Bushwalks
My family and I live down the road from one of the entrances to the Belmont Regional Park, the largest regional park in Wellington. This provides us easy access to beautiful walking tracks.
From this entrance, there is access to eleven walking and hiking tracks of various length and difficulty.
The park features the historic Korokoro Dam, World War II ammunition stores and the original coach road from Wellington.
My favourite walk is the Korokoro Dam Loop track. The trail map indicates a 2.7km distance and allows 1 hour to complete. I can manage it in 26 minutes at a fast walk/jog.
Now that it’s spring in Aotearoa and not constantly raining, it’s a great time to get out and enjoy the fresh air and bush.
I’ve been completing the walk three times a week to complement my exercise routine. It’s great to get out of the house during the work day, listen to an audiobook, and forget about whatever is happening at work.
The Korokoro Dam
The Petone Borough Council needed to add to it’s existing artesian water supply. In 1902, it settled on the Korokoro Stream as the site for their supply, but had harsh terms placed on its usage from the Woollen Company, who claimed riparian rights over the stream. To facilitate this, not one, but two dams were built. A small concrete dam had to be built 3 kilometres downstream by the Petone Borough to store water for the woollen mill. The Korokoro Dam was completed in 1903 and is, as far as is known, New Zealand’s first concrete gravity dam. The crest of the dam is 37 metres long and the maximum height is 8 metres.
The water supply from the dam was discontinued in 1962 but the dam remains as a focal point in the Belmont Regional Park.
https://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Documents/2001/11/Regional-Parks_20011127_163445.pdf
