Day Fifty Three North Dunedin

With winter coming, the evenings are getting darker earlier which means that I won't be able to continue walking so much after work.  I walked 11 streets tonight.

663. Park Street
664. Drummond Street
665. Kyber Pass
666. Queen Street

667. Small Street
668. George Street
669. Warrender Street
670. Quentin Avenue
671. Inverleith Street
672. Willowbank
673. Regent Road

I started by walking up Park Street,  and then was rewarded with a couple of short streets that didn't take long to walk.  I was then onto Queen Street which borders the student housing area and it was noticeable with the amount of rubbish and wheelie bins left on the streets. Some of the student flats are lucky with the great views that they get looking over other student housing in North Dunedin

The further I walked along Queen Street, the views changed to looking up North East Valley and Opoho.  There is very little off street parking and what parking there is, is crammed with cars.

Once I reached the end of Queen Street, I was able to finish walking George Street.  George Street is the main street of Dunedin and starts in the Octagon, finishing at the Gardens.  

 

George Street is 2.5 kms in length and it is good to be able to tick it off as being completed. Looking north on George Street towards Pine Hill and Mt Cargill that is (sadly) covered in fog)

As I walked back to the car the city lights came on.  Over the past year the Dunedin City Council have been replacing the street lights with LED lights. There are approximately 15,000 street lights in the city and it is expected they will all be replaced by the middle of this year.

It was starting to get quite dark by the time I had walked back to where I started.  The night sky was a lovely shade of pink and blue. 

There were a number of interesting parts of my walk today and one of them was walking up Small Street.  Not really a street as there is no vehicle access but like Steep Street that I walked the other day, Small Street has a street sign so I walked it  and I am claiming it towards my total of completed streets. . 

 

Another interesting part of my walk that I had never really looked at before is the bridge over the Leith on George Street.  I have been across this bridge often in a car and walking but never really stopped to look.  George Street stopped at the banks of the Leith until 1903 when the bridge was built.  With the bridge in place, it opened the door to urban development of North East Valley, Opoho and Pine Hill.  

I  walked past some great street art today.  Under the over-bridge on George Street is a good rendition of the University of Otago clock tower. 

The awesome Nelson Mandela was on a flat in Queen Street and the wonderful Freddie Mercury was on another flat, also in Queen Street.

And the final flat was painted in . . . .I'm not sure what style you would call it but it is very well done.

Other street art that I walked past was these two telephone cabinets.  Sadly these are the first painted cabinets that I have seen with graffiti. 

Today I walked past a number of beautiful older homes.  These Victorian terrace houses were built in 1897 and are now student flats.  There is the cute historic stone cottage almost completely covered in vines and the historic stone house that has recently had it's roof restored. 

 

Student flats in Dunedin have been named since the 1930's and the names have become a bit of a tradition to the extent that flats are not known by their address but by their flat name. Around 600 flats boast names and now that I am walking some of the streets around the student area, I am seeing more of the flats with names.

Distance walked:  6.1 km      Walking time   1 hr 10 mins    

Total distance: 422.2 km       Total walking  79 hr 36 mins