Jumping forward now to October 25th last year. I decided I wanted to push myself a bit and see how I went on a longer walk. Longer than 10-15 minutes I mean!
Growing up we spent a lot of time in Wilton's Bush as we knew it then. We lived in
Wadestown and it was around a 15-20 minute walk from home. Pa often took us there on a Sunday afternoon. Or we'd go ourselves when we were 10 or so. No parents - just us! The fun we had - walking over the pipes across the stream - they're all boxed in now - going across the stream and I do recall on one occasion I met up with a stinging nettle bush! Suffice to say it was
not fun. :(
As my own children grew up we often walked here too and they almost always walked back along the stream bed. There should be a billboard:-
The board at the entrance to the walk. The green area is all within the boundary of Otari-Wilton's Bush.
Sunlight breaking through the trees, dappling the rocks and stream bed.
Tiny rapid, mossy green rocks, fallen down branches, nature will have her way!
Fungi growing on a stump
A hollowed out trunk . . .
. . . Room for a Locket though! :)
The walk into the picnic area is basically flat. Many of the trails are not! I was still feeling pretty good and so we decided to go on a bit. There was a short trail and I remembered it being not too steep. So . . . yeah . . .steps! I had to pause a couple of times to catch my breath wait for people to pass, but I made it to the top of the short hill. =D> I was glad to turn off the main trail though as I remember it goes on for quite a distance!
Pretty hard to see but we had to go down to the stream bed then up the other side. The trail is well marked but hard to see through the trees.
Near to the end you walk over the intertwined roots of these two trees, again the sun is peeking through the gaps.
On the way back Boar decided to walk along the pipe - and of course Locket had to as well! And I wonder where they get it from. This probably is one of the pipes I walked over too :D I was a lot younger than I am now though!
If you look closely you can see a grey patch near the middle of the photo - Locket! I'm standing on the trail. Boar is somewhere on the pipe too, just ahead I think.
Rangiora - or colloquially "Bushman's loo paper"!
I love the way the sunlight is shining through from the back and you can see all the "veins" on the back of the rangiora leaves from the front.
The small yellow trail is the one we walked around from the picnic area. I edited my photo to show the arrows.
A larger photo which shows how small the trail we took really is in comparison with some of the others. For me on that day it was plenty. Since it was my first big walk since my
PE I was really pleased with myself. I was tired but I achieved a few things:- a longer
walk, all up around an hour; steps!; pacing myself through the walk.
All in all a lovely way to spend an afternoon. :)
