Tasman View Road
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If you want a long, reasonably easy walk, in which you'll never tire of the scenery, you can't do much better than head for this section of the Great Taste Trail. Winding along the ridge of the Moutere Hills from near Mapua in the south to Lower Moutere in the north, Tasman View Road provides continuously stunning views of Ruby Bay, the Richmond Ranges and the distant mountains of the Kauranghi and Nelson Lakes national parks. And in case you can't identify them all, there's an information board with panoramas naming all the hills, about halfway along (see photo).
Tasman View Road is a paper road, no longer maintained by the Council, but offering legal access to walkers, cyclists and the more adventurous mororists. Luckily there aren't yet many of the last of these (though with the sprawling development that's sadly occurring in this area, the numbers of vehicles on the track is beginning to increase). But you will meet plenty of cyclists, the occasional jogger and the even more occasional walker. The road is gravel - easy, though not wonderful to walk on - but along the way there are dedicated cycling sections, which walkers can share. Most of the way there's also a wide verge where the dogs can run - and it's all fenced off from the neighbouring agricultural land, so there's nothing to worry about on that score. From north to south (or, indeed from south to north!) it's about 15 km long, but there are several linking roads that can also be walked, including a good loop of ca. 4 km down to Flaxmore Road. And if you want more, the track also links with the Stagecoach Road walkway (see map), and from that to Dominion Flats. Click on the map to zoom in
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