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 

Day 125 Recreate first day of street walking

While I had finished walking every street in Dunedin yesterday, I thought it fitting to walk the first streets again.  I started from my home and walked to the very end of Campbells Road.  Campbells Road changes from a sealed street to a gravel road and from here, I had good views of Flagstaff.

 Nearer the end of Campbells Road, I was able to look across to North East Valley, to where I had been walking yesterday. 

And finally I had a fantastic view of the city of Dunedin.  Last time I stood looking at this view, I was contemplating walking every street in the city.  Now, less than a year later, I can say that I have walked every street, and more, that I can see.  

I have enjoyed the challenge.  There has been a lot of walking, 1032 kilometres, and I have walked almost 1700 streets, through mostly sunshine and occasionally rain.   One thing is for certain, Dunedin is a city of hills and there are a lot of steep streets.  Because of the hills and harbour, there are lots of streets with great views and I have discovered many parts of the city that I had never been to before.

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 

 I have stuck mostly to these rules and have walked the occasional gravel road.   It's been a good challenge and I am glad that I have completed it.

Day 124 Normanby

Today I completed the last few streets in my challenge to walk every street in Dunedin. I walked 8 streets today.

1680. North Road
1681. Ