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Waitākiri/Bottle Lake Forest Park

This extensive pine plantation runs alongside the coast in the north-east of the city and offers a myriad of tracks for mountain-biking, horse-riding, and walking. As a working forest, tracks may change at any time.

Bottle Lake

Getting there

The main entrance and car park is off Waitikiri Drive, off Burwood Road, via either Marshlands or Burwood. You can reach the park on foot from Spencer Park and from North Shore along the Southern Pegasus Bay track.

Metroinfo(external link) has up-to-date bus information.

Facilities

Coastal and forest walks, mountain-bike tracks and horse-riding trails are the main facilities at Bottle Lake. The visitor centre, located at the Waitikiri Drive entrance, has track maps, brochures and displays about the park's history and ecology.

Motorised bikes and vehicles are not permitted in the park. 

How not to get lost

Bottle Lake is organised in a grid-like pattern of roads, which can be confusing.

The north-south roads are named alphabetically Apple, Bravo, Charlie etc across to the beach. The east-west avenues are numbered sequentially, starting from 10th by Spencer Park to the 28th by Parklands. Most junctions are signposted.

Download a map [PDF, 188 KB], or collect one on site.

Gates and opening hours

Waitikiri Drive gates are open between 6am and 10pm year-round. Gate closures are administered by ADT security. A call out fee will be charged to release vehicles.

Dogs

Dogs under effective control are allowed in the park.

A working forest

Operational logging areas are usually clearly signposted and marked 'out of bounds'. For your own safety please obey these temporary restrictions.

Please take note of the fire risk. If you see smoke or fire please phone 111 immediately.

Burwood Resource Recovery Park

An area of the central Bottle Lake Forest Park is being used for the Burwood Resource Recovery Park operation following the Canterbury earthquakes in 2011.

Rubble and silt from the earthquake is being recycled at the park. To reduce congestion, travel time and distance, trucks are using two additional entrances to the resource recovery park, via Bower Avenue and Putake Drive in Tumara Park, as well as the normal Landfill Road entrance. 

An exclusion area is in place for public health and safety. Closed tracks and roads are clearly signposted and barricaded.

Bottle Lake Blue Tracks

Bottle Lake Forest natural history

Bottle Lake Forest history

Bottle Lake Green Track

Bottle Lake Forest cycling