Day 129 Halfway Bush to Mosgiel

Today I walked the streets that joined up Halfway Bush to Mosgiel meaning that I have now walked from Harwood to East Taieri and every street in between.  The street I walked today is a paper road meaning that it is unformed and is a track through farmland.  I walked part of Friends Hill Road in October and today I walked the unformed part of it today.  

I started at the top of the hill in Halfway Bush and walked down to Mosgiel at the bottom of the hill.  Friends Hill Road started as a gravel road through farmland.

Then it became more of a track.  It looks as though it is used regularly by walkers, dog walkers, cyclists and also a few horses. 

Mosgiel became closer the further down the hill I walked.  It was a good chance for me to see how big Mosgiel is and very rewarding to know that I have walked every street in Mosgiel. 

I was also rewarded with a good view of Saddle Hill. I have seen Saddle Hill from many angles during my challenge to walk every street in Dunedin .

At the end of the unformed part of the road is a locked gate meaning that the track is open to the public but only for walking/cycling and not for vehicles.  This is the first time that I had walked this road before and I enjoyed the walk.

From the locked gate, Friends Hill Road becomes a gravel road again and I continued walking along the gravel road till I reached the sealed roads of Mosgiel.  

I was impressed with the roses planted on the side of the road.  There is a large display of them and the colours are beautiful.  Someone has put a lot of effort into growing them here.

And finally I walked to the bottom of the hill and Gladstone Road where I had walked in October.

Distance walked:  3.7 km         Walking time  45 mins    

Total distance: 1061.6  km          Total walking  198 hr 34 mins 

Day 128 Halfway Bush to Kaikorai Valley

 I walked the streets of Halfway Bush and Kaikorai Valley in March and looking at the map, there is a definite 'gap' that joins the two suburbs via Brockville.  Today I walked 8 streets.

1707. Halfway Bush Road
1708. Chalmerston Road
1709. Three Mile Hill Road
1710. Brinsdon Road
1711. McMeakin Road
1712. Mount Grand Road
1713. Reservoir Road
1714. Boundary Road

 

 I started walking today at the end of Halfway Bush Road which overlooks Mosgiel and the Taieri Plains.  One day, I plan to walk down this hill  to Mosgiel via the gravel road. 

I only walked the sealed roads today and, again, the roads took me through rural land with houses surrounded by paddocks.  The roads are quiet with hardly any traffic and it is peaceful to walk with plenty of bird song to keep me company.

There was one point where I walked along one of the main roads from the city to Mosgiel.  Three Mile Hill Road can be busy and the traffic is traveling very fast so I was glad there was a good sized verge on the side of the road. 

The nice thing about today's walk is being in a more rural area with lots of bush and open space as the amount of birds and hearing their birdsong is great. At times I was also rewarded with glimpses of the city and the harbour.

 

The road today, took me around the edge of Brockville and the top of Frasers Gully which is a recreational reserve that includes walking tracks through native bush and playing fields. 

I stopped to have a look at the water from the Mount Grand water treatment plant.  This is where Dunedin's drinking water is pumped to from Deep Stream.  Stopping here also gave me the opportunity to see Mt Cargill with the reservoir in front. 

 

The next part of the street involved walking along this lovely tree tunnel.  The photo doesn't show how dark it really is.  The trees are huge and form a lovely tunnel. 

Once I had walked through the tree tunnel, I was walking down the hill to Kaikorai Valley  From here, the views started to open up with Saddle Hill and the southern suburbs in full view. 

Parts of the road that I walked down were steep and mostly I was walking past farmland.  There were a few cars on this part of the road and most slowed when they saw me walking. 

The further down the hill I walked, the view changed and I was able to see where I had been walking yesterday.  Yesterday I walked the streets that took me past the houses near the middle of this picture, along the top of the hill and down past the houses on the right .

 

Before I knew it, I was at the bottom of the hill and Kaikorai Valley was spreading out with the large buildings of the industrial area dominating this part of the valley.

I spent some time at the tree tunnel to marvel at the size of the trees.  They are huge and their trunks are massive. 

One thing I noticed on my walk of the streets was a lot of rock walls.  Most houses and a lot of paddocks had rock walls.  These walls are usually built using the stones that are removed when building the foundations for houses or by farmers clearing their paddocks. Going by the number of rock walls and how substantial most of them are, I am thinking that the land must have been very rocky.
 

This is another example of the size of the rock walls.  A lot of work has gone into making these rock walls and as you can imagine, there must be a lot of rocks. 
 

 I saw this friendly alpaca on my walk today.  It was very curious and watched me walk past. 

The map today shows the streets that I have walked in red.  The streets that I walked today run from the top left, across to the middle before skirting around Brockville and down past Mount Grand, all the way to Kaikorai Valley at the middle bottom. 

Distance walked:  9.8 km         Walking time  1 hr 45 mins    

Total distance: 1057.9  km          Total walking  197 hr 49 mins