Time: 4.5 hours (2 hours there, 30 minutes snacks, 2 hours back)
Distance: 12 km (6 km each way)
Start: Gebbies Pass car park
Finish: Same place (it's there and back)
Date: Friday 17th March 2023
Te Ara Pātaka/Summit walkway is a 35 km trail that follows (more or less) a ridgeline from Gebbies Pass through to Hilltop. In Te Reo Māori, "Ara" means path and "Pātaka" means food basket - the latter is an acknowledgement by local iwi that this area was once the food basket of their ancestors. The Department of Conservation have an informative brochure complete with track descriptions and maps (download the pdf here).The trail can be walked in five sections and today we were doing the first:
1. Gebbies Pass to Sign of the Packhorse Hut (2 hours)
2. Sign of the Packhorse Hut to Mt Herbert/Te Ahu Patiki (3 hours)
3. Mt Herbert/Te Ahu Patiki to Port Levy Saddle (2.5 hours)
4. Port Levy Saddle to Mt Fitzgerald (probably 2-3 hours)
5. Mt Fitzgerald to Hilltop (probably 2-3 hours)
We started our drive from Christchurch with a bit of a delay due to the misplacement of some inner soles (this also happened to me at work last Thursday when management moved us into horrible offices). We beetled around the beautiful bays and rendezvoused in good time at the Gebbies Pass car park and set out upon the well-poled path. The beginning of Te Ara Pātaka. This was initially a farm road, but we soon turned off onto a small trail through a commercial pine forest. A few years ago I walked this track and I remember walking mostly under trees but in recent times the area has been partially logged and parts of it look pretty devastated.
We consoled ourselves by focusing on the forest remnants and the myriad of mushrooms that were popping up all over the place on old stumps. Zhanna, our resident mycologist, poked them with her walking pole and classified them as we went: "Slippery Jack; Pine Bolete; Fly Agaric; Laughing Jim; Poisonous; Edible; Bitter."
We rounded the corner and came across an Old Codger, parked amongst the slash. On the back of his ute was an absurdly small punnet with four eucalyptus seedlings that he was about to plant. The forest owner. He chatted away cheerfully about his partially demolished forest which he obviously loved. Since we were walking across his property (actually it's a public paper road apparently) and because he was so friendly, I didn't have the heart to tell him that we love native bush and think that pines and eucalypts are evil bastards. We waited until he was out of earshot and then vented a bit.
At this point we obviously weren't concentrating on the task at hand because we completely missed the poled path turnoff on our the right. We continued on up the steep forest road in an inadvertent off-piste fashion. It took some time before we realised that we hadn't seen any poles for awhile. I checked the topo map and saw that we could meet the track again up ahead so no harm done - a bit unsettling though.
The wind and heat were picking up and it was a relief to enter the shade of a large copse of standing evil bastard pines. The track undulated pleasantly through the forest and the breeze was wonderfully coolish and smelt of pine resin. For a moment I loved those pines a lot - but now as I write this I realise it was short-lived. We exited the forest over the turnstile and on the other side we were now in tussock/farmland with fab views of Lyttelton harbour below.
The track sidled under the Remarkable Dykes (volcanic outcrops) and then popped over the hill and wallah!! - the historic Sign of the Packhorse Hut. The wind was howling and the sun was beating down (28 degrees I found out later). We headed inside for paramanawa: apples; cashews; almonds; chili and raspberry chocolate. The hut has a fetching volcanic stone exterior and was the brainchild of Harry Ell who envisaged a track from Christchurch to Akaroa with places to stay along the way. To this end four stone huts were built along various ridgelines: Sign of the Takahe (1949); Sign of the Kiwi (1916); Sign of the Bellbird (1914) and Sign of the Packhorse (1916).
After our generous snacks, we took photos of the stunning views out the window and the hut graffiti and traipsed one by one through the howling wind to the picturesque (at least from the outside) long drop. Luckily it is tethered. Interesting factoid: We all carry loo paper with us.
Then it was time to head home in the heat and the howling wind. The return always seems faster, but the last ten minutes we had all had enough. The discussion turned to "late lunch" and where to go.
In the end we opted for the Otoromiro Hotel f.k.a. the Governors Bay Hotel. Kind of quirky. We sat in the garden outside and felt good. Why? Well, all the boxes were ticked: Great food; views; coffee; wine; beer; cider. And especially hanging out and catching up with friends you have just slogged up a hill in the heat with. Thanks for a lovely day e hoa mā!
