Christchurch & Banks Peninsula: City Parks to Akaroa

Dogs on this trip. Christchurch and Banks Peninsula both sit under the Christchurch City Council dog bylaw, and dogs are welcome across the parks and the Port Hills / Summit Road farm tracks, where stock and spring lambing are the things to mind, with fully-fenced romps at The Groynes, Victoria Park and Hagley's dog areas. A few mapped spots are closed to dogs outright, Styx Mill Conservation Reserve among them, so read each walk's own page before you set out. Outside summer, dogs can run on most coastal sand, but a daytime ban applies from 1 December to the end of February (roughly 10am to 7pm), so the cooler months are the season to do the coast. On bush tracks like Okuti Valley, Garden of Tāne and the Port Hills reserves, check for 1080 and predator-control poison signs and keep dogs off bait lines.