Tunnel! The key link between Unsworth Reserve & Rosedale Park.
Motorways work well for moving cars around, well until rush-hour hits. The problem is they tend to slice-up a city, dividing neighbourhoods with physical barriers that can only be crossed in a select few places. The Northern Motorway effectively cut the North Shore in two when it was bulldozed through.
One of these “divided-neighbourhoods” near my home is the Albany Industrial Estate. What was farmland not so long ago is now packed with industry, sports fields, a swimming pool, BMX track, cafés, bars and restaurants. There’s even a bike shop, but with the Northern Motorway to the east and the the Upper Harbour Highway to the south it’s a mission getting there by bicycle.
“Why don’t you ride through the tunnel” an acquaintance said to me. “There’s a tunnel? I’ve never seen a tunnel? Whadaya mean there’s a tunnel?” came my gob-smacked reply. So I grabbed my camera and departed in search of this mystery excavation under the highway.
Paved route marked in blue, off-road in red.
Unsworth Reserve. Hard to believe this is in the middle of suburbia.
What I discovered was a route that took me from Sunset Road halfway to Albany. You can stick to the hard-top, but what really got me going was by joining up the parks and greenways I could virtually ride the whole thing off-road.
I’m a mountainbike-tragic so even my road-bike was sporting knobblies on this occasion. That was fortuitous as I encountered some muddy stretches in the bush and the grassed areas were extremely waterlogged. No trouble on a mountainbike of course, but I wouldn’t be wearing white shorts if I was you. In summer, when the grass is firm almost any bike would do.
Some suburban plumbing intruding on the natural beauty.
If you’re on a road-bike, don’t want to get dirty, or have young children in-tow, start at the end of Rook Place in Unsworth. There is a new “share-with-care” path from there that leads down to the tunnel under the Upper Harbour Highway. This is sealed with some sections of boardwalk and emerges on Paul Matthews Road. Cross Paul Matthews carefully and you join-up with another new path that glides across Rosedale Park down to the car-park at the softball diamonds.
From there you can follow the road beside the poo-ponds (water-treatment reservoir) past the pony-paddocks to Rosedale Road. This a busy stretch of tarmac in the weekend with softball, hockey and football matches in progress, but a series of speed-humps keeps the cars restrained to some extent.
Share with Care path leading from Paul Matthews Road.
Tunnel under the Upper Harbour Highway. Who knew?
The most enjoyable part for me was riding through Unsworth Reserve. There’s a concrete path hugging the western edge of the trees that enters the bush and turns off-road at its northern end. That’s a pleasant enough ride but if you have some trail-riding skills (or don’t mind pushing over sections of slippery tree roots) make your way over to the eastern side and a lovely track leads you into the heart of the bush before emerging again at Barbados Drive. Cross Barbados and a gravel path takes you down to the tunnel.
What a shame previous councils didn’t ‘reserve’ more of these little pockets of heaven as the Shore was expanding. You are within spitting distance of housing and commercial buildings in those trees but you could be in the middle-of-nowhere.
Unsworth Reserve Pongas
Trail-clearing in Unsworth Reserve.
After crossing the carparking area beside the softball diamonds I kept with the “off-road” theme and rode straight ahead between the hockey and football fields. In the far left corner is yet another greenway and by following your nose you will eventually get to Rosedale Road.
From Rosedale you could ride up Bush Road for a little mountainbiking at The Royal Albany Trails or explore the greenways at the base of the scenic reserve. These run in both directions from Bush Road but you’ll have to duck down some residential streets to access them.
I took my five year old the next time I visited and she had no trouble riding the paved route on a singlespeed BMX. Great family-fun and a safe short-cut between suburbs that I suspect is only known to the locals.
Rosedale Park 'Share with Care' heading toward Paul Matthews Road.
Sean (and friends) mowing the water-treatment pond surrounds.
The paved sections are sign-posted from Rosedale Rd.
This is my post from the story below about Greenways. Waitakere Twin Streams is another great example of this and worth taking the kids to. I think we all underestimate how much land there is in the burbs that could be linked up.
Also have a look at whet the Hamilton Mountain Bike club has down with some disused council land between some industrial buildings and the poo ponds. Great example on using some land no one else would bother with now hundreds of people use everyday.
Given this some more thought. Albany around Bush road has just built some paths linking paths and parks, streams bush etc…great idea.
I grow up in the suburb of Beach haven and remember as kids we knew every school, path, park, bush and short cut known to man. we could traverse our way across the burbs faster than a car (and way more fun). There is more disused council land behind factorys, forgotton bush and streams, bush in the middle of subburbs than we realize. Imagine surburbs all linked with networks of well built cycling and walking paths, joining parks, schools, librarys, shops etc… together
I enjoy all of your posts Antoine, they make me want to get out and ride! I wish I lived around your area with all your awesome, descriptive posts, it just looks so fun!
I'm sure there are lots of areas like this out west too, I've got to organise a weekly early morning ride with my family to go find them.
I see you have kids, did you ever experiment with child carriers? Our bub is not yet 1yr, but when is 14 months or so we'd like to take some nice cycle path picnics with him, and would appreciate if you (or anyone really) have any experience with all the different carriers/trailers available. Probably a blog post in its own right!
