Sunday, December 4, 2011

Tramping in the Port Hills






The weather has finally turned hot here, with most days being in the low 80's. We decided to spend this past Sunday tramping through the Port Hills. Dominating the southern skyline above Christchurch, the Port Hills are the outer rim of the ancient Lyttelton volcano. At its most active, about 12 million years ago, the volcano may have been 4 times the height of the Port Hills. Today, the Lyttelton and Akaroa volcanoes are amongst the world's best examples of erosion craters. These craters were eventually breached by the sea to form the two main harbours of Lyttelton and Akaroa.
At the time of settlement in the 1850's, the hills were a daunting barrier. As the city of Christchurch grew, the hills were exploited- first for timber and then for farming. It was not until the twentieth century that concerns were raised about the disappearance of native forests and the protection of the Port Hills. A man named Harry Ell was largely responsible for the network of bush reserves and walking tracks on the hills. He persuaded local landowners to "gift" remnants of bush and he raised funds to purchase more land. Christchurch born and bred, Harry Ell was a pioneer conservationist. At the time, few others appreciated the Port Hills as a city asset. During the 1930's depression about 1,000 men on relief worked on Harry's vision of a scenic road connecting Lyttelton to Akaroa- the path became the Summit Road. The men were called Ells Angels.
Harry's dream included 15 rest houses,to be used by trampers to provide rest and respite but only 4 were built. The rest houses were constructed of locally quarried volcanic rock to blend into the natural landscape. The first, the Sign of the Bellbird, was built in 1914. It was followed in 1916 by the Sign of the Kiwi and the Sign of the Packhorse. The Bellbird and Kiwi were both tearooms with resident caretakers. The Packhorse, a three roomed hut, served as a basic overnight shelter for trampers. In 1918, Ell began building the 4th and most ambitious of his rest houses- the Sign of the Takahe, a midieval mansion with many Gothic features.
On Sunday, we set out in search of The Sign of the Packhorse. We had already been to the other three Signs, two of which (the Kiwi and Takahe) were damaged by the Feb. 2011 earthquake and are currently not open to the public. We drove to Kaituna Valley and parked the car at a designated DOC (Dept.of Conservation)area. Smack dab in the middle of a working sheep farm, we arrived just in time to watch the farmer and 4 of his dogs muster up a huge mob of sheep and move them into the paddock where we would begin our hike. It's fascinating watching the dogs work those sheep. With chilly bin in hand, we headed up into the Hills. A sign pointing the way said simply, "Track". We walked for a while until we discovered that there was no longer a path. Well, there were lots of sheep trails plus the wooly buggers that made them, but no real human trail to follow. We decided to sit in the shade of a manuka tree, drink our water and eat a sammie (sandwich). We decided to keep walking, ridge over ridge, until finally, with no idea of what direction the Packhorse was in and afraid we wouldn't find our way back to the car, we gave up and turned back. We're not sure where we went wrong. Perhaps we missed the trail markers (unlikely as we have the eyes of a hawk) or perhaps the markers were removed (by some rogue local who doesn't want Yanks wandering his hillsides). In any case, we will do some research and give it another go. Anyone have a GPS we could borrow?

1 comment:

  1. You could borrow my GPS(s) (GPIES?). I have a Garmin 60cSX which does well for orientation, hiking and geocaching and now a Dakota 20 (which provides a paperless geocaching option) which is very, very nice. As a matter of fact there is a geocache at the Sign of the Packhorse (GCH9RG). Co-ords are: S 43° 42.132 E 172° 41.557. Hint is about 7m from the dunny (whatever that is!)
    GCRQGY is also near by. An easy cache on the edge of a scenic reserve not often entered. They do note: There may be lambing closures August to October. There appears to be thousands of caches on the southern island. Happy trails.

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