Nineteen people, including several children, turned up to explore Red Hill, a hill on the eastern outskirts
of Papakura that was once a Maori pa site.
We left The Bracken at 1:30pm as usual and met up with
four of the group on the corner of Settlement Rd and Redcrest Ave at 2pm. From there we set out along
Redcrest Ave, turning into Chisarda Place to follow a track crossing a ditch then climbing up to Brooke
Rd.
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The grunt continued as we followed Brooke Rd to Red Hill Rd; by now we were on the summit plateau
area of Red Hill. We did a loop walk through the Red Hill reserve, an area of native bush dropping down
into the lower Hunua Gorge. When the Club did this trip four years ago, a side track led to the Hays
Stream at the bottom of the gorge; the tracks had not been over-maintained since then and we saw no trace
of the side track.
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The loop walk finished where it started, then it was a three-minute walk along Red Hill Rd to the
start of the summit track in the Puke Kiwiriki Pa reserve. We stopped to read on a signboard the story
of the former Maori village from the 1800s - legend has it that the tribe occupying the pa was involved
in a war with an invading tribe that was so bloody that there weren’t even twenty people left alive and
unhurt.
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A short track led through bush past sandstone bluffs to the pa site, a broad grassed area from where
we had views all around - Papakura and the Manukau Harbour to the west, and the Hunua Gorge with its
quarry to the east; a great place to have our afternoon tea stop.
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Peter shared some thoughts on the power of choice. We need to choose our channels carefully; if you
do not take the choice it goes to someone else. We need to choose what is best, to change our channel
from worry and stress to peace and happiness. He cited the example of the choices we all had taken to
come along on our tramp; the one who chooses the beginning chooses the outcome. Peter quoted Ephesians
1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of
His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, saying that we need
to ask God to open our spiritual eyes. The challenge presented in these devotions was to consider the
power of making choices - every walk we do brings new experiences, goals and views of God’s creation.
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Back on our feet again we returned to the road and began to follow Settlement Rd - which becomes
Red Hill Rd at the summit - downhill through a mixture of hice and farm land. We could look back to the
prominent slab-like Puke Kiwiriki Pa, and ahead to Papakura with the Pahurehure Inlet and Manukau Harbour
in the distance.
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Further down, we went onto a new track through a reserve that was once farmland. This concrete
path wound its way down to the bottom of the hill, then along the bottom to rejoin Settlement Rd just
one minute from our cars.
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