It was a gorgeous but cool day after all the rain earlier in the week. We set out from Hatton St and climbed up to the carpark, where we had a breather before diving into the bush and following the steep track leading to the top of Johnsons Hill. This track was in beautiful bush and also had a lot of very steep steps to clamber up. The view at top was worth the climb, but it was quite windy. After a drinks break and group photo, we made our way down the other side to join the Skyline Walkway. From here we followed the track along to the Parkvale Road turnoff before heading back up towards some water tanks. The track undulated a bit but after the earlier hill climb, was pretty easy. We stopped to take some photos of amazing art work on a water reservoir. Along this part of the track, we had some great views towards Makara and it didn’t take too long to reach our turnoff point to head down to Karori Park. We did stop however to look at what was thought to be a morepork until one of our group zoomed in on their camera. It was actually part of the tree but very realistic from the naked eye.

We arrived at Karori Park in under 2 hours (rather more quickly than the last time I took this walk) and stopped for a coffee before heading along the streets back to our cars.

Lead - Judith O’Leary

Walkers: Denise, Nichola, Christine, Sheila, Jane, Anna, and Angela