April 27, 2012
Anzac Day jaunt around Wuthering Heights
A late afternoon wander around the Wuthering Heights section at Kura Tawhiti. It really is a beautiful spot to watch the sun go down on the Castle Hill Basin.
Posted by conor at 1:25 PM
April 26, 2012
Hangin' at Picnic Rock
Discussions with other Castle Hill families resulted in a quick decision to take a load of kids round and ride the Hogs Back Track. It was the first time for Evie and Ruairi and they loved it. Had a picnic at Picnic Rock in the autumn sunshine too. Fantastic...
Posted by conor at 1:37 PM
April 20, 2012
Exploring Long Spur and into Waterfall Creek
My original intention was to head all the way up Long Spur to the summit of Mt Cloudesley, and along the ridge past Mt Izard, before dropping into the basin at the head of Waterfall Creek. However, the frozen ground and my (lack of) head for heights (always used to be better when I was doing more climbing/tramping in my 20s) prompted me to turn back from the top of Long Spur and explore Waterfall Creek from the bottom. Good day out, probably 16+ kms with about 1500m of ascent, which was a reasonable days tramping for me given I really haven't done many big days out recently. Enjoyed the company of 3 keas high on Long Spur and some peaceful dozing in the golden tussock at lunchtime; didn't see another person all day...
Posted by conor at 1:42 PM
April 8, 2012
Breaking through on Broken River
On a fantastically sunny and windless Easter weekend, we headed down Broken River from the Cave Stream carpark with friends from Castle Hill, Amanda, Bernadette, Paul, Shane, Lauren, Monique, Michael and Ella. Warm day, but cold water already at this time of year, even if Evie, Lauren and Monique were brave enough to go for a dip in their undies in one of the swimming holes!
Posted by conor at 11:30 PM
March 4, 2012
A watery wander up Tim's Stream
Tim's Stream runs through Craigieburn Forest Park near the Cheeseman Skifield road, and features a pleasant walk up Broken River (including about 20 river crossings) to the confluence with Tim's Stream which gets increasingly gorge-y as you approach a reasonable sized waterfall. Quite a few wasps around in the beech forest this time of year, so we didn't hang around in the bush.
Posted by conor at 9:31 PM
November 14, 2011
The Gateway to Castle Hill
Inbetween floor-tiling sessions, I took a quick jaunt up the Starvation Gully route above Porters Pass to Trig 'M' in the Korowai/Torlesse Conservation Area. There are great views over Lake Lyndon into the Castle Hill Basin, along the Lake Lyndon Road towards the Rakaia river, and back down Coach Stream towards Springfield.
Posted by conor at 9:12 AM
July 24, 2011
Winter holidays
After turning up to The Doug to find water cascading through the downstairs light fittings (due to more crappy plumbing work), the first week of the school holidays turned out to be blessed by great weather and a reasonable amount of snow. Got the house dried out within 48 hours (thanks to Tony from Enviroclean, who claimed his industrial wet-vac could "suck a sailor off your sister"), and settled the kids into 5 mornings of ski school at Porters where by the end of the week, we are now almost struggling to keep up with Evie on all the pistes there. Just in time for the latter half of the week, Granny & Grandad had sent over some funky helmet covers from Headztrong which the kids loved.
Posted by conor at 9:19 PM
July 11, 2011
Winter is here (finally!)
While the forecast was pretty rough for this weekend (apart from the hope that that meant some snow might arrive!), we took a punt and went up for the weekend, and while Saturday was pretty miserable, Sunday dawned pretty nice, and the kids were rapt to find about 6-8cm of snow carpeting the village.
Posted by conor at 10:40 PM
April 12, 2011
Refugee time at Castle Hill
We've felt incredibly lucky to be able to partially escape the initial trials and tribulations of post-earthquake life in Christchurch, and we've been able to share that a little bit with a few friends over the last few weeks. All the various Castle Hill kids have had a great time at Springfield School and it will be a real wrench to be leaving the school at the end of term this week. Thanks to the Keohanes for the company, the craic and the St Patricks Day house-pimping, thanks to everybody who made it up to Castle Hill for Ruairi's birthday, thanks to friends and neighbours at Huntsbury for looking after the house/keys and cutting the grass; we'll look forward to picking up the pieces at Huntsbury shortly after Easter.
Posted by conor at 11:08 PM
January 26, 2011
Fun at Castle Hill
Water-pistols on the water-slide... knocking together a see-saw from a log off-cut and a couple of planks... simple times, fun times...
Posted by conor at 12:06 PM
Helicopter Hill
Had a great walk up Helicopter Hill in Craigieburn Forest Park, early in the morning before things got too hot. Lyndon Saddle is now immortalised as the location where Ruairi's first wobbly tooth made a break for freedom. Easy walking, kids full of energy, and a great location for views across the whole Castle Hill basin.
Posted by conor at 11:54 AM
January 18, 2011
New Hogs Back Track at Castle Hill
The Castle Hill Community Association has been busy over the past few months actively building a purpose-built mountain-bike track between Castle Hill Village and the Mt. Cheeseman road, which ultimately means that off-road mountain-bike access to Craigieburn Forest Park is now a reality, or will be when construction is completed, hopefully by the end of this summer. Having contributed a little bit of manpower, and enjoyed riding the track a couple of times since construction started, here's a GPS track I recorded which accurately shows the route of the track.
Click on the lower/southerly track marker for some stats and an elevation graph of the track.
Posted by conor at 9:52 AM
