Throughout the Albany area tracks, there are no topographical maps, and somewhat of a maze of tracks, so we moved as one
group for our 9am departure. We cross Oteha Valley Road and head along the path with the stream on our right, and past the Kawai Purapura centre (the old Centrepoint grounds). Today I elected that we wouldn't do the old grounds area as the decent down is almost vertical, and you swing from tree to tree to descend, and after last night’s deluge, best not to.
We pass along the bush path noting how much of the bank has disappeared after last night’s flash flooding, with the stream level still about 1 metre higher than normal. We head over the bottom end of Gills Road and up the eastern side of the regenerating tree clad hill of Gills Reserve. Breaking out of here and a brief road bash heading up to the Albany Scenic Reserve, having
mostly stopped raining. Albany Scenic Reserve is only 1.2kms long, but it's worth the visit, as it's very pretty, if you don't mind steps and at certain times there are native orchids and lilies. At the bottom of thefirst descent there is a significantly large Kauri (fenced off), that is still looking reasonably healthy given the number of deceased Kauri trees that line the track, along with the healthy specimens. We complete our second ascent, depart the forest onto the road track to complete the loop that takes about 45 minutes and head back down Gills Reserve.
The western side of the Gills Reserve still has many substantial trees & Nikaus remaining that managed to escape the handsaw. Rendering it quite the rainforest today, with everything dripping and seeping with diamond coloured raindrops.
Working our way down the hill, walking parallel to Lucas Creek to see Albany Falls in raging in full roar looking rather spectacular after the torrential rain during the night!
Across the road interesting signs explaining Albany's history going back to 1838, mostly tied in with Kauri logging when the area was still known as Lucas Creek up to 1890. Reaching Kell Park for lunch, where at the end of summer the old orchard trees are in full fruit! I think I picked the wrong time of year for this walk! Nothing nicer than a fresh apple, pear, grape or plum from the original orchard to nosh on whilst walking.
No rest for the wicked, over the Kell Park western bridge so the others know where to go to for the Three Streams track off Twin Court, just off The Avenue. We didn't have time for this part. Back tracking over the parks southern bridge over Lucas Creek, and we're parallel to the creek again, for about an hour on the mixed grass verge and gravelled tracks. We reach one of the roads off Bass Road, and then head along. Reaching the Albany Highway intersection, half of the group peel off and head back to the cars. The remaining 6 of us, head to bush behind the Massey University MTB tracks. Somewhat of a relief reaching the stream we must cross to gain access to this entrance to the tracks, as I suspect the narrow concrete ford would have been impassably submerged if we'd have been 2-3 hours earlier!
This time we're running parallel to Oteha Stream. Reaching one part we climbed a bit due to the wash that had been through. 3 of us elected the fun of scrambling back down the muddy, sparsely clad bank to reconnect to the stream path, and the other 3 elected to head upwards through the Supplejack to find a track and meet us at Bush Road. We hotfooted it back along the stream path, reaching Bush Road, 150 metres up the road, and across the stile onto track again, hearing rustlings in the bush the other 3 appear! We disappear into bush wending our way along the muddy, slick tracks, finally descending back down to the other end of Oteha Stream again, and along. Reaching Albany Highway again, I slightly stuffed up and headed us back to Albany Village past Albany High school, whereas we should have gone left 100 metres to head back along paths to Kell Park! Oh well, the others didn't mind, as the lure of coffee was calling, as they were suffering withdrawal symptoms not having had the traditional caffeine fix to commence the day with!
All
in all, about 6 3/4 hours and if the weather had been good, or dry we could have
easily done 9 hours plus! There is a lot of accessible bush around
Albany. Most of the group were staggered how extensive bush and
tracks are.