Walking the Walk

Days one and two of the Akaroa Walk are now different to the descriptions given by Adrienne. Please see the current itinerary for the Akaroa Walk

There is something other-worldly about eating lunch high up on Banks Peninsula’s Purau-Port Levy Saddle amid the scattered skeletal ruins of an ancient totara forest.

Everything is silent but for the trilling of skylarks and an occasional muttering sheep. Looking down on steep green hills plummeting to dramatic turquoise seascapes, it’s easy to forget – for a moment – the hard slog it has taken to get to this point on day two of Tuatara Tours’ three-day Akaroa Walk.

The blisters and aching muscles seem irrelevant when pitted against the theatre of the peninsula’s stunning landscape. New Zealand may be a nation of trampers but I’m not generally one of them. Steep hills rarely figure in my daily exercise programme and the idea of lugging a backpack over rugged terrain is my idea of purgatory. However, in the days leading up to Christmas, a strenuous forty-two-kilometre walk across the Banks Peninsula ridge tops seemed to offer the perfect escape from festive excess. The fact that our backpacks were to be carried for us and comfortable beds, hot showers and a tasty meal would be laid on each evening cemented my decision.

The Akaroa Walk has been operating for many years and has guided hundreds of people over the spectacular landscapes between Christchurch and Akaroa. It’s a landscape dominated by Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours, two of the world’s greatest examples of erosion craters.Starting at the Christchurch Gondola on Mt Cavendish in the Port Hills, day one is an easy nine-kilometre amble along the summit tracks to Godley Head. There are remarkable views in every direction – across Christchurch city, down into the snug port village of Lyttelton and across the harbour to the hills yet to be tackled. We were a compact group of four – an Australian nurse, a Christchurch doctor’s wife, me and our guide Bryan Connell, whose full-time career as a psychiatric nurse seemed singularly appropriate. As I slipped over for the fifth time (in the first five hours) I sensed his pacifying talents would prove invaluable. Add to this his astounding recall of facts and figures, his knowledge of local history and things botanical and I knew we were in safe hands. That first day saw us wandering among Port Hills’ World War II gun emplacements and marvelling at bright orange lichen spread on giant rocks.

We ate lunch and watched ships cruising into Lyttelton Harbour; we marvelled at the North Canterbury coast stretching all the way towards Kaikoura; we fell upon afternoon tea at Godley Head Domain like starved gannets just in from the sea. After a visit to Lyttelton’s Timeball Station, built in 1876 to signal Greenwich Mean Time to seagoing vessels, we climbed aboard the ferry with city commuters and crossed to Diamond Harbour and our beds at historic Godley House.The dawn of day two came with cramped muscles, a packed lunch (complete with Christmas cake) and a drive up the Purau Valley to our starting point just under the volcanic dome of Monument Rock. Following a wide farm track we wound ever upward to the highest point of our trip. There, at 913 metres, buffeted by a freezing easterly wind, we took in the unrivalled northerly views across Purau Bay, Lyttelton Harbour and the Port Hills to Christchurch. To the south, the long, white, sandy finger of Kaitorete Spit stretched away from Lake Forsyth.

Day two of the Akaroa Walk is a significant undertaking – especially if, like me, you’ve gone out of your way to avoid hill walking. Those twenty-two kilometres require fitness, endurance and a sense of humour. But, when you’re 914.4 metres up in the company of skylarks and copper butterflies, with views to die for, the physical niggles fade. As you go up and around Mt Fitzgerald (826m), across the saddle to Mt Sinclair (841m) and down through the Whatarangi Totara Reserve to catch the first glimpses of Akaroa Harbour, you get a sense of the determination and commitment it took to be a pioneer in this rugged country.

Pentrip Lodge on the “hilltop” was nonetheless a welcome relief. Its comfortable beds, hot spa pool and barbecued Akaroa salmon were the perfect antidote for weariness. It was all that kept me going on day three – eleven kilometres and seven hours of limping effort with a strapped foot and knee. “It’s not far now”, “We’re nearly there” and “This is the last little hill” are phrases I will never trust again. But every grizzling step was worth it. We ambled down through the lush valleys of French Farm to Wainui and then across the harbour to Akaroa, traversing the same gorgeous landscapes that had won over the Maori, the French and the English more than 150 years ago. Like the pioneers, I had cracked it.Leaving the Australian nurse to go straight on to the three-day Banks Peninsula Walk, the doctor’s wife and I sloped back to Christchurch, secure in the knowledge there would be no hills between us and the nearest espresso.