A typical Auckland winter afternoon of strong southwesterly winds and changeable showery weather did
not stop 35 people from turning up to explore the bush tracks of Hillsborough in a good up-and-down workout.
Almost a year ago, ten people braved pouring rain to do very much the same trip!
We left The Bracken
soon after 1:30pm and joined up with some other people who chose to go directly to the corner of Hillsborough
Rd and Richardson Rd opposite the Hillsborough Cemetery. The walk started at the far end of the main
graveyard area at the beginning of the bush track to the Goodall St with leader Dhiru giving the introductions
and Max giving the customary prayer that God would bless and look after us on the walk.
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This track, and the other bush tracks we would be going on, were constructed as recently as late
2000. We dropped down into a gully and climbed up to the Goodall St boundary of the cemetery.
From
there we dropped down into the Goodall Street Reserve then climbed up to Belfast St for a short rest
stop. We then turned around and went back down to the bottom of the gully in the Goodall Street Reserve.
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Instead of carrying on up to Goodall St we turned left and followed a track that soon opened out
into a grass park and onto the Manukau harbour foreshore at Hillsborough Beach.
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There was opportunity for a short comfort stop before we roadbashed our way to the top end of Hosking
Ave. As we climbed up to our starting point in Hillsborough Cemetery a shower of rain came on, but it
had passed over by the time we reached it.
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Quite a few of us chose to leave the group there and head homewards, and the rest of us walked up
through the graveyards to Hillsborough Road before roadbashing through to the bottom of Aldersgate Road.
A short track brought us to the Manukau Harbour coastline once more, and we followed a bush track westwards
alongside the coast. This is eventually came out onto the sandy oyster-shell beach of Wesley Bay.
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At the far end of Wesley Bay we re-entered the bush and came to the Waikowhai Road. Some of us walked
down to Faulkners Bay (Boat Bay), then we climbed up to the Waikowhai lookout where we had excellent
views of the coastline where we had just come from, the Manukau Harbour, Mangere Mountain, Puketutu Island,
and Waikowhai Bay to the west.
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Our final down-and-up was to drop down into the bush towards Wesley Bay and climb up a track to come
out on Hillsborough Road at the start of Waikowhai Rd. A twenty minute roadbash along Hillsborough Road
brought us back to our cars at the start of Richardson Rd. By now it was almost 5pm.
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