City Heights - Nelson

Saturday 15 July 2023

Six of us enjoyed a 16km jaunt up hill and down dale while remaining close to and having marvellous views of Nelson city.

We started from Founders Heritage Park at 9am. We took our time meandering through Wakapuaka cemetery. About the same number of sheep were doing the same. It was serene. The sun shone and the recently polished headstones gleamed.

From the cemetery we climbed over Walters Bluff, getting ourselves onto the Sir Stanley Whitehead Track. All along it, we were pointing out city landmarks and noting the new apartments we could see being built. There’s a lovely seating area made from tree trunks at the Centre of NZ end of Sir Stanley’s track where we stopped for a leisurely morning tea.

We then went down to the Maitai Valley followed by more climbing, up Clifton and Atmore Terraces, and still more up to the top of Jacks Track where we had lunch. We’d made good time taking three hours to get that far.

The afternoon part of the walk was called “Make it up as you go along” as long as the group of us get safely down to Brook St in the vicinity of the Codgers Track entrance.  From there it was more making the route up as we went along because various members of our group met various members of the public who they already knew and wanted to stop for a chat.

We agreed we’d found a very pleasant way to spend our Matariki Saturday, and by 3pm we were all back at Founders Park.

Those who came were Alison (leader and scribe), Justine, Kari, Ross and Sue, along with cheerful visitor George.