#43 of 100 trips for 100 years - Gardens-Cleghorn Street-Signal Hill 2 April 2023

 

The sun was shining and with warm temperatures 11 people enthusiastically gathered at the Gardens corner for a walk that would take us to the top of Signal Hill/Te Pahuri o te Rangipohika.  The first part of our walk took us along  the relative flat of North East Valley and past Baldwin Street where we dodged a number of tourists intent on getting their photo's of the steepest street in the world.  Once we reached Normanby the gradient increased and the scenery started to change as we left the footpath and began the climb up North Road towards Upper Junction.  The higher we climbed the narrower the road and the more rural the views became. Soon we were passing grassy paddocks with sheep and cows who lazily watched us pass. 

After about 5km of walking we reached a seat with a wonderful view looking back towards the city and it was here that we stopped to regroup before turning onto Cleghorn Street.  It was about this time that the first spots of rain started to fall and with surprise we realised that what had initially looked like a lovely sunny day was turning into something not quite as promising as we'd thought with the top of Signal Hill/Te Pahuri o te Rangipohika now being covered in cloud .  We found a sheltered spot under some large trees where we stopped for a snack and on went our jackets.  The next part of our walk took us through a gate and into a farm paddock where we continued climbing upwards while dodging a few cow pats.  Thankfully the cows kept their distance and didn't show any interest in our antics.

 

The rain really made it's presence felt as we were buffeted by the wind and rain in the open.  We were thankful once we got into the lee of the hill and it was quite pleasant to be able to stop out of the wind and look around.  Unfortunately there wasn't a lot to see other than the inside of a cloud and so we continued climbing up, over a style and past a stand of pine trees to the 393m summit of Signal Hill/Te Pahuri o te Rangipohika.  Quite a good height gain as we had started at just 20m above sea level. 

Sadly being in the fog, we had no view at the top so we didn't linger for long and immediately headed down the more sheltered side of Signal Hill/Te Pahuri o te Rangipohika. The downhill was much easier going and the rain seemed to ease making for more pleasant walking.  We stopped at the Signal Hill Lookout for lunch and were surprised at the how many people drove to the lookout to take photos of  . . . .the inside of a cloud.  After lunch we wandered down the cycle trails that lead down to Logan Park and as we descended we dropped below the cloud giving us the chance to see a little further ahead. 

Stopping to regroup at each intersection we took some of the steeper bike trails to make our progress down much quicker. Once at the bottom of the hill, the rain decided to make it's presence felt again and we sheltered under some trees while the worst of it past. Emerging from the trees, it was a fast walk along the road and through the Gardens back to the Gardens corner 12.2km after we had started - and on one of the wettest day trips so far in the 100 trips.