By Justin Atkinson, 21 May 2023
VUW Recreation run a cool competition each year where you can win prizes by visiting 4 of Welly's famous peaks in 4 weeks and taking a photo at each. For the third year running, VUWTC decided to condense all this peaking into one day. This time, I set out to shake things up with a slightly different route.
Sadly lots of people pulled out last min. Jack, Samuel and myself decided to go ahead anyway. We met at Simla crescent station and headed up the side of Mt Kaukau. The heavens were cloudy, but the forecast showed little chance of rain.
Reaching the summit of Kaukau, we stopped by the main lookout before checking out the less well known trig point. 1 peak down, 3 to go! We got some surprisingly good views of Johnsonville, before entering the Skyline walkway. There were clear views of the northern suburbs. We then took Bell's track down to Ngaio.
After admiring Ngaio's regenerating,, we swung by the Cummings Park play area which hides behind the Ngaio shops. We then walked to Trelissick Park and discovered a slightly muddy track. The last time I'd been there, some of the main track was closed due to a damaged bridge, with a bush diversion in place. I was happy to see the new bridge had since been finished.
We got to the end of Trelissick where a path up to Wadestown awaited. Unfortunately, this exit was now closed. Fortunately walking down Ngaio gorge there was another path into Wadestown. We were lucky, as if that was shut we'd have been forced to walk back to Ngaio and take the long way to Wadestown via Crofton Downs.
We headed up through Wadestown towards Te Ahumairangi, via the cool overgrown track and then a bunch of steep residential streets. Along the way we visited a totally non-suspicious street, where no deals of any kind were struck...
After an exhausting hike up to Te Ahumairangi, we were rewarded with nice harbour views.
We had not conquered our second peak however. We walked over much appreciated flatish terrain to the Te Ahumairangi radio tower, where I snapped a pretty sick shot of myself. 2 peaks down, 2 to go!
We then visited the official Te Ahumairangi lookout, and descended through the bush to Tinakori road. The Botans made a cameo appearance as we passed by its playground and the cable car. Stopping by the Kelburn shops for baked goods, we enjoyed a stroll through the Pukehīnau Kiwifoot reserve (where the club has helped out with some awesome conservation work!).
We briefly crossed a road before reentering bush, this time the Waimapihi Polhill reserve. After a few close brushes with cyclists, we arrived at the Brooklyn bunkers. We nosied around for a bit, soaking in the views of town and suburbs.
We walked up the Zealandia fenceline to our 3rd peak, the Brooklyn wind turbine. After being briefly fooled that Whittaker's had replaced the turbine with one made of 5 roll refined Creamy Milk, we snapped our individual comp photos.
3 peaks down, 1 to go!
We took an alternate route back the way we'd come, travelling through the bush surrounding the turbine. This gave us a cool view of the turbine most people don't see.
By this point the clouds had cleared, and we got some lovely views of the valley and harbour on our way towards the last peak, Mt Vic.
We descended through Brooklyn and stopped by the local Burger Wisconsin for milkshakes. Soon after we found a cute cat who was very curious.
We cut across town and passed the Hataitai bus tunnel, before heading up Mt Vic. We "found" a Boom e-scooter near the top, it's a very long story! Except I don't know that long story, so use your imagination.
We finally reached our last peak, Mt Vic. 4 down, 0 to go!
You may have noticed that I rocked a different outfit at each summit. What? You ask confused. You had the same stuff on. Have a closer look. I rocked several of my large collection of sunglasses, mostly thrifted through charity shops. I do have a reputation for looking great in shades, so I say.
After we'd finished admiring the views from Mt Vic, we walked together to Courtenay place andbid farewell to each other.
The final piece of the puzzle is the octuple in the trip name. Jack had kindly recorded a bunch of stats about our journey, which took just over 8hr. Check out the data and full route below!
