Bolton Street Memorial Park - Lower Trail

After catching the train into Wellington on Saturday morning, we made our way up Bowen Street to start our expedition.  From Bowen Street we were able to enter the Bolton Street Memorial Park and go along some of the Lower Trail.  This is on the east side of the motorway which was built during 1968 to 1971.

While it was being built, the cemetery was closed and around 3700 burials were exhumed and then they were re-interred in a vault which is under the lower cemetery lawn.  The headstones have been relocated as close to their original sites as was possible.

Looking down from the start of the bridge.

This divided the cemetery into two parts which is joined by a foot bridge going over the motorway.
Its quite a steep bridge, great for running down though.
It did look lovely on Saturday, the sun was just beaming and the spring flowers were lovely and vibrant.
In the photo above, at the top right side you can see a kowhai tree in bloom.  Lovely yellow flowers, a favorite with the Tui, one of our cheeky native birds.

A Tui

We did get to see a few tuis' further up the trail.  They were very vocal and flitting from one tree to the next.
We could have spent ages watching them but we had to carry on our way.

The motorway going trough the lower and upper parts of the cemetery

The photo of the motorway above was taken from another bridge on our way back to the railway station.  The lower part of the cemetery is to the left where the traffic signs are.  The upper part is to the right, you can see some of the gravestones in the trees.

I will post the next part of our expedition tomorrow........