Twenty-three people and two dogs took an opportunity to have a look at what will eventually become part of the new Glenfield Coastal Walkway, nine meeting at The Bracken at 1:30pm and the rest meeting at Eileen’s home in Manuka Rd., Glenfield. A short roadbash brought us to the start of the Kaipatiki Reserve at the end of Valcrest Place off Witherford Drive, and a formed track dropping down to come out on Kaipatiki Road opposite Glenfield College. We went back into the bush to follow the Kaipatiki Track running parallel with the road but across a stream - this track has been made by Kaipatiki Ecological Restoration Project, a neighbourhood group that is restoring the Kaipatiki Stream by getting rid of plant and animal pests and encouraging the regeneration of native vegetation. The stream had been silted up since the subdivision of the area from farmland to residential housing in the 1970s.

Eventually we came out at Witherford Drive - just as a Mr Whippy van came along, so we just had to have an unscheduled ice-cream stop. Then we went up Witherford Drive, effectively completing a small loop, and back onto Manuka Road to follow it to the end at a boat ramp and the Manuka Reserve. We could look down Hellyers Creek to Beachhaven in the distance on the left and the hills of Greenhithe on the right. The tide was right out, exposing a broad area of mud flats.

After a short break at Manuka Reserve we went along a track through mainly bush following the upper Hellyers Creek as it narrowed to become the Lignite Stream, starting as a wide estuary and finishing as a tiny stream. This came out at the end of Bayview Rd and our scheduled icecream stop at the dairy before going along Lynn Rd and into Lynn Reserve.

Lynn Reserve was a pleasant walk up a bush-clad gully. Before the final climb out of the gully via a grassed reserve onto Morriggia Place we stopped to see a large kauri tree. From Morriggia Place it was only five minutes roadbashing to bring us back to chez Eileen at about 5pm. About half the group accepted an invitation from Eileen to stay for a cuppa to round the afternoon off. COST:  $2