Bottle Lake Blue Tracks : Christchurch City Council

Bottle Lake Forest Park is an exotic pine forest of approximately 800 hectares. It is a lovely place for a walk on a hot or windy day as the tracks are almost all entirely in the shade.

	Blue Track	Blue Coastal Track	Blue Hill Track
Start	Bottle Lake Forest car park, Waitikiri Drive, Parklands.	200m from Bottle Lake Forest car park.	Blue Track.
Finish	Same as the starting point.	Blue Track.	Blue Track.
Distance	11.4km	4.7km	3 km
Time	1.5 to 2 hours return	50 minutes	20 - 30 minutes
Toilets	Located at the car park	Located at the car park	Located at car park
Dogs	Can be exercised off the leash throughout Bottle Lake Forest but must be under effective control e.g. not running at other people or mountain bikers. Take extra care at track junctions that are shared with MTB and logging trucks.	Can be exercised off the leash throughout Bottle Lake Forest but must be under effective control e.g. not running at other people or mountain bikers. Take extra care at track junctions that are shared with MTB and logging trucks.	Can be exercised off the leash throughout Bottle Lake Forest but must be under effective control e.g. not running at other people or mountain bikers. Take extra care at track junctions that are shared with MTB and logging trucks.
Description	A map can be obtained from the Bottle Lake Forest Information Centre or any council service centre. It is recommended that walkers carry one as it is easy to get disorientated in this forest. The roads are organised alphabetically with Apple Road being the closest to the Bottle Lake headquarters and Zulu Road being the furthest away.	This track diverges from the Blue Track almost immediately after leaving the car park. Walk out towards the coast and around the landfill site before rejoining the Blue Track after 4.7 km.	These tracks wind up through the old landfill site and offer stunning views out to the ocean, Kaikouras and Maukatere-Mt Grey. Over 100,000 trees were planted in this area as part of the landfill's remediation. (external link) Look out for the methane capture points around the hills. These convert the carbon dioxide and methane gas produced by the landfill waste into enough energy to power the entire Christchurch City Council Civic Offices.