One of the highlights of the popular Peninsula Connection shared pathway is this delightful bridge. Traditionally every bridge has a troll in hiding, waiting for geocachers to come trip-trap-trip-trapping across…
Naturally our Otago Harbour troll is a friendly Kiwi who would love to give you a smiley, but you will have to plan the best time to visit. This website will be especially useful: https://www.portotago.co.nz/otago-harbour/harbour-conditions/tides/
The most enjoyable route to the Troll is to bike, walk or run from either Vauxhall Yacht Club or Macandrew Bay (and back). This section of the path is 4.4 km long and takes about 20 minutes biking or an hour walking one way. Or, you could take the #18 bus to the Peninsula and walk or bike back to town - the closest bus stop is St Ronan’s Rd, 300 m past the bridge. Check the bus timetable here: Dunedin to Harington Point bus timetable. There is also roadside parking nearby. You can easily take a stroller or wheelchair almost, but not quite, to GZ.
1920s -1930s seawall
The reclamation needed to widen the road out to Portobello has buried the previous 1920s – 1930s wall. In three sections (here, Raynbird Bay and Lathams Bay) boardwalks have been built to allow representative sections of the 1920s – 1930s sea wall to be seen. The section you see here is made from large basalt rocks and includes a finely-made culvert. The wall section displayed at Raynbird Bay is constructed from breccia.
Further out towards Taiaroa Head, at Omate, another boardwalk displays some 1890s walling, constructed by prisoners who would also have been working on the Harington Point fortifications.
Building Portobello Road
By 1868 "a good and useful track" had been formed from the quarry at Andersons Bay around the beach to North East Harbour (Macandrew Bay) and was under construction as far as Portobello. It was called the Beach Road and described as a bridle track at first. In 1869 a tender for a track sixteen feet wide was let by the Provincial District Engineer.
In May 1920 an application was made to the Public Works Department for £500 for walling and widening Beach Road, i.e. Portobello Road from Andersons Bay-to Portobello. Five to nine men were employed over seven months specifically on walling on Beach Road. Their pay rate was £3-15s per week for labourers and £4-10s for the foreman. Other parts of the walls were built by the surfacemen employed by the Portobello Road Board. The engineer in charge was R S Allan, the County Engineer. The men who were named as doing the walling were F S Hinkley (a Macandrew Bay farmer), A C Hubbard, Jas Murray (specifically taken on to do walling), H and W Hughes, D Rutherford, H Heideman, John Prouse and W Rainham. The 1870s walls were removed and the rock re-used to build the new walls.
The Peninsula Connection Shared Pathway
The Peninsula Connection is a DCC/Waka Kotahi (NZTA) project to make safety improvements, and create Bike & Grab geocaching opportunities ;), for Portobello and Harington Point roads. This project includes a 25km long shared walking/biking pathway all the way out to Taiaroa Head, alongside our beautiful Otago harbour. Building started in 2014; it is over half-completed now, and the final section will be finished sometime after 2028.
The widening of this section, from Vauxhall to Macandrew Bay, was started in November 2018. The March-April 2020 Covid-19 lockdown and extra infrastructure repairs caused some delays. Finally the tarsealing was done, the pathway was landscaped with over 9000 native plants, and our Otago Harbour Troll moved in, just before the official opening on 11 October 2020.
The next section of the shared pathway, from Company Bay to Broad Bay, was finished by the end of August 2023 with a widened cutting between Broad Bayu and Turnbulls Bay.
Ongoing progress updates for the rest of the Peninsula shared pathway: Progress updates.
The West Harbour Recreation Trail
On the other side of Otago harbour, work has been underway to complete the West Harbour off-road shared pathway from Dunedin to Port Chalmers. The first section, from Dunedin to St Leonards, has been outstandingly popular since it opened in 2012. The remaining 5 km from St Leonards to Port Chalmers was finally opened 26 August 2023. Features include a 200-metre long, 2 ½ m high steel and concrete retaining wall that will carry the shared path above SH88 through the Roseneath cutting and a 600 metre board walk carrying the cycle path around the edge of Blanket Bay.
The Loop
As of Spring 2023, the Otago Harbour cycleway gives us a safe biking path all the way from Dunedin out to Portobello. A commercial ferry provides scheduled “Port to Port” transport for people and bikes across the harbour from Portobello to Port Chalmers. Then we can bike from Port Chalmers to complete “the loop” back to Dunedin. Wonder how many new geocaches there will be along "The Loop"?
There is plenty of room in the log book to put in the date that you sign it. Because the date can be important for some challenges, logs without a correct date may be subject to deletion. I will use my common sense and discretion as we all make genuine mistakes at times.
Find archaeological reports about the sea walls at:
https://www.heritage.org.nz/protecting-heritage/archaeology/digital-library (Search for text using terms: sea wall otago peninsula)
In particular:
Draft Conservation Plan for Otago Harbour Sea Walls 2004 Jill Hamel https://dl.heritage.org.nz/greenstone3/library/sites/heritage-nz/collect/pdf-reports/index/assoc/Hamel101.dir/Hamel101.pdf
Otago Peninsula Upgrade 2014 - 2017 https://dl.heritage.org.nz/greenstone3/library/sites/heritage-nz/collect/pdf-reports/index/assoc/Murray6.dir/Murray6.pdf