Waitākiri - Bottle Lake Forest Park: Trash Mountain

Distance: 4.9 km
Time: 1 hour and 5 minutes
Start: Car park at the end of Bower Ave, North Beach
Finish: Same place - it's a loop
Date: Friday 27th March 2026

Such a wild, woolly, windy and wet Ōtautahi morning. I checked my phone - surprised to find no cancellations. What a gung-ho lot. Bless!  At the end of Bower Ave is one of the many entrances into Waitākiri/Bottle Lake Forest Park "a forest for all seasons". Carolien and I pulled in to the small car park about the same time as Sharyn arrived with her newly acquired cocker spaniel pooches, Illy and Kea. A few minutes later Edel could be seen striding towards us across the field.

This is Edel's local habitat and she had planned a nifty circuit that would keep us fairly safely away from the wildly swinging pines. We set off at a jaunty pace along Lima Road with Illy and Kea swarming ahead. There were two small patches of pines we had to bypass. The trees were catching the roaring wind and dumping branches across the path. The effect was a little bit like being in a wind tunnel. We took a right turn and ascended Trash Mountain. These days the online maps call it Bottle Lake Hill, Earthquake Hill or Landfill Hill. At the crossroads we paused for a minute or so while Edel assured us, by shouting above the wind, that on a sunny day you get the best 360 degree views in Christchurch.

There are actually three large grassy hills. Each has patches of native plantings and a wooden sculpture on top. The site is the Burwood Landfill (still functioning in places), and the hills are all an accumulation of the city's trash plus rubble from the 22 February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. The most northern hill is earthquake-sensitive rubble, meaning that the rubble comes from buildings that people died in. I'm glad it has become mostly a recreational area.

As we climbed to the top of Earthquake Hill it absolutely pissed down. The tears of the city.  I also got to test out my new expensive raincoat which seems to be waterproof - the legs got wet though. We returned to the middle hill with views down to a wetland area below, and beyond to the wild Te Moana Nui a Kiwa.

Apparently (according to Ka Huru Manu and Christchurch City Council Library), in 1840 Bottle Lake (a bottle-shaped lake) and the surrounding Waitākiri swamplands were Ngāi Tahu mahinga kai (food gathering area). Waitākiri has many possible meanings including "lagoon" and "muddy waters". European settlers procured the land in 1848 by dubious means (Kemp's Deed). The Sandhills "run" was a block of land spanning Bottle Lake to South Shore. By 1930, the lake had disappeared and the land drained for farming.

Bottle Lake, oil on canvas, John Gibb 1882

Back at the cars, despite good quality raincoats, we were all pretty much sopping - especially Kea, who had managed to fully submerge herself in a pond. We got cosy at the doggy friendly Brighton Beach House cafe though. They put the heaters on in the under-cover outside area and Ily and Kea steadfastly watched the birds picking crumbs off the tables. Edel admitted that, had there been any other walking configuration, she would not have come. 

I nearly wasn't going to write a blog because the weather was so shit. But when I got home I thought I may as well smash one out because it seems a bit disingenuous to just write blogs on nice days. And, besides, the walk was wild and woolly - but also rather lovely.

Bottle Lake brochure pdf