Woodhill Diary

(return to index page)

Saturday 19 August 2006

The Bikepark carpark is considerably busier today, as is the one just down the hill at the Rope Course. There are about the same number of cars around to the right.

I set off around 1pm, with Alice on the leash, and headed up to the old walking track carpark.

There is a very real danger to pedestrians using this road.

In the 10-15 minutes that it took me to walk this section of road, I was passed by approximately 40 cars, the majority travelling, not at 30kph, the speed limit, but probably closer to 50-70 kph. There was no footpath and no verge to speak of that I could retreat to.

At least 5 times in that period, I was passed by cars going both ways. Apart from the minimal room available for pedestrians, each car generated its own little cloud of choking gravel dust and that's only going to get worse in hot summer weather. At one point, there were five cars on the road one after the other about 50 metres apart. Coming back later on, I found the traffic was lighter - about twelve cars - but much the same kind of hazards existed as earlier.

Traffic is generated by the Bikepark, and by the Rope Course just down the road.

Unless CHH or Bikeparks propose to establish a walking track starting right across the road, and off the road, someone is likely to be killed or injured. The dangers here far outweigh any security advantages from centralising the parking at the Bike Park. Failing this, a designated walkers carpark is required on the site of the old de facto one.

I believe, with the volume of traffic through here, especially at weekends, and the dozens of cyclists now in the immediate area, the likelihood of vehicles being broken into is negligible. In any case, in more than a year of using the old car park once or twice a week, I have had no problems, even when I have inadvertently left the car unlocked.

We head up the track towards the Nature Conservancy area. There signs of recent walkers and, despite the "pedestrians only" status of the path, there have obviously been mountain bikers through the area. In the weeks that have passed with the paths closed, a few trees have come down over the track,

and there is one biggie that's been there for months, and will need to wait for a crew with a chainsaw.

I note with pleasure that another one about the same size further around the track has now been removed. Fat men with backpacks are at a disadvantage here.

The London pride around the old lookout is just coming into fat bud again

and a few kawakawa trees are showing first signs of new flowers

Korokio here and there are glistening red with the remaining berries from last year, but apart from that, the vegetation is mostly biding its time waiting for a little more light, a little more warmth.

Alice is running about 5 m for every one I walk. I watch for signs of diminishing energy, but I'm not holding my breath. She stops when a grey warbler begins its song about 20 m up the hill. On the west coast, South Island, they reckon if you can hear the warbler, it's going to rain soon. If you can't, it's already raining. It's a lovely song, and despite predictions of rain I can listen to it with pleasure whenever it it arrives. Local populations have their own variation on the song, with the Taupo bays warblers quite distinctively different from the Auckland ones.

We head around the short loop track to the lookout and I take time for a sit. I am managing the distance and the hills so far without ill effects but I am taking them slowly.

My main reason for coming up here was to see what else had been milled, but as far as I can see the area between the lookout and the coast remains the same. I head back to Selwyn Rd by the direct route straight down the hill, and take some time to run Alice through her stop-sit-wait routine before we get back on the road to the carpark. When I plot the route on the Memory Map topo later, I have covered about 6.8km over three hours. Not bad for a start, considering recent leg trouble and stopping to look at things.