Outdoors: Walking in our own backyard

By COLIN MOORE

Rate demands are not the most welcome piece of mail in your letterbox. The account is sizeable and if it is not paid within a few weeks the council wallops you with another 10 per cent.

But a recent rates bill from the North Shore City Council was at least softened by the accompanying council newsletter.

"Take a walk on the Shore side", it headlined a story about two heritage trails that have been developed in the city.

One is around Northcote Point, the other along the coast between Takapuna and Milford. They join three "literary" walks the council has plotted around Devonport, Takapuna and Castor Bay that highlight well-known authors who live or have lived in these suburbs and been inspired by their surroundings.

The council has produced brochures with maps and historical information on the walks. These are available free at council offices, libraries and visitor information centres. And that, as I discovered a couple of weeks later when I was in a council office, is what really made that particular rates demand palatable.

Some of my money is at least being put to a cause I can readily endorse. The council - like many others in the country, for that matter - considers promoting leisure walking in the city, and the health of its citizens, a legitimate municipal function.

At the council offices there is a rack devoted to brochures on urban walks and city parks. They are there for residents and out-of-town visitors and I am happy for anyone to use some of my rates money by taking one of each, as I did.

North Shore City is fortunate in its walking options because it was not all that long ago that it was mostly farmland and holiday baches. The old Town and Country Planning Act demanded that subdividers "donate" 10 per cent of a subdivision as a reserve.

Doubtless future leisure walkers rarely figured that highly in the subdividers' or planners' thinking. The developers mostly wanted to contribute land that you couldn't build a house on anyway and the planners were more likely interested in environmental issues such as drainage, visual barriers of native trees and such like.

Nonetheless, if you take a bird's eye view of North Shore suburbia that was once farmland, you'll find a fair whack of it consists of ribbons and patches of green. And you get the feeling that a few birds on the council have spotted this because those ribbons of green are becoming embryo walkways.

You can get some idea of this "use it or lose it" thinking in my own little patch of the city that was subdivided into quarter-acre sections in 1924. The subdivision included an esplanade reserve that linked one street with the beach below and a ferry wharf.

The walkway no doubt got a lot of use in the old days but in the past 30 years it has mostly been ignored and some people deliberately tried to hide its existence by filling it with tree prunings, as I would discover when trying to take school parties through it.

But last month I noticed some council contractors building a proper path through the reserve that will clearly mark it as a public thoroughfare.

The walkway is probably less than 100m long but the significance of it should not be lost because it is those small sections that are the key to interesting urban walks. They create the links from green patch to green patch.

One of the North Shore City brochures I collected was devoted to "Kiwi Walks," devised as part of the Hillary Commission's Kiwi Walks promotion.

It includes a delightful walk in the Chatswood Reserve, an extensive ribbon of green protecting the streams and pockets of bush in this relatively recent Birkenhead subdivision.

On this walk you pass mature kauri trees, bush streams and native birds.

Another walk, in the old Albany Village, links three old reserves and a heritage trail past remnants of the days when Albany was a busy port for people and produce going to Auckland City.

A long-established walk on the North Shore is along the coast from Long Bay all the way to North Head. But that is a long way and is generally broken up into more doable sections so you can park the car and walk there and back.

Cheltenham Beach to Takapuna Beach and back is a stroll at four hours and is good in both winter and summer because there is no mud involved. You do have to check the tides, however, because one section is passable only two hours either side of high tide.

The section between Takapuna and Milford takes about two hours return and goes past the remains of a forest that was fossilised by hot lava flowing from the exploding crater of Lake Pupuke.

Between Mairangi Bay and Browns Bay, about one and a half hours return, there are sweeping views of the Hauraki Gulf.

Also on the North Shore are several native bush reserves that have good walking tracks through them. There are Awaruku Bush, Torbay; Smith's Bush, Northcote; Le Roy's Bush, Birkenhead; Eskdale Park, Glenfield; Centennial Park, Campbells Bay; Kauri Glen, Northcote; and Kauri Point Centennial Park at Birkenhead.

But the most encouraging brochure I collected was the one headed "Your park in your hands".

It pointed out the variety of urban parks, from those offering a gentle stroll along a bush-lined path to others involving a more strenuous walk.

And it takes a bit more than my rates to look after them. Volunteers are needed for everything from weeding to guiding a touring group or giving short talks to a school class.

But most of all, I suggest, urban walks, in every city, need to be used to ensure they are not abused.

I have been guilty of ignoring the walks in my own backyard lately. To be reminded of them is some consolation for that rates demand.

* North Shore City Parks, phone (09) 486 8600

* Walking Auckland: 25 Walks of Discovery in and Around Auckland by Helen Vause

North Shore City Council


* colinmoore@xtra.co.nz