Walk Details

NZ Walking Routes > Canterbury > Christchurch > Woolston Loop and Woolston Cut Circuit

Woolston Loop and Woolston Cut Circuit

Location

From Long Street there is a car park area at the junction of the Heathcote River and the Woolston Cut.

Description

Follow the sealed path alongside the ‘cut’, which was built to ease flooding pressure on the lower Heathcote.

Cross busy Rutherford Street to where the cut again meets the Heathcote River at the Woolston Barrage. Fringe planting of flax, sedges and toetoe along the river banks has softened the river edges. Cross the footbridge into Radley Park and turn left along the sealed path past the children’s playground and along the river, exiting onto Cumnor Terrace.

Follow this road around to the Garlands Road bridge and then walk along King Edward Terrace. After a while you leave the road and follow the grassy banks around the curve of the river through extensive native plantings. Tall ribbonwood and pittosporum trees mask the factories.

Pass the end of Staunton Street and the trail wanders through dense patches of toetoe and native shrubs, where you have a good chance of seeing a shag or kingfisher. There are quite a lot of pukeko on the far bank. Eventually the trail winds right around the inner curve of the Heathcote to meet Long Street, which you can follow back to the car park.

An alternative starting point is the river end of Catherine Street.

This is an intriguing walk around the industry of the Woolston Loop of the Heathcote River, where extensive native plantings have helped to restore this once heavily polluted environment.

Most people would probably not dream of going for a nature walk in Woolston. Established in the 1850's at the end of the navigable Heathcote River, Woolston became Christchurch's first industrial suburb. Tanneries, brickworks, fish processors and many other industries severely polluted the lower river. Industries remain, but waste is now disposed of safely and extensive native planting along the banks of the Heathcote have given the loop a healthier character. It is one of the few places in the city where you can find shags roosting and have a sense of how the river might have looked before European settlement.

Dogs can be exercised off the leash at Radley Park and alongside the Woolston Cut.

Duration

1.15 hours

Amenities

• Birds
• Carpark
• Historical
• Plant Life

Source

www.ccc.govt.nz

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