Really amazed at how fast time can pass you by when you’re busy out and about doing things. Doing things in Canterbury is easy to do as there is so much to do. Now as you can see by our previous posts, we have been busy, many bike rides and walks around Christchurch and the Port Hills. The weather for the past 3 weeks has been particularly dismal some sort of record was set 17 hours of sunshine in 17 days!!! We spent some of those grey days at the botanical gardens, Museum and Art Gallery well worth the effort! The last three days have been busy as normal as we visited Mount Herbert, Lee’s Valley and Okuku. So let’s start with Lee’s Valley. In our now not so new Jimny we decided to explore some of the back country hoping initially to get up to Mt Grey, we’ll park up and hike up to top… off we went on a glorious sunny day every route we took towards the Mt locked gates! Being forestry blocks closed off to public.. mmmmm what will we do off to Oxford via all the back roads enjoying the countryside, whilst having a coffee we find a route through the Ashely Gorge so off we go. Shane secretly rejoicing no hiking up hills!!! Steadily climbing up the foothills to magnificent views of the Plains bathed in sunshine, the Ashley River far below meandering its way out of the gorge, crossing the river via an icy bridge which didn’t see sunshine was magical icy trees and grasses. Climbing a narrow winding road then coming out onto the Lees Valley was rather spectacular with snow clad mountains in the background. A lovely drive up to the head of the valley, we decided to head back the way we had come as there was a river crossing further on which we weren’t too keen to tackle. Big stations big country quite impressive.
The following day my suggestion was to hike up Mt Herbert behind Diamond Harbour… Shane secretly hating me hehe… we arrive at Charteris Bay and Orton Bradley Park, wonderful arboretum with magnificent specimen trees, bike tracks and walkways. We head off on our hike, following the stream as it winds its way up the valley. The walk track was wet and had been churned up by the cattle in many places, ankle deep mud patches making it a harder than Shane wanted walk up the mountain. After one or two Creek crossings the gradient steepened and was quite slippery under foot. We come across two hikers about our age who were training for the Te Araroa trail which follows the length of New Zealand from Cape Reinga
to Bluff and takes you to a lot of NZs most isolated locations, something Jude and I have thought of doing ourselves one day.
As we climb fabulous views of Lyttleton Harbour and all the bays and the geology of the crater rim is spectacular with vertical faces towering above us. Even though the the sun was shining, there was a very raw westerly howling over the top, we didn’t dally too long… we opted to go back down via the Tabletop Track, slightly longer but not as steep as the climb up. A 12 km hike but well worth effort.
On Monday another SUNNY day, geez making up for all those dull days now! We decide to join the dots on the Ashley Gorge road. This time head up the Okuku Pass road flanked by hectares of forestry then open into steep tussock country mainly beef cattle being farmed all in terrific condition, slowly climbing up over the Okuku Pass at 570mtrs and wend our way down to Lees Pass at the head of the Lees valley, arriving at the Okuku River crossing… we stop to observe where to cross, water was clear and not too deep reasonable flow put into 4 wheel low and descend into river off she goes rumbling over the stones and we pop out over the other side at least she got a good wash underneath! We came to where we got to on Saturday so we joined the dots on our map! Another awesome day exploring off the mainstream roads was done.
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