoing significant renewal. This is good because the path and the park are in a parlous state at the moment, although the work already done is making a big difference. It will be a fantastic oasis when it's finished.

Most of the trees are exotic, but the planting programme appears to be largely native, so eventually there will be a good mix. The path kind of follows the creek - at parts it is quite a distance from it, but in general it winds back and forth across it via some pretty bridges.

The autumn trees were great, and there was some pretty cool moss and lichen, and even some actual mushrooms! I don't like to eat them, but I do like to snap them.

There are also some curious old walls throughout the park, possibly put in when Unitec was Carrington, and Carrington was a mental institution?

I wanted to do this walk because I was curious about the waterfall. You have to go down some stairs to get to it, and the flat area at the bottom of the fall looks very beaten up, but the waterfall itself has a surprising impact. The pics don't really capture it I'm afraid.

Above the waterfall there were ducks, and I did see a few other birds, but they were always flying away from me. A lot of people were using the path - walking, cycling, pushing strollers, exercising dogs. It'll be great when the path can sustain that use along its whole length.

Walking to the end and back would take around an hour. The concrete path is broken in parts, and narrow the whole way, but this is a very pretty and serene walk. It does need more signage though - there were a lot of paths off to the side, which I suspect joined up with Unitec of the housing on the road-side of the creek, but it wasn't clear, particularly at the end. I'm still not sure I walked the whole way.

St Heliers to Roberta Reserve and return - 22nd Apr. 2007

Today we did the first and second legs of the Point to Point walk, having completed the third part many moons ago.

We started out on Cliff Rd in St Heliers, and walked up the road, with great views of Rangitoto, the Waitemata Harbour and back to the city.

We took the walkway down to Ladies Bay and walked along the coast to Karaka Bay. This took quite a while, and originally we had intended just to walk back up the Ladies Bay walkway

and continue along the track in the handy leaflet from Auckland City Council. But we just seemed to keep walking. Once we were out of Ladies Bay itself it was very noticeable that there weren't any other women, although there were a fair few naked men. Oh I tell a lie, there was one woman. She was posing for top-less soft porn shots. I guess that's what happens in a nudist area. I didn't mind the nudity, but I didn't much like the stares from all the men.

There was this weird thing in the water, all encrusted with shellfish, and fantastic views of Browns Island. I love the shape of Motukorea, it looks as if it were lovingly sculpted by hand. Nickname Pending pointed out that it is quite reminiscent of Mangere Mountain. Perhaps all denuded volcanoes look a bit similar?

Anyway, Karaka Bay was great - quite a surprise. There was no road access and although the houses were obviously valuable it looked like a hippy-ish kind of place. The Treaty of Waitangi was apparently signed there on 4th March 1840 and there is a little rest place with a plaque commemorating it.

At Karaka Bay we followed a path up to the road and then followed the streets around to Anderson Bay, where we took a track that wound behind the houses and right on the cliff edge, looking across the Tamaki to Musick Point and Bucklands Beach.

Then we were back on the road again, skirting Roberta Reserve (Tahuna Torea starts on the other side of it) where we stopped for a snack, before heading up through Glendowie Park. It's a strange place, the ground is very undulating, so it seems kind of useless for playing much. My theory is it used to be landfill and needs to subside more before it can be flattened off, but I really have no idea.

After Glendowie Park we went up and down a few more roads to get to the southern entrance to Churchill Park, which is quite extensive. We opted for the Lower Track, which followed a stream, rather than the Upper Track through farmland. There were a few Billy Goat Gruff bridges and a fair bit of bush, but the real highlight was peeping through the trees to the beautiful gardens created by those who owned the properties on the other side of the stream. They obviously worked together to create something out of a fairy story around the stream, and this photo doesn't do it justice at all.

We got a little bit lost at the end of Churchill Park but eventually found Glover Park, which is basically the crater of Whakamuhu with playing grounds in the middle. We walked up Waitara Rd and along the edge of the crater, looking back across the park to yet another water tower on the hills above St Heliers.

Then we took some more streets, heading west, until we ended up back on Cliff Rd again.

This walk took us 2 hours 20 minutes, with two snack stops and a lot of photo-induced slow going. The tracks were variable - at some points the road had no footpath, and I don't think you could realistically do this walk on wheels. The leaflet from Auckland City Council was kind of helpful. On the one hand I wouldn't have known about all these places without it, but on the other the scale was changeable and some of the streets you needed to go down weren't named on the map, created confusion. I'd suggest that ACC look at putting markers on the route, as there were none at all that were helpful, just the very rare Point England Walk map sign, which didn't really help at all, as it doesn't appear to be updated since they started calling it the Point to Point track and also lacked any labels on any roads or parks or indeed anything.

It was a very good walk though - a good mix of coast, cliff, interesting streets, park and bush, with a variety of inclines through-out. Great views all round, and some nice surprises too.

Rotary Walkway, Pakuranga - 6th Apr. 2007

Yesterday Nickname Pending and I headed east, to do the now completed Rotary Walkway that goes from Ohui-a-rangi (Pigeon Mountain) to the Rotary Reserve on the Pakuranga Highway opposite Pakuranga Plaza.

We parked on Galloway Crescent, by a little reserve at the back of Wakaaranga School, then walked down the road to one of the many pathways that join the walk. They are marked with these concrete stamps, which are also supposed to mark kilometres along the length of the walk itself, but seem to be placed somewhat irregularly.

We headed towards the Plaza first, although we didn't start right at the beginning of the walk. The pathway is largely concrete and wends its way pleasantly along the coast, with a few explanatory markers along the way. We walked up Wakaaranga Creek, which is covered in mangroves, spotting pukeko and grey herons along the way. A lot of the houses that back onto the creek pathway are rather flash, some with tennis courts and others with jetties that go out from the path. Once the creek meets the Tamaki River, you have a great view of Mt Wellington (my new nemesis now that Mt Eden is conquered) and the sandbar that forms part of the Tahuna Torea nature reserve. We walked past the Pakuranga Sailing Club and the reserve next to it. The tide was a long way out, as you can see from the pics, and it took us over an hour to get to the Pakuranga Plaza end of the walk. We turned around and came back, stopping in a bay to eat our packed lunch, and generally watched the windsurfers on the water and the families on the pathway. There were a lot of bikers, and they are supposed to give way to pedestrians. Most do.

Once we had walked all the way back to our starting point we headed further up the pathway towards Ohui-a-rangi and Pigeon Mountain Reserve. Manukau City Council has a plan to overhaul the reserve and has already done significant work on a wetlands area complete with boardwalk and many pukeko. It is wonderful spot even though it isn't complete yet.

I'd recommend if you do this walk give yourself about 2 and a half hours and start from one end or the other, not part way along like we did. It's pretty much flat and much of it could be done with a stroller too. It would also be a nice bike ride, particularly on a cold day, as the sun reflects off the water and parts of the walk that are sheltered from the wind were very warm, even on an autumn day.