One of the jewels in the Community Board area is Riccarton House and Bush Pūtaringamotu, a unique heritage site encompassing historic buildings, parklands, gardens and an ancient podocarp forest with kahikatea trees up to 600 years old.

Open free to the public during daylight hours, the bush includes almost 900 metres of flat, relatively accessible tracks. Home to numerous native birds such as kereru, korimako, pīwakawaka and riroriro, and to many native insects and geckos, it is protected by a predator-proof fence.

Significant both ecologically and culturally, it is the largest remnant of alluvial podocarp forest on the lower Canterbury Plains and Banks Peninsula. A key mahinga kai site for Ngai Tūāhuriri, it is also the place of first permanent European settlement in Ōtautahi.

Gifted to the people of Christchurch by the Deans family in November 1914, it is run by the Riccarton Bush Trust and its operational staff. The Trust, in conjunction with the Christchurch Foundation, is now raising funds to upgrade and enhance the bush.“This special place, this link to our past, with its unique sights, sounds, smells, culture and history must be protected and conserved for the people, not only of Waitaha Canterbury but all of Aotearoa. Pūtaringamotu/Riccarton Bush is a place of living history, a gift to future generations and it must be protected,” says the Trust.

The wider community is being invited to become part of this story by sponsoring a board in the new boardwalk.

The Waipuna Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton Community Board have already committed funding to the project along with the Waimāero Fendalton-Waimairi-Harewood Community Board.

Additional funding sources are also being sought, with four levels of funding; Weta, Waitaha Gecko, Kereru and Kahikatea.

Further details are on the Riccarton House and Bush Pūtaringamotu website – www.riccartonhouse.co.nz