TESTING THE HEREKAWE WALKWAY
Christina Persico takes a stroll along the Herekawe Walkway.
The beauty of this region is its variety of the outdoors, from the mountain to the bush to the sea and you’re usually not too far from any of them.
The Herekawe Walkway takes you from a residential area, behind the Spotswood Countdown, to the famous sand chute behind Paritutu Rock, via greenery and fern. It follows the Herekawe Stream, a boundary for Te A¯ tiawa iwi and Nga¯ ti Te Whiti hapu¯ and the western boundary of New Plymouth.
The walkway starts on Manadon St with a flight of stairs descending down onto a grassy area. In a few steps, you are transported from the urban to the rural, with a friendly spotty pony wandering over to say hello.
The walkway itself is a relatively new development, initiated by the New Plymouth District Council in 2002 and opened in 2007. Six thousand native trees were planted by volunteers, and the project aimed to connect inland residential areas with the coast. A TV documentary was filmed to showcase the project as an example of team work between industry, councils and the community to enhance the local environment.
The grass is damp underfoot due to recent drizzle, so this is not an all-weather walk unless you’re prepared to get muddy. But it appears to be well maintained, and the grass clippings suggest a recent mowing.
The grass leads around the corner and along the stream. It feels almost like walking through someone’s back paddock, but with a smattering of the wild. Wetlands cover the dip in the valley between the walkway and the opposite hill.
Tall ferns grace the landscape, and a small fantail flitters between branches, calling a distinctive ‘peep, peep’. The grass/dirt track eventually turns to the northeast, and the landscape on the far side of the stream changes from hillside dirt to sand. A few trees look like they could come down into the ravine in the near future.
A couple of road markers - the ones that indicate an upcoming left bend - appear to our right, and a couple of houses come into view. A bridge on the left crosses the stream and the path gets sandier as it crests a small rise.
The narrow path leads on down to a tunnel that burrows through the hillside. (I like tunnels - comes from roadtrips through Kaikoura as a kid I think). Coming out the other side, you are hit with the smell of salt water and the sight of the sea, and the stream runs over a ledge in a minuscule waterfall before running out to meet the sea.
We now arrive at the Back Beach car park, where a few dog walkers and surfers are milling about. Walking through the carpark, some steep stairs lead up to another car park with sweeping views down the bay.
From here on the path is less well defined. On the far side of the upper car park a small path leads into the long grass and trees. From here on it is quite steep and winding, and extremely narrow.
You feel like you are in the wilderness even though you are probably only a few hundred metres from Centennial Dr. The path winds through long grass and overhanging trees with a couple of steep sandy spots to scramble up. (But it does make you feel like you’re an adventurer).
You get to the top and come out onto Centennial Park. The views are breathtaking looking out over the Sugar Loaf islands and watching the whitecaps coming into the bay. You carry on across the grass, through the car park and down the little path to the famous sand chute.
All up, it’s about three kilometre and an easy half-hour trek long enough to take you on a journey through Taranaki’s variety of landscape.