Time: About 1.5 hours (car park to Summit Road approx 30 - 40 mins)
Distance: About 5 km
Start: Bridle Path car park, Heathcote Valley
Finish: Same place (it's there and back)
Date: Friday 11th September 2020
This is my go-to walk when I'm on my own, there is a southerly about to sweep through the city, the ski field is shrouded in mist and the planned walk has fallen through. Actually there wasn't a Plan B walk at all, but I'd just spent the morning trying to solder a tricksy silver ring and I was starting to feel a bit antsy. I needed to walk.
The Bridal Path is iconic to all fine upstanding Cantabrians. In 1886, the first four European settler ships (the Charlotte Jane, Randolph, Sir George Seymour and Cressy) arrived in Lyttelton Harbour. The settlers lugged everything (including furniture and pianos) over the hill to the swampy plains, the planned location of Christchurch city and their new homeland.What a shock that must have been. The uphill climb is dotted with information boards and memorial stone seats. Not a word about the pre-European history of Christchurch. Yes the Māori were here a few hundred years before the Europeans arrived. First the moa hunters, then iwi from the North.
About halfway up the hill, the sun came out, even though it was still raining. It was about 35 minutes to the top. Puffing, I stepped into the Pioneer Women's Memorial Shelter and took a couple of snaps but didn't linger. The sun was gone and there was a stiff breeze. I could just make out the Lyttelton Harbour down below in the mist.
You feel the steepness of the hill more keenly on the descent. The coffees I had consumed during the soldering experiment were catching up with me and I needed to pee. Looking uphill and down dale I scanned for walkers. None but I'd better be quick. Only when I had finished did I think to look up and realise I was in full view of the gondola restaurant and a line of cable cars. Currently stopped, they appeared frozen in time.
Rather weirdly at that same moment the sun came out and the clouds cleared to reveal the most beautiful blue skies. I scuttled on down the hill and back to the car and home for more coffees and soldering.
