Cannon Point Run

Saturday, Helen and I decided to go for a run. Since we had heaps of time I thought we should go explore a bit. We ended up in Upper Hut, about 30 minutes drive to the north. I picked the track out of a hiking book hoping that it would be runnable - not covered with masses of roots or too steep.

The run started out with a swing bridge across a small stream. Then the track started climbing up beside the stream, crossing it occasionally on small wooden bridges. After about 10 minutes we reached a small reservoir and a group of hikers. After we passed them the track started to climb steeply. We managed to keep running for a while, but eventually had to slow to a walk. Luckily the track finally started to level off and we were back running again. Once we gained the ridge-top the track started to undulate. The steep bits were were pretty painful, but luckily short.

After a couple kilometres on the ridge we reached the trig. It is called "Cannon Point" because a tree felled during logging resembled and cannon from the valley. The track down from the trig was damp and pretty slippery. After a short tricky descent we emerged onto a logging road. We followed this most of the way down to Totara Park. We negotiated a short bit of sealed road through a neighborhood before turning left onto the Hutt River Track.

After another kilometre or so we finished back at the carpark. All up it was just over 9 kilometres and took us 70 minutes.


The route (sorry it is a bit hard to see, I'll make our track a different color next time)