[Mike McGavin]

Hello.

Does anyone know anything about the area west of the Skyline Walkway towards the Makara coast? eg. Is permission required and is it a common place to walk around?

I almost went that way accidentally a couple of years ago before I realised I’d been going through a few too many gates, then looked up and noticed I’d been on the wrong ridge for ~200 metres (oops), and that’s about as close as I’ve been. Some of it looks quite interesting from the next hill over, though.

Thanks.
Mike.

[Darren Hammond]

Hi Mike

West from which point? I did the walk from Kau Kau to Karori 2 weeks ago, and an quite familiar with the Karori end of the walk. There seem to be a few drop off points west

Generally, I think there is no public access west off the track, obviously there are a number of tracks down off the eastern side

Darren

[harry]

Much of the Skyline Walkway is on land owned by the Wellington City Council. Some of these blocks of land extend some way west of the walkway itself and I presume the public are allowed access to these areas. A few parts I think are still private land (e.g. on Mt Kaukau, and some areas behind Wilton Bush and Johnston Hill). Here I suspect you probably don’t have formal right of access off the walkway, although in practice there seems to be informal access over the general ridgetop area. Further west again I think it’s all basically private farmland as far as the Makara Valley road and the Takarau Gorge road, so you wouldn’t have any particular right of access and the landowners could order you off if they find you there.

You can find the Council management plan for the whole area at http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/outergreenbelt/
This includes detailed maps showing which parts are owned by the Council (though this dates from 2004 and things may have changed slightly since then since the Council has been interested in acquiring land and securing access rights in the area.)

[Mike McGavin]

Thanks Darren and Harry.

Darren: It was a while ago, but I think it was probably the spur I’ve marked with the line on this map — http://tinyurl.com/qsr675 (link to a Google Map). I guess I was just busy walking in a straight line for a while without bothering to look out for the pole markers. The area I’ve shaded in that map (north-west would be more accurate) is the whole part that just looked generally interesting. A couple of times along a lot of the way I’ve been tempted just to try and find a way down into the valley area and up to take a look at what was over the ridge to the west. There seem to be some tracks up through the scrub, but they might be farm tracks.

Harry: Thanks for the notes and the link to the plan. I was guessing that part of it might be council-owned, but even then it may not be open access if it’s leased out for farming. From what you’ve mentioned it sounds as if some of that area I’ve shaded getting towards Takarau Gorge Road might be heading into the private land region. I might take a closer look at the plan and ask the council at some point.

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