Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Distance: 5.3 km
Start: Halswell Quarry Information Center car park off Kennedy's Bush Road.
Finish: Same place (it's a loop)
Date: Friday 21st April 2023
On the rainiest of rainy Autumn days, those of us who like to walk in the rain headed to Halswell Quarry Park to perform a wet circumnavigation. The plan was to ascend the Quarry Rim Track, then branch off and up to Kennedy's Bush Road before returning via mountain bike tracks. The mountain bike part of this I would only recommend on rainy days when you are likely to encounter zero mountain bikers (which we did).
Halswall Quarry was founded by James Feather and James Forgan in 1861 with the black basalt stone (volcanic in origin) being used for Christchurch roads and buildings. These days it is a popular park with multiple walking and mountain biking tracks and it also boasts: six sister city gardens, a wetland, a lake, an old stone house/museum and a caravan cafe. The Christchurch City Council have published a more detailed history which can be read in the downloadable pdf.
Luckily Nicole knows the park well (she is a local) and she could guide us. We headed up to the quarry rim to the lookout where the views might have been fabulous but today were mostly shrouded in a sea of misty drizzle. The quarry is cool though, and you get a close-up view of the hexagonal rocks. This weird hexagonalness (made up word) is caused by lava cooling in certain conditions and is called columnnar jointing.
At the top of the quarry rim we branched off and up through farmland to Kennedy's Bush Road before turning left at the Horse Gate. Here we were at the edge of the Crocodile XC MTB Park and we had to decide whether to take the Croc Up Track or the Croc Down Track. After some thinking we decided the safest option was to descend via the "Croc Up". The path was muddy and slippery so we shortened things a bit by going off piste and straight down the hill when we could - thereby cutting off the track end loops. We also had to negotiate a couple of cows and a few sheep as well. They must be used to people because they watched us calmly and didn't bother moving too much. In fact, they were so close we could hear them chewing their cud.
At the lake, rakiraki (ducks) were quacking excessively and doing other ducky stuff like swimming fast and trying to damage each other with their ducky beaks. Pukeko were flitting in and out of the toi toi. It was all action. We rounded a corner and popped out suddenly back at the car park.
We checked out The Whare, an historic stone house/museum which used to accommodate the unmarried quarry workers. Quite weirdly, the lounge chairs look a lot like the ones we have at home. We then transported our sodden bodies to the nearest cafe - Zeroes - where the coffee is good and they make a decent scone.
