Recreation

Walks

Waterway walks

• Corsers Stream and Travis Wetland Nature Heritage Park
  Corsers Stream has been one of the most successful examples of restoring a stormwater channel into a natural creek and integrating this with a new housing development. A pathway winds along a streambank restored with native plants and provides a natural walking link between the lower Avon River and the Travis Wetland Nature Heritage Park.
   
• Curletts Reserve and Wigram Pond
  The upper Heathcote River winds through the suburb of Hillmorton alongside the graceful Curletts Reserve. This has become a showpiece of native plant restoration with head- high ribbonwood and kanuka enhancing this quiet waterway.
   
  The Wigram Pond is elegantly fringed with toetoe and sedges, and it is hard to believe that the lake is completely man-made. It is a stunning example of combining the utility of a stormwater holding pond, with the attractiveness of an outdoor recreational area for walkers and picnickers.
   
• Estuary Walk and Naughty Boys Island
  An easy stroll alongside the saltmarsh of the Avon River and estuary, featuring a subtle and complex riverside area, rich with birdlife and popular with fisherfolk for over four centuries.
   
• Farnley Reserve and Beckenham Ponds
  The Heathcote River describes a series of attractive bends and loops as it winds through the suburbs of Beckenham, St Martins and Opawa. The Beckenham loop has many surprises, including the attractive Farnley Reserve (with its surprising sculpture) and the unique Beckenham Ponds — a tiny remnant of the original raupo swamp that was once extensive in this area.
   
• Heathcote River Towpath and Steam Wharf Stream
  The lower Heathcote River is rich in both natural and human history, inextricably bound together by the daily push and pull of the tides. It was in the enriched mudflats that the Waitaha, Ngati Mamoe and Ngai Tahu peoples found shellfish and set traps for whitebait, flounder and eels, and here in 1850s that the European settlers first negotiated small coastal scows and steamers up to Steam Wharf Stream.
   
• Styx Mill Conservation Reserve
  The Styx Mill Reserve is being developed as an important new wetland for the city and provides a vital link in the network of private and public wetlands on the northern edge of the city. Peacock Springs, Isaacs Wildlife Refuge, Roto Kohatu, The Groynes, Styx Mill Conservation Reserve, Otukaikino and Travis Wetland Nature Heritage Park all provide important resting and passage points for wildlife. Already, the man- made ponds at Styx Mill have attracted considerable bird- life.
   
• University Waterways
  The University of Canterbury in Ilam straddles the headwaters of the Avon River, as well as two of its important feeder streams — Okeover and Ilam. These three waterways are now seen as a natural environmental asset, important for providing a corridor for the passage of native insects, fishes and birds, and important also as special places for the university's students and staff to find peace and solitude.
   
• Woolston Loop
  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.