Bishopdale Borders

Despite the drizzly weather Christine and I sallied forth to do the Bishopdale and Papanui Walk. We started at Bishopdale Park, behind the Mall, and headed south-east along various streets until we reached Edgar Macintosh Park. This was developed in the early 1960s and named after Edgar Hika Macintosh who was the City Surveyor from 1942, because of his work in negotiating recreational reserve contributions from the large subdivisions done during his time. Surrounded by trees, the park is the home of the Marist Albion Rugby Club and has a well-equipped children’s playground with paddling pool.

Playground at Edgar Macintosh Park

Avenue of trees at the park

Here we took the “wrong” sealed path which led to our re-tracing our steps and eschewing the part of the walk which goes through St James’ Park.

Papanui was the original Māori name for the Bishopdale and Papanui district and is the Māori word for a platform in a tree from which birds are snared. This name comes from the time when the area was covered by a large stand of forest, dominated by totara, matai, kahikatea, and kanuka, similar to the smaller stand of bush that now remains in Riccarton.

The streets and houses we passed were mainly well-presented, with established trees and singing birds, but there was little character to inspire me to take a photograph. The small pocket reserves found in other areas were lacking here, and we ended up having our morning snack in a bus shelter on Harewood Road.

We had intended to visit the Bishopdale Library, but by the time we got back to the Mall we were weary and couldn’t be bothered going through the hassle of donning masks and showing vaccine passes.

We did not finish all the trail
round Papanui and Bishopdale