Hiking adventures in New Zealand
Hiking adventures in New Zealand
We made the most of a lovely sunny Winters' day to take a day trip from Nelson over to Takaka Hill and Harwoods Hole. Quite unknown to me before now, Harwoods Hole is the deepest vertical cave/shaft in New Zealand. The opening is 50m wide, the entire drop is 357m (1,171 feet) and it is spectacular! The track from Canaan Downs car park is 2.9Km one way and took us around 30 minutes. We combined it with a trip up to the viewpoint overlooking Gorge Creek, a quick...
Winter served up a rather damp weekend, so we made the most of it by taking a local walk in the Mount Richmond Forest Park along the Hacket Track to Whispering Falls and Hacket hut. We returned via the disused Chromite Mine Track. All up, with an hour-long lunch we took 5.5 hours but no doubt in summer you would want to spend longer as there are plenty of opportunities for river swims and exploring.
The great thing about living in Nelson, is the accessability to so many great hiking spots on your doorstep. The Dew lakes and Dun Mountain loop starts from the Maitai dam just a 20 minute drive from the city. This awesome day walk is around 23Kms and takes you through a variety of forestry, bush/scrub, beech forest and open tops. Be prepared for a great workout - it's a decent climb up to 1143m over Little Twin and 1129m over Dun Mountain. With...
With it's golden sandy beaches, magnificent rock stacks and arches, huge sand dunes, stunning clifftop views, and rolling farmland, the Puponga Hilltop Track should be up there on your list of easily-accessible-must-do-day-walks. There are lots of options for walks in the area, ranging from just an hour or so, to a full day. Having had a reasonable leisurely morning, we didn't start walking until 11.30am and managed to cover Wharariki Beach and over half...
We made an overnighter of this awesome Abel Tasman Northern Loop, but it would make a great day walk too. Starting at Wainui Bay at the Northernmost tip of the Abel Tasman National Park, we headed to Whariwharangi where we camped for the night. The following morning we headed around to Totaranui via Separation Point. The return journey took us up the steep inland track over Gibbs Hill. Checking the DoC distances and times for the Abel...
The Moa Park Track is a beautiful, moderately easy walking track. It skirts Canaan Downs and crosses the Wainui Saddle before climbing to an area called Moa Park; a small sub-alpine basin sitting around 1000m elevation. From Moa Park you can head up a couple of Kms to Porter Rock or around 4Kms further to Castle Rock. On todays adventure we took the Moa Park Track to Porter Rock which is around 5Kms. We enjoyed a leisurely day withy a decent...