Raw nature, startling beauty can be found on a Port Hills walk

Press, 26 December 1978, Page 9

Raw nature, startling beauty can be found on a Port Hills walk

The clear light of Greece, highland mists, the jagged outline of a massive volcano, and mixed forest patches — they all come together* sometimes in startling ways, along the top of the Port Hills. It may be some years before the Crater Rim walking track is finished across private land, but determined walkers can still make the trip.

In a way, it is like following the method of surburban man in John Cheever’s famous story “The Swimmer.” There, the man reckoned he could reach home by swimming though a succession of backyard pools. On the hills, the pools are reserves. If it is too hard to pick out a way overland, the Summit Road is a good second choice for linking them.

Doing the full length from Sumner to Kennedy’s Bush and beyond is quite a trek, especially with wind whipping across the crest. But one of the beauties of Port Hills scrambling is the number of routes up the hills which cut the walk into sections. Walking up to Evans Pass, the old Captain Thomas Road is off to your right, clearly marked against the hillside. It

joins the road just below the pass. Instead, of starting up the summit route, the walk can be broken right here for a leisurely stroll downhill on the harbour side, with magnificient views both up and down the volcano’s drowned crater. Keep going down into Lyttelton and catch a bus back, or carry on up the steep Bridle Path Road to the historic path itself. If you stay on the Summit Road at Evans Pass, there are 13 patches (sometimes substantial patches) of scenic reserve along the way to Gebbies Pass. Jollies comes first, a shaded nook of bush that has views across Pegasus Bay and down into the Sumner wedge, looking remarkably like the “Lawrence of Arabia" film rendition of Aqaba, only greener.

Jollies has been planted with a mixture of species; the original bush remnant contains a large specimen of milk-tree.

Further along the road is Mt Pleasant and then Mt Cavendish, a volcanic bluff towering over the Heathcote Valley. A more accessible place is up the rise from the Bridle Path crossing. On some days, Castle Rock is

By

STAN DARLING

relatively free of people clambering over its impressive battlements. A track below the escarpment, with magnificent views up the cliffs, leads to a wide-mouthed cave that makes an unusual frame for the city below. Then come The Tors, two rocky peaks, and Witch Hill at the top of the Rapaki Track. The city face of Witch Hill is like a giant sailfin breaking from the hillcrest wave. The Rapaki, a long climb up from Centaurus Road, is one of the more strenuous ways of getting on to the hills.

From the top of the Rapaki, it is not much further around the next bend to Scott Reserve and the start of a. formed track

extending all the way to Kennedy’s Bush.

The track winds up through the trees, out into the open at the tops, and then down to the road again before taking a similar route across the next ridge. After a while, it conies to the Sugar Loaf reserve, the most accessible and popular along the Summit Road. A round trip on Mitchell’s and Gilpin’s tracks should be made.

The latter route is higher and newer than the other, and both traverse slightly different terrain. Native bush and the bluffs, with more good views across the harbour, are the main attractions.

More open country is on the other side of Dyers Pass. In places, either of two tracks can be taken te get to the same spot. Most of the track is on the Governor’s Bay side of the road.

Through Hoon Hav Park, there is much tussock and bracken fern with secon d-growth shrubs. Nearby is the well-marked track downhill to Kennedy’s Bush Road and Halswell.

But if you have gone that far, the bush foaming down on the CanterburyPlains side should not be

missed. It has more than 150 species of plants, and planting of new trees next to it is going on all the time.

At the top of the bush, in open woodland good for picnics, is the old Sign of the Bellbird. There is also a magnificient view toward the Lyttelton heads.

Not much further along the Summit Road, although not on a track, are more reserves — Cass Peak, Cooper’s Knob (a familiar landmark from the Plains) and Ahuriri, another fine piece of regenerating bush. From this end of the route, the best way down is along the Dyers Pass Road track to Victoria Park, or down to Worsleys or Kennedy’s Bush, roads.