Tauranga on its feet

When Ray moved back to new Zealand, he worked in a project called Tauranga on its feet - getting people in the city to walk. Well, we're trying hard to do a walk every day, and very pleasant it is.

I enjoy our walks at home – as we set off each day, we decide which side of the hill we are going up – everything is up from our house!, whether we are going through the Park, if we’re going to do the extra loop to add another ½ km, or if we’re going to go somewhere where Lindt can get a bit of a run.
But walking in Tauranga has brought a new interest to walking. Firstly, we are walking without Lindt – which feels a bit strange. And then we are walking in a completely different area.

We’ve had a couple of interesting walks around Greerton, the suburb in which Nic and Ray live. Lots of the roads are dead ends, so we find ourselves retracing our steps quite a lot as we try to find our way around. There is a delightful shopping area called Greerton Village quite close and we have walked around it and had coffee at some of the delightful coffee shops. Coffee and breakfast are expensive but lunch is quite reasonable. Houses are mostly timber clad and some are on very small pieces of land, but the roses everywhere are amazingly beautiful. Obviously this is real rose climate. All along the road are vans selling avos, strawberries, asparagus and oranges – very reasonable at this time of the year.

We’ve also had a walk around the Mount with Nic – and this time we had to stop for her. Yes, she is pregnant, but I am fitter than last time and it wasn’t such an effort for me. I really want to go up the Mount one of these days. Nic’s midwife has said she needs to walk a lot to get Ricky to turn from breech, so we’ll try the Mount one of these days.

There are also a lot of “reserves” - green belts in amongst the houses. Just opposite Nic and Ray’s house is the Argyll reserve – a long, narrow and steep piece of land between Argyll Road and the light Industrial area on the bottom of the ridge. It is beautiful as it opens up into green lawns amongst big trees and tree ferns, but definitely a daytime walk.

A walk through the Fraser Road reserve started in Yatton Park – another daytime place to be – apparently it is a bit scary at night as it is right adjacent to the “Vale” – a rough part of town. It was a great walk – through the park, down some stairs to the river and then a walk along the banks of the cove to the Fraser Cove shopping Centre. The tide was in and we waded through some water that had overflowed onto the path on our way down, but on the way back, the tide was out and the path was dry. We met an old man on his mobility scooter taking his elderly and portly dog for a walk along the path – he tells me he brings the dog down every day for a walk. After a cup of coffee at Fraser Cove we walked back a different way and went along the edges of beautiful lush gardens stretching right down to the reserve – and not a wall, piece of razor wire or electric fence in sight.

Today we walked around the Estuary – the tide was in and it was a beautiful day – a cool breeze but mostly sunny. We started with a walk through the bush, then along a boardwalk though the mudflats, then along the deeper edge of the estuary on a path alongside the road. Lots of birds – white faced herons wading in the long grasses, quizzy pukekos – a native bird that is as stupid as a guinea fowl, but very pretty, Egyptian geese, cormorants ad lots of lbj’s. Walking back along the road we had a brilliant view of the Mount across the water. Nic tells us that when the next tsunami hits, it will go over the Mount and roar up the Estuary – but today, with a blue sky and gentle breeze, it all seems so unlikely, even though it’s really more about “when” than “if.” The GPS turned itself off, so there are conflicting opinions about how long the walk was – but my legs tell me it was at least 10kms!

Walks still to come are Papamoa Hills, McLaren Falls and the Karangahake Gorge. Lots to look forward to. Ray would be proud.