I'm also hoping to ride with bub across the harbour bridge at the event in November mentioned on here (but yet to find any other info).
@Jim: Thank you very much. I struggle with the writing part of it (really hate it) and feel a little embarrassed sometimes sharing the stage with other bloggers that can really string a sentence together. I'm much more comfortable drawing pictures. This post probably took me 3 or 4 hours to put together (!!!) so it's nice to get some feedback. I persevere as I'm just so damn enthusiastic about all forms of cycling, be it for sport or utility.
I rarely get out west but I have ridden these two cycle paths:
http://bikefriendlynorthshore.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/dum-dum-sons-wild-west-adventure/
http://bikefriendlynorthshore.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/great-rides-away-with-the-fairies-in-greenhithe-hobsonville/
I'm putting all these little rides on this page as I write stuff up:
http://bikefriendlynorthshore.wordpress.com/great-rides/
I should write a post on child trailers. My youngest has just started school but has been dragged all over Auckland in the last four years and loved every minute of it.
Rear child seat/carriers seem very popular but neither of us enjoyed using one. I bought one off Trade-Me, used it twice and sold it just as quickly. It made my bike very top-heave and unwieldy. I couldn't see her and all she could see was my bum and lower-back!
Great write ups there!
I don't think it matters so much about the quality of the writing, more that there are regular updates, and that they are interesting in some form. Urbanvelo.org had a story on bikesnobnyc, and he said as much, it was the regularity of posting that keeps people interested and coming back to the blog.
Regarding the carriers, yes that is the kind of constructive criticism I'm after I guess. He will be only little, and money tight, so a new trailer is out of the question, but information on pros and cons of all the options is always welcomed. Like, should we add an extension to the back mudguard to prevent flinging dirt into a trailer, and do trailers fit with mudguards, racks and panniers? That sort of thing.
I think there are also front mounted stem or top bar seats that we are interested in as then bub can see out front. 1y/o will be only small, so a fully supported seat like a weeride, or a secondhand trailer might be a good first step. There are minimalist seats (nothing more than seats and some pegs for their feet to sit on) but I think these are for kids more in the 4 or 5yr age bracket. Seen a couple out at Woodhill, kids out for a ride on the trails with mum or dad!
Your son must have been the same age as ours is now when you started, so at least I don't feel so crazy for thinking about towing/carrying him along, and I know mum is looking forward to it too.
I suspect the front seats I have heard about do cause the same top heavy/unwieldy feeling, but that's the info we're after before forking out. In any case I'll be on the lookout for anything you have on the subject
I use a weeride for our daughter, we took her on her first ride when she was about 10 months old, she loves it. The only issue for me was one of bike fit and setup – my 'good' hardtail didn't have enough space around the headtube to mount so had to put it on my 'hack' hardtail. I put on an old set of flats and dropped the seat height slightly. All good! We get heaps of comments and questions when we are out and about.
Great write up and photos!! I am working on a pamphlet on this new cycleway for Auckland Transport. I am looking for some photos and was going to go out and take some. Yours look great – what do you think about us being able to use them for the pamphlet? Contact me on adi.james@linked.co.nz
@adi: That email address didn't work?
You can get me at ibikenz@gmail.com
I'm surprised at the number of trailer bikes that are mounted so the they're not vertical in a straight line, so the poor kid has a massive lean looks really uncomfortable for the kid!
Did this ride today with my 2 boys – 8 & 6 – and we had an absolute blast. From our house in Park Rise, Campbells Bay, we went across Pupuke Golf Course (mostly walking as a lot of golfers out!) onto the cyclepath on East Coast Road. Then we cut down Sunset Rd to Caribbean Drive, and into Unsworth Reserve. A little soggy under wheel in the forest section, but the boys loved the tunnel & I thought the section between the tunnel and Rosedale Park fields was great. We saw the sign to Clemmows Orchard (something for another day – got to ride home stil!) and then came back the same way via Farro on Constellation. After a stop for food, they still wanted more, so we went back up Parkway Drive & Ramp Rd to Sunset Rd, and then onto the BMX park by Forest Hill reservoir. Easily 10km round trip. Youngest was on 16" single speed BMX, eldest on 20" geared bike.
Super few hours out – will have to try the Greenhithe route next. Keep up the good work!
@Clare: That's a long way for a singlespeeding 6 year old! Glad you had fun.
Clemows would be very waterlogged at this time of year but there's lots of nice riding over that way when it's drier.
The cycleway is officially opening sometime soon. Council have been calling it the "Te Ara Alexandra" project as that's the name of the stream you are following.
In the summer I ride through the golf course on my way home (late at night) as I live off Park Rise. It's a surreal place in the dark when you've got the whole place to yourself.
If you want local content I write this stuff for:
http://bikefriendlynorthshore.wordpress.com/
but post most of it over on Cycling in Auckland as more eyes get to see it.
Just clicked who you are & you'll know who I am when I mention the orange motorbike & the walking bus – hubby John runs it & I hear your youngest is about to join. We'll catch up again in person soon..