| Auckland Baptist Tramping Club |
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OTARA OTTAVA Otara Sun 24 Jan |
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| For a fullsize picture click on the thumbnail |
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To many people’s minds Otara is one of the poorer and rougher suburbs of Auckland, but twelve trampers discovered the more beautiful and interesting aspects of Otara helped by lovely weather. We started our walk at the Otara Baptist Church carpark, following the Otara Creek Reserve. This was a path through a lovely reserve of grass and trees following the creek downstream as it gradually widened. When we reached the Johnstones Road footbridge Geoff, Eileen and Helge left our group and went their own way - Helge, a visitor from Norway and not used to tramping, was finding the pace a bit too fast. We carried around the edge of Ngati Otara Park, with Hillary College in the distance, and had our afternoon tea stop in the shade of the trees overlooking the now-quite wide creek and a little “beach”. The “park” section of the walk completed, it was time to begin the “urban” half of the tramp. We passed the Otara Marae, its meeting house being of a modern design unlike the traditional carved Maori houses. Our next port of call was the former Otara Research Station, now part of the North Campus of the Manukau Institute of Technology (a polytech school). We were unable to go right up to the building because the whole campus (as well as the main campus) was surrounded by a brand-new cast iron fence complete with spiked palings to deter intruders, and being Sunday all the gates were locked. This fancy brick building with a distinctive tower looked exactly as it was twenty years ago when it was part of the now-defunct DSIR, but the paddocks which surrounded it at the time have been replaced by a carpark and polytech buildings. As we walked along Otara Road towards the Otara shopping centre we saw one or two Polynesian extended families relaxing on the front steps of their houses, in one case with several children bouncing on a trampoline - a taste of the Polynesian atmosphere of Otara. We had a look at the Norman Kirk Memorial Pools and the Te Puke O Tara community centre - up till a few years ago stand-alone places, but now incorporated, physically as well, into the Otara Leisure Centre. A large foyer had been built over the grassed area outside the Te Puke O Tara drop-in centre, and connects to the Norman Kirk pools as well as a new gym. The drop-in centre, which had pool tables, pinball machines and a jukebox twenty years ago, has been converted to the Soul Train Cafe which is open on Saturdays. A walk through the centre of the Otara shopping centre, with all shops shut and windows covered by heavy roll-a-doors for security, except for the Mad Butcher and a few takeaway bars, brought us to our thickshake and ice-cream stop at McDonalds, only ten minutes’ walk away from tramp’s end at the Baptist Church. COST: $2 |
