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| Left:Looking east towards all three; Baring Head, Turakirae Head, & Cape Palliser. Right: Looking South into Cook Strait. |
All Three
Our first cache placed on the Te Kopahou Loop. If one chooses to continue onwards from Hawkins Hill, you enter what is known as Te Kopahou Reserve – a little-used, rather isolated, but amazingly beautiful, 600 hectare parcel of land encircled by a group of tracks whose combined distance exceeds 20km. It has tracks suited to both walkers and mountain bikers, access to the coast and Hawkins Hill, interesting flora, historical sites, and outstanding views of Wellington, the South Island, the West Wind wind farm, Terawhiti Peak, the Karori Light, and once you reach a southern enough latitude, views of the three main points of land visible east of here towards the horizon: Baring Head, Turakirae Head, & Cape Palliser – 53 kilometres away.
Continuing on from Hawkins Hill, the sealed road becomes the ‘Te Kopahou Track’, but it remains the same width to cater for 4WD vehicles, and is remarkably smooth and the gradient stays either flat or minimal. This 2 kilometre long track eventually leads to the 485 metre Te Kopahou, the second tallest of Wellington’s southern hills, a 10 metre whisker shorter than Hawkins Hill. This dirt track marks one of the outer edges of Te Kopahou Reserve, anything to the west is private property, and the valley below is called Long Gully. In the future this gully may be home to the Long Gully Wind Farm, a 25 turbine, 12.5MW capacity farm using New Zealand developed Windflow 500 turbines sited along the valley ridges.
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| Looking east towards the Red Rocks Track on the other side of Te Kopahou Reserve, and beyond to Baring Head. |
Cache Details & Access Information
Just north of halfway along the Te Kopahou track, all three of these main points become visible – and near here is where the cache is placed, about 8 metres up a bank above the track. The cache is a green/brown 200mL Sistema which when placed contained a logbook, log bag, geocaching notice, and a pencil. Please be sure to rehide it exactly as you found it.
How to get to this cache? Enter...
The Te Kopahou Loop
The Te Kopahou Loop is a demanding and strenuous half-day 17.7 kilometre loop which takes you to some spectacular sights and locations in Wellington – from peaks to the shore, and right around the edge of Te Kopahou Reserve. It reaches a maximum elevation of 495 metres, and drops right down to coast, with over 1080 metres of ascent and descent each. It reaches a maximum gradient of 55.6%, steeper than the final climb/initial drop on the West Wind Opau Loop track. We completed this track in 6 hours 31 minutes, including stops for photos cache placing, cache finding & lunch. If you intend to attempt the loop, allow for at least 6 hours worth of walking/biking. This figure is highly dependent on whether you choose to walk or bike to Hawkins Hill from the turbine or Aston Fitchett Drive. We’ve chosen what we think is a good method below:
It all starts at the Brooklyn Wind Turbine – where you bike for 10 minutes along the 2.6 kilometre sealed Hawkins Hill access road until you reach the beginning of the Red Rocks Track just before the radome and past the mysterious castle house. At this point you can leave and lock the bikes (you’ll see why later), walk up to the radome, grab the Hawkins Hill cache, and progress onwards as the sealed road turns into a 2 kilometre flat dirt road known as the ‘Te Kopahou Track’ towards Te Kopahou trig, 10 metres lower in elevation in relation to Hawkins Hill. Roughly two thirds of your way along, you can the grab “All Three”, before continuing to your first destination where you can nab the self-titled cache at this location.
From Te Kopahou Trig – you start walking on what is called the ‘Bunker Track’ towards three WWII observation bunkers perched 170 metres above sea level on Sinclair Head. The track condition changes dramatically for the worse, and takes a nosedive with an average gradient of 30%, approaching 50% at times – down to an elevation of 220 metres, reaching a saddle; before ascending slightly. Before again plummeting down to 140 metres with a gradient exceeding 55% - the steepest point of the trip. Remember to pick up “Protecting Our Shores” while you’re there! (It's a good spot for a snack/lunch also...).
Getting down off Sinclair Head to the shore is a bit of a mess – using a poorly marked route called ‘Ribs Exit’, and is probably not suited to mountain bikers, as you are walking through a small stream, mud, brushing past shrub at an angle of attack of up to 50%. From here, you can wander across the Red Rocks coastline to the coastal beginning of the Red Rocks Track, which will take you back up to your bikes. Along the way, you can pick up “Gale Force” on the ridgeline closer to the coast, and then “Boundary Issues”, and once you’re back at the bikes, you can snatch “Red Rocks Track”, if you haven’t already done so.
Be sure to bring your camera with you as there are some spectacular views, some warm/windproof clothing, as it can get quite gusty up there, along with some food and drink. There should be cellphone reception along pretty much all the ridges, although you may lose it as you descend into valleys and possibly on the coastline. Enjoy!