Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes
Distance: 8.8 km
Start: West Melton Forest car park, 580 Chattertons Road, Christchurch
Finish: Same place - it's a figure-of-eight (kind of)
Date: Friday 26th Sept 2025
The Waimakariri River Regional Park comprises 15,000 hectares of river bed and bank, managed by Environment Canterbury who have divided it into a bunch of activity areas (check out the park brochure pdf). On the north bank is Kaiapoi Island (FW blog post) and on the south bank:
- McLeans Forest (walking and biking) FW blog post (a.k.a. McLeans Island)
- West Melton Forest (horse riding but walkers welcome on the forestry roads) (today's destination)
- Te Rauakaaka (walking and birdwatching in a salt marsh)
- Baynons Brake (horse riding but walkers welcome)
- McIntosh's (fishing)
- Templers Island (walking and biking)
- The Willows (walking and bike riding) FW blog post
- Weedons Forest (trail bike riding).
The "islands" McLeans, Kaiapoi and Templers (a.k.a Templars) have long since disappeared due to 150 years of flooding mitigation but their names persist. Today we were checking out West Melton Forest.
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| The Waimakariri River Regional Park |
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| The "islands" in 1928 Somehow, I always reckon, the southbank area of the Waimakariri has a rather redneck-weird-sort-of- deliverance-type feel to it. You know what I mean. We were driving along McLeans Island Road past all the wood chopping, rifle and vintage machinery clubs. Linda was giving us sound voting advice for the upcoming local body elections and Kim (who happens to have a wood-chopping heritage) slowed down the car so that I could get a decent shot of the axe throwing venue. My daughter's besty has been there recently and apparently it is a most enjoyable activity.  We turned off Chatterton's Road, drove under the very elaborate West Melton Forest archway entrance and parked next to the Kowhai Dryland Savannah. The savannah, "home to a range of rare and endangered mosses and lichens" is a "significant and protected biodiversity area". It apparently represents what much of the Canterbury Plains/Kā-pakihi-whakatekateka-a-Waitaha would have looked like in the past.  From the car park there is a small track through the pines to the loos and the large parking area for horse floats. If you read the small print on the information signage, you realise that West Melton Forest is all about horses, the trails are for horse-riders only. Walkers are welcome, but must stick to the signed, sometimes sandy, sometimes stoney, sometimes grassy, very straight foresty roads which criss-cross the reserve. I had already planned a road-route of sorts - a lopsided, straight-edged figure-of-eight starting on Zeus Road. A woman with five pooches - one named Wally - gave us a cheery good morning as we pfaffed around and finally got underway.      We walked the length of Zeus Road then took a sharp right-hand bend onto Carbine Road. The pines in this part of the forest are a vibrant green - young and healthy. The pine cone buds, "abruptly pointed" at the end of each branch, seemed to be flipping the bird at us. As we crossed over a groyne, a couple of paradise ducks unnecessarily freaked out and flew off dramatically. We reached the center of the figure-of-eight and paused at the picnic table for cashews.         Two women on horseback rode past. At this point we decided to flout the rules and go on the horse trail too, but after about 10 minutes, our path was obstructed by a fallen tree and we returned to the nearby forestry road where it was somewhat less chilly.    We turned right on 7th Street which ran through a rather desolate cut-down forest. The clouds darkened as per the forecast and it started to absolutely piss down. It gradually got heavier and we quickly "raincoated" up. The women on horseback crossed our path once again and we turned off 7th Street onto another horsetrack and followed them. We were now on Cheetons Road - the return. Gunshots rang out to our left where there is a police shooting range. Occasionally we could see hares jumping in the distance and a black cat crossed our path. Ever such good luck my mum reckons.      We nearly missed the turn-off to Allegro Street, but I flourished the map in the nick of time. A few meters along, there is a gap in the fence and we could cross the Kowhai Dryland Savannah, on a small diagonal trail (being careful not to disturb any rare and endangered mosses and lichens and plants) that connected us back to the carpark. At the carpark, the top wire of the fence could be pushed down for safe crossing (probably a bit rubby for some).        |