Timaru - a circumnavigation

Grade: Easy peasy
Length: Approx 20km
Time: 7 hrs
Getting to the start of the walk: Just get yourself to the edge of Timaru! Seriously though, I would recommend: SH1 at Saltwater Creek and head in either direction; the bottom of Coonoor Road and head in either direction; or the BMX park in Centennial Park (driving in the stone arch gateway on Otipua Road and down to the bottom of the hill).
Transport tips: We did it over two days - 5 hrs one day and 2 hrs the next - but you could easily do in one day.
Would you do it again: Yes.
DOC/other information about walk: The staff in the Timaru Information Centre were great and sent us off with all the relevant brochures. Highly recommend that you have these various maps, as there's the odd section where you do wonder where you should head next - particularly around the wharf area.
Author: Febbett
Month/year walked: January 2009


South Canterbury's infamous Billy the Hunted One, indirectly, inspired our walk around Timaru. But not in the way you might think.

Favourite Nephew and I where days away from an attempted ascent of Little Mount Peel, including a night at the Peel Forest camping ground (see previous blog). However, two days out from the tramp, news reports were full of an escaped prisoner hiding out in the Peel Forest area.

I suggested to Mother that it may be irresponsible for me to take an 11 year old into a potentially dangerous situation. She replied "nonsense". So that was that. The original trip proceeded, without any incidence. (Actually, it gave us a great topic of conversation for the day and added some intrigue to our dashes to the toilet block and kitchen in the evening!)

However, before we got the "nonsense" call, I had already hatched a back-up tramp - a circumnavigation around Timaru. So, it became the next tramp on the list.

Dad dropped us at Saltwater Creek before work on the first day, took our photo and waved us farewell down the little path towards the sea - dump on the left, creek on the right. Fantastic. Spotting the dead sparrows caught in the high wire fence around the dump made for a variation on "I spy".

Some patient surfers caught our eye for a while when we hit the coast. From our vantage point near the Caledonian Grounds, we did marvel that they were happy to be cold so long, to catch so few waves. Surfing really is a form of religion though.

Finding our way from the end of South Beach through to the Bay area was a little hairy, but fun. I grew up in Timaru but saw roads and interesting industrial yards for the first time. You did need to watch out for hazards - like big trucks and, potentially, trains - but otherwise it was great nosing around a corner of the town which was both old and new at the same time.

How often can you stop for a nice coffee or milkshake partway around your tramp? We ducked up the old steps at the bottom of the Port Loop road, arriving up on The Terrace, and around the corner to the cafe.

From there, it was down the Piazza and onto the Bay. Yes, we did take the Piazza lift, but it was the school holidays and someone had recently let off a fart bomb - or at least that's the story Fav Nef was telling...

Along the Benvenue Cliffs, we took in the sea air - before heading past the freezing works, where we tried not to take in the air. Fav Nef was yabbering away about how you could hear the pigs at the works and I was in the throes of telling him that I was 100% sure the works were only for sheep and beef, when we rounded a corner and a separate little works appeared on our left - a pork works. And, yes, you could hear the pigs. While tramping is traditionally about engaging the senses, that particular stretch of tramp was about protecting the senses.

But soon enough we were out on the main road again and weaving our way across the streets to Pages Road. Then down Mountainview Road to the St Thomas's church corner, where our taxi driver (Dad...) collected us from our the grassy verge.

Day two started from the precise same stretch of grassy verge and we were soon down Gleniti Road and into the Scenic Reserve. I was disproportionately curious about this leg of the trip. As children, we'd never been allowed to spend time down in the reserve. To be fair, when I was 13 or so, a chap had been murdered down there - something to do with a pig - so, in retrospect, I can see where the Olds were coming from. Nevertheless, I was keen to check it out.

What a hidden gem. Possibly the highlight of the trip was the discovery of the frozen duck pond. We could have spent hours throwing ice out onto the pond's solid surface and listening to it splintering off in all directions.

We wound around the reserve, past the BMX track, along the back of the Riding for the Disabled. And there, on our right, was Saltwater Creek, growing ever wider as we headed back towards the coast.

The Timaru City Council has done a great job of developing the walks around Timaru. They are well built, well planted and just make you want to keep on walking.

If you live in Timaru and haven't been out for a play on these walkways yet, then pull on a pair of walking shoes and go and have a nose. You'll see a side of Timaru you never knew existed.