#19 of 100 trips - Gardens / Upper Junction / Blanket Bay / return to Dunedin Gardens 17 December 2022

Five intrepid trampers met at the Gardens corner to recreate one of the early tramping trips of the Otago Tramping Club which involved a lot of road walking which, for the early trampers, would have been on narrow, winding gravel roads but for us was on mostly narrow, winding sealed roads and a wide, flat, smooth cycleway.   We were quietly confident that the sea fog would lift by the time we had reached Upper Junction so that we would be able to see the views, little did we realise how wrong we were.  Meeting at the Gardens corner we set off walking up North Road towards Upper Junction.

The first two and a half kilometers has only a mild gradient and the time went quickly as we walked and chatted our way up North East Valley.  Once we reached Normanby the gradient increased and the sea fog seemed to come lower down the hill so that it felt like it wouldn't be long before we walked into it.  It was a nice surprise to meet my father out for his morning walk and we stopped for a brief chat before continuing on.  Only a short distance on the footpath ran out and we were walking along the edge of the road. 

One of the reasons for the early start to the walk was to avoid the traffic on this part of the road and for the most part it worked with only spasmodic traffic. The higher we climbed the thicker the fog became and by keeping well to the side of the road, we didn't disrupt any traffic.  One of the good things about road walking is that the slower pace means that you get time to see things that you'd normally miss when driving past which is exactly what we did - chatting to passing cyclists, listening to the birds, spying bugs in the long grass, watching the sheep and cows (who were watching us), admiring the flowers and our most unusual find was one new, unused boot. 

The higher we climbed the thicker the fog/mist became so that when we reached the highest point at Upper Junction, disappointingly there was no view.  Instead of admiring the view of North East Valley and the city that was hidden to us, we took a small detour to visit the war memorial on the site of the former Upper Junction School that was destroyed by fire in 1945.  There are 17 beech trees planted beside plaques in remembrance of former pupils who were killed during the first world war. This is a particularly poignant war memorial for me as my fathers uncle has a plaque and beech tree planted in his memory here.  John Williams was 17 when he signed up, lying about his age so that he would be accepted into the army and killed at the Somme, aged just 19 years.  It seemed very fitting with the muted light from the  mist swirling around the hundred year old giant macrocarpa trees creating an ethereal atmosphere during our visit of this site.

What goes up must then come down and that is exactly what we did, heading 300 metres down hill on Upper Junction Road, all the way to sea level.  It seemed almost impossible but the mist seemed to grow thicker and we were barely able to see each other at times.  The striking views were non-existent so had to keep an ear open for cars to avoid being hit on the narrow, winding road.

As we dropped lower the mist slowly started to thin until we dropped below it and finally got our first views of the surrounding farmland and down to the harbour. We stopped on a sweeping bend where we could get well off the road for a morning tea break.  Replenishing ourselves with a drink and snack while admiring all that we could see.  With the hills on the opposite side of the harbour and most of the city being shrouded in fog, we were only able to see down to Blanket Bay and Roseneath. 

Knowing that most of the hill was behind us, we continued down the hill where we eventually met up with the main road to Port Chalmers, State Highway 88.  We admired the yet to be completed new cycleway/walkway including the blue surface from a distance. Despite the cycleway looks like it is completed, there are large fences stopping access  so we continued walking along St Leonards Drive.

A lunch stop was called at St Leonards Park where Mandy found a swing to sit while the rest of us opted for the picnic table.  Lindsay arrived with his dog and a box of cherries which he shared while we watched a large ship sail past on it's way to the inner harbour.  By now we were over halfway through our walk and were about to start on the 'easy' part of our walk, along the flat cycle/walkway which runs beside the railway line.  This proved to be more difficult than first thought as the 8km of flat, hard surface made for tired legs and feet.  The fog was lifting with the views of the harbour opening out and we were able to distract each other by seeing who could spot the most interesting sight.  Some of the interesting things we saw were kayakers getting tooted at by the harbour tug for being in the main shipping channel, swimmers jumping off the harbour channel markers, a speedboat jumping the tug boats wake, a grey spoonbill, a few sad, rotting boats, some exercise equipment, lots of walkers and only a handful of cyclists but no trains. 

Once we reached the stadium we turned off the cycle/walkway and continued past the University, skirted around a cricket match in progress and wandered through the student housing until we reached the Water of Leith. We followed the Water of Leith through the Gardens and back to the main gates where we had started 5.5 hours and 21km earlier.