40 - Orphanage Creek

Time: 1 Hour

Area: Stoke

Start Location: Saxton Field - on Saxton Road East, left off Main Road Stoke. Saxton Field was farmland up until the mid 1970s when it was bought by the Nelson City Council and turned into playing fields.

Download the Ophange Creek map (165KB PDF)

Route directions

Start from the netball courts and head back towards Main Road Stoke and across the footbridge to your right to take in the pond.

Return over the bridge onto the playing fields and walk around the perimeter of the park. Plantings include oaks, eucalyptus and ake-ake. Take the track behind the all- weather hockey field and emerge onto Suffolk Road. Follow it along past the right turn to Clairmont Heights, then further along look out for a left turn into the walkway through to Caroline Place. Walk down Caroline Place and right onto Kingsford Drive, then along to the walkway on your left (just before Gershwin Grove). Follow this walkway to the esplanade reserve along Orphanage Creek. It gets its name from the orphanage which used to be sited further up the valley, which was later the site of Ngawhatu Hospital, now being developed for residential sections.

On the other side of the creek you get a view of the original Harcourt Homestead. Follow the creek left, all the way to Saxton Road and return to your starting point.