Two good walks in Hanmer

Our final destination before we needed to head back into Christchurch was Hanmer. The Motorhome Association have a campsite/park 6km out of the township and this is where we stayed.

The weather was very hot and dry. It has been a while since we have been into this area so we started by exploring the township on our bikes. At the top of Conical Hill Street is a walkway which takes you to the top of the hill and gives great views out of the whole area. So off we went (bikes left to rest!) and made the half hour grind to the top. The views were worth the effort.

Hanmer prides itself with lots of walking and cycling trails especially through many of the forested areas. Dog Stream Falls looked like a popular choice of walk so off we went to find the start, a small drive in the car.  The sign at the start said two and a half hours and like much of the signage we have encountered it is hard to know whether this is one way or return. Personally I think this is something that needs to be standardised through out New Zealand. I had this theory that if it doesn’t say return the time is for one way but not this time. While I was having this conversation with Stephen a chap sitting at a picnic table informed us that in this case it was the return trip. He was waiting for a group of school children and said that they could do it in just over two hours.  

Based on this information off we headed. Much of the area is in pine forestry but in this valley we were climbing through native bush still remained.  It was a steady climb to the waterfall and we took the mandatory photos. We could see that we weren’t at the top of the ridge and the track continued, with warnings about being very steep, to join up with another track.  We had thought we could get to the top of the waterfall so off we went to see how far we could get. We didn’t get to where the waterfall started but we did come out to a rocky outcrop which actually looked down on Conical Hill. 

I continue to be amazed at my level of fitness as I have no trouble walking these sort of distances or heights. 

Later in the day (Wednesday 27th) we packed up the bus and started our journey back to Christchurch, wanting to be off the road before Easter as we anticipated the traffic would be very heavy the next day.  We parked at Balmoral Forest while I cooked tea and then made our way back to our camp site at Weedons (NZMCA park near Templeton) just after dark.