Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park – Red Hill Half Day

It’s been an unsettled summer so far so we took advantage of a quick break in the poor weather to spend half a day climbing Red Hill in the Canterbury Foothills. This had the advantage of being only an hour from Christchurch meaning an early start wasn’t needed on a Sunday morning.



From the Lake Lyndon road, at the Acheron River crossing, the route to Red Hill is obvious. The valley is startlingly dry being very sheltered from the prevailing weather of the Main Divide.




Further up there is some nice beech forest and we followed a narrow mountain stream to climb up to the summit of Red Hill.

We arrived just in time to see the view to Lake Coleridge, shortly afterwards the cloud raced in across the Big Ben range and 5 minutes later we couldn’t see our hands in front of our face. The cloud cleared briefly on the descent to give a quick view of Coleridge Pass but then closed in again and didn’t lift. The rain started shortly afterwards and continued off and on, hurrying our return to the car.