Churton Park Community Walkers

Newsletter September 29th 2024

Jan Jones:

We are saddened to inform all our members that Jan Jones passed away peacefully on the morning of Wednesday 25th September 2024 at Bob Scott Retirement Village, Petone.  Jan always enjoyed walking with the Churton Park Community Walkers during the time when she lived in Churton Park. She appreciated the companionship of her fellow walkers.  Her son Kerrin was able to join her on several occasions during his visits to Wellington.

A service for Jan will be held in the Croft Centennial Chapel, 2 Osborne Place (off Queens Drive), Lower Hutt on Wednesday 2nd October 2024 at 1:30pm.  For those unable to attend Jan’s service a live stream opportunity can be viewed through the Croft Funeral Home website.

All communications to the family can be sent C/- Jan’s Tribute page at www.tributes.co.nz. Or PO Box 30-067, Lower Hutt 5040.

We extend our deepest sympathies to Jan’s family at this sad time.

Last week’s walks.

Last week we had another record turn-out of walkers on Wednesday with 64 walkers participating. The walks around Johnsonville saw 7 Pleasure Pacers, 35 Steady Steppers and 22 Fast Footers take part in the three walks. There were only 2 walkers for the Thursday evening walk from Churton Park to Johnsonville and return – no doubt some were discouraged by the very gusty winds and occasional showers!   The Friday walkers went to the Spicer Botanical Park and associated tracks where 12 walkers completed 11.2 km.

Next Friday 4 October:

This coming Friday sees us returning to Sprig and Fern Tawa for our monthly get-together over some food and drinks.  Tables are reserved from 5pm and for those who wish to order early there is the Gold Card special menu available up to 5.30pm.  See you there.

Brian Vincent
Convenor

A reminder about walking arrangements:

After everyone has arrived at the starting location, each group should confirm its leader and also nominate a ‘tail-end Charlie’.  Please remember the medical kits – there is at least one for each group – and a reminder to take photographs. These allow us to record that day’s walkers in each group.  Please forward these by email.

Finally, just a reminder to swap telephone numbers amongst those with whom you travel to the starting point each week. A handy back-up for any late changes to arrangements.

Reminder:   Please ensure that you inform your group’s leader if you leave a walk partway through.

Walk Details for Wednesday October 2nd 2024. 

This Week's Walks:  We move to Linden for this week's walks.  The SSs have a new walk and the PPs and FFs both have old walks that have been reversed.  

The walks will start at 9:20am from the designated parking.

PPs:  A 4.23km generally flat loop walk using the footpaths, pathways and tracks of Linden.  A short portion of the walk is through a park which is shown as a track on the maps, so shouldn’t be muddy.  (Walkers went through this park last time and we didn’t hear any complaints.)  You can see the walk here

SSs:  A 5.51km loop walk which takes in part of the PP’s walk and a part of the FF’s walk.  One half of the walk includes some hill work, the other half is flat. All on good surfaces.  You can see the walk here

FFs:  A 7.31km loop walk which is the reverse of the walk we did here about six months ago. It almost gets into Kenepuru and nearly back to the shops so a fair bit of Tawa is included in this walk.   You can see the walk here on MapoMeter and on Plotaroute here

Parking:  The parking for all three groups is in Gee Street (beside Linden Park) where there is quite a large carpark as well as quite a bit of parking on the street.  So parking is not a problem.

Coffee:  Coffee is at Gloria Jean’s Coffee in Outlet City (the old DressMart).   We have told them that a good number of walkers will be calling in for coffee and perhaps a snack.

Russell Paterson

Website

When you open the website to view your walk have a quick look at the “Home Page”  This usually has new images each week showing views from one of our walks.

Cancellation

If the walks are cancelled an email will be sent out as early as possible but definitely before 8:00am.

Walk Schedules

You can look at the walk schedule for October 2024 here

Photos

Walkers - please try and take a photo of each group on walking days and email them to this link.  Preferably small size (around 450kb).  It has been great to receive a larger number of photos from PPs and SSs - keep them coming, please!

CPCW Photos   

		Wednesday walks were local walks in and around Johnsonville on a beautiful spring day.  A very large turnout of 64 walkers enjoyed the scenery, company and exercise.  The photos of the three groups were taken by Rosemary Macintosh, Paul Alpe and Hue Ng with an additional photo provided by Bill Gaudie to demonstrate how law-abiding the FFs were as they approached the Fraser Ave railway crossing!
		And a photo from two Thursday walkers who braved the wind and rain to walk from Churton Park to Johnsonville and back.  I have been assured that while they were tempted to take the bus, they held firm and kept walking!!  Thanks to Duncan McMillan for this photo:
		Despite the dire weather on Thursday evening, Friday dawned with better conditions and 12 walkers ventured out on a great walk of 12km mapped by Clint Davis on paths through Spicer Forest, Tawa Bush, Redwood Bush and various bits in between.  There was some mud and water, but it could have been a lot worse...  Photos taken by Mervyn Page and Bill Gaudie.

This week's humour comes to us from Bath, England, and was sent by Alison Lavin.  Alison may have the distinction of being your Editor's first overseas correspondent!!  I know that a lot more of the walking group are stepping out on foreign soil - how about supplying some copy for your newsletter?

T   

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