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 

Day 127 Concord to Green Island

I had walked the streets in Concord in April but I hadn't walked all the way up the hill and around to Green Island as these streets don't have footpaths, are on roads with higher speed limits and some of the roads are gravel.  All these things meant that I didn't need to walk them but there was a 'gap' in the map so I started walking early in the day to avoid as much traffic as possible. I walked 4 streets today. 

1703. Blackhead Road
1704. Tunnel Beach Road
1705. Green Island Bush Road
1706. Church Hill Road

I had been looking at this view 8 months ago and today I started by walking up Emerson Street.  I had walked the lower part of Emerson Street with all the houses in April and today, I was walking the part with no houses. 

 

Like yesterday, once I left the houses behind, I was walking on rural roads with no footpath and surrounded by farmland, although this farmland looks as if it might be subdivided into houses one day. 

 

The walk up the hill wasn't difficult and looking back gave me a great view of Concord all the way to Flagstaff and Mt. Cargill, which are the hills in the distance.

Once I reached Blackhead Road, I was able to walk on a wide gravel footpath.  This footpath took me almost to the Tunnel Beach Track.
 

Tunnel Beach is a short walk that takes you down a track to sea carved sandstone cliffs, rock arches and caves. Tunnel Beach gets its name from a hand carved tunnel through the sandstone to the beach which the land owner and local politician, John Cargill had built for his family to have their own private beach in the 1870's.  The beach and walk is very popular and often this car park is full.
 

I didn't have time to go down Tunnel Beach today and instead, carried on walking streets. I was able to get a glimpse down to the sea.  I did not walk all the way to the sea as the road from here becomes narrow with cars traveling at high speed. 

Instead, I turned onto a gravel road as it was a much safer option to walk. It felt a bit strange walking on the gravel road surrounded by farmland, with the city streets only a short distance away. 

 

The gravel road didn't take long to walk and I was back onto the sealed road.  This part was much steeper and I was glad to be walking down.  As I walked down the street, I had a great view looking over to Abbotsford, knowing that I have walked every street that I could see.

I also had a great view looking down onto Green Island and Kaikorai Valley with Mt. Cargill in the background. This was a great place to stop and think about how I have walked every street that I could see from here.

And eventually I walked down the hill to join up to Green Island where I had been walking in June.  I was impressed with the great view from here, looking over Green Island and Abbotsford. 

 

There were a few interesting letterboxes today.  The first one is an old gas cylinder mounted on a plinth and the other two were together, one being a large piece of hollowed wood  and the other an old, rusty can with a corrugated iron New Zealand flag behind them.

 

Today's map shows the streets in red that I have walked.  The part I walked today takes in the streets around blackhead and around the gravel roads to Green Island near the top left. 

Distance walked:  5.9 km         Walking time  1 hr 6 mins    

Total distance: 1048.1  km          Total walking  195 hr 04 mins 

Day 126 Upper Junction to St Leonards

 If you have been following my blog, you will know that I have completed my challenge to walk every street in Dunedin  - and you may be wondering why I am still walking streets.  There are still a few streets that I didn't walk because they didn't fit my criteria.   You may remember that at the start of my challenge to walk every street in Dunedin, I came up with some 'rules' which included 

1. Walking on one side of the footpath is enough to say that I have walked the street
2. Walking on sealed roads only
3. Private streets/right of ways are not included
4. Not walking on roads that have high speed limits and no footpath 

There are a few streets remaining that connect some of the areas I have walked and all of these streets do not have footpaths and most are on roads with higher speed limits.  Looking at the map of the streets that I have walked, there are some obvious 'gaps' and I feel these 'gaps' need to be filled.  Today I decided to walk early and fill one those 'gaps'.

Today I walked from Upper Junction to St Leonards which is mostly rural.  I added another three streets to the number of streets that I have walked. 

1700. Strawberry Lane

1701. Upper Junction Road
1702. Blanket Bay Road

I started walking from the corner at Upper Junction and chose to walk early in the morning as there is less traffic and these roads are not busy roads

I started walking the shadow of Mt Cargill and walked along roads that wound their way through rural farmland to the edge of the harbour. 

As I walked around the hill, I was rewarded with awesome views of the harbour with Roseneath in the foreground and Port Chalmers on the land jutting out into the harbour.  Quarantine Island and the hills of the peninsula are behind. 

The roads I walked today are narrow, windy and have no footpath.  There were a few cars go past, however they mostly slowed down and gave me room.  At no time did I feel in danger, despite the narrowness of the road.

I really enjoyed my walk this morning as the views from Upper Junction Road are spectacular all the way down the hill.  While I have driven this road a number of times, it is only while walking it, that I was able to really appreciate how great the views are. 

I enjoyed looking out over parts of the city that I have walked.  This is Sawyers Bay and I remember walking those streets a couple of months ago.

I walked past a number of friendly farm animals.  While these sheep looked like they needed to be sheared, they also had a great view of the harbour. 

Eventually I walked all the way down the hill and was on the edge of the harbour.  Here I swapped the bird song for traffic noice but I was also  rewarded with great views.

I had to walk a short part of the highway to Port Chalmers.  Luckily it was still early morning so not much traffic as this was the most dangerous part to walk.

Then I turned back onto the rural roads and enjoyed the next part of my walk.  This road used to be the main road to Port Chalmers, built in the 1860's before the faster and less windy highway was built in 1965.

This road is narrow and windy and it is easy to see why the newer Port Chalmers highway was built.  I saw no traffic on this road while I was walking it today.

 

The final part of my walk was beside the newer highway which has a train line running beside it and I was lucky enough to see a train heading to Port Chalmers.

 

As in other parts of the city, on rural roads, I walked past a number of these pest traps.  These traps are put out by the Halo project to trap stoats, ferrets and rats in an attempt to give our native birds a chance to breed.  The traps are regularly checked by volunteers and all their hard work is paying off as I was serenaded with a lot of bird song during my walk this morning.

 I walked past this once massive tree that has been cut down but as nature shows how resilient it is, the tree has started to regrow.  The photo doesn't show the true size of the stump, but I can assure you that it is massive!

 

I walked past another interesting piece of nature with this overgrown patch of hydrangea bushes.  The flowers are beautiful and show how nature can shine, even when neglected. 

I didn't walk past many letterboxes today, however there was one that I really liked and it is the letterbox for Bellbird Heights - the letterbox is very appropriately in the shape of a bird house.

 

And finally this map shows the streets that I have walked in red.  Today's streets start at Upper Junction and go diagonally down the hill to Sawyers Bay and then around the edge of the harbour to St Leonards at the bottom.

Distance walked:  4.9 km         Walking time  1 hr 14 mins    

Total distance: 1042.2  km          Total walking  194 hr 58 mins