Walk to Godley Head

We took a walk around Godley Head today. The weather at home was cloudy and looking like possible rain, but halfway through our walk we had the summer sun beating down on us. This again taught me a lesson I should have learned by now: always wear a hat! Even if it's cloudy!! thankfully, I had smothered myself in SPF30 before we left...

This area is just so gorgeous. We could spend every day walking around the port hills and looking down into the different bays. It seems every time we see that view, one or both of us will exclaim, "I love living here." If our move to Christchurch were a marriage, we are definitely still in the newlywed stage.

We started out at Taylor's Mistake, a cute little beach we had visited before. We set out on the coastal track which leads to the Godley Head carpark.

Near the start of the track

Old baches at Boulder Bay

Sheep at Godley Head

I'm not sure how long I can continue to blame pregnancy and childbirth for my weakness, but Quinn's only 7 months old and still breastfeeding, so I consider that it's still fair play. So, this walk was really hard for me. I blame pregnancy and childbirth. Gareth had a horrible night's sleep and seems to be coming down with Man Flu, and he was carrying Quinn on his back, but still had an easier time of it than I did. Of course, it was just the uphill parts that were hard. The downhill parts were cruisy.

An uphill part: "c'mon Linds. Keep up."

We made a loop of it by coming back via the summit track, which was sign-posted from the carpark. I had hoped that the carpark would be the highpoint and that it would be downhill back to the beach, but no luck. There was more uphill. But then there was flat track and then down hill. And it was all gorgeous.

Looking down from where we just came

If you are the kind of person who likes to walk barefoot, we would not recommend walking this particular trail barefooted. Because you will step on sheep poo. Lots and lots of sheep poo.

Lyttelton Harbour

Back at Taylor's Mistake

The DOC signs said the walk to Godley Head would take 90 minutes, and that the walk back along the summit track to Taylor's Mistake would also take 90 minutes, but we did the whole thing in 2 hours. This shows once again that DOC's walking time estimates generally only apply to the most crippled person in your group.