into the woods.

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When we originally scheduled our Christmas holiday Seth was still employed at Weta with no paid holidays or vacation time, so we planned our Wairarapa trip accordingly.  Just two weeks before Christmas he started working at Red Hat and we found ourselves with significantly more time than we had anticipated. 

To keep ourselves busy we decided to check out some local Wellington walks.  Many of the walks near us are along the beach or roads or houses.  As avid forest fans this really bums us out.

There’s a lush area known as Happy Valley and I got the idea that perhaps there might be some trails located in the bush.  I was correct! 

We walked from one side of the hills to the other!

If you hang a right onto Murchison Street from Happy Valley Road you’ll find a little car park and a field, this is the entry to Tawatawa Reserve.  At first glance it doesn’t seem like a very interesting walk, it starts out flat and grassy before taking you up the mountain which is still rather grassy.  The trail is supposed to take you up to a ridge overlooking the suburbs, but we skipped that part and went straight to the Tawatawa Bush Track, eventually looping down past the reservoir to get back to our start point.  The whole walk took approximately 90 minutes.


Angry plant!



While we were up near the reservoir we stumbled upon a marker pointing to Central Park. Who knew New York was so close?  The next day we decided to investigate this seemingly familiar park that we had never heard of.



Central Park is located on the edges of Brooklyn (no, I’m not making this up).  It is a part of the town belt reserves and features trails linking to other town belt parks.

Happy Valley Road eventually turns into Ohiro Road, which eventually turns into Brooklyn Road.   Both Ohiro and Brooklyn border Central Park so your bound to find it.  We took about 30-40 minutes walking the main path through the park, then back up through the Moturoa Stream walkway.  



It may have been because it was raining, but the Moturoa Stream walkway really felt like a mini-rainforest.  Though we were just on the outskirts of the city centre, it felt like we were traversing the jungle, with ferns and towering trees surrounding us on all sides.  



There is a series of curved bridges that zig-zag across the stream, providing some gorgeous photo ops.  





There were more trails waiting to explored and not one, but two, flying foxes I’m sure Seth will want to try out on our next visit.  We may have been here for nearly three years, but there is still plenty to uncover and explore. 

...including itty-bitty mushrooms

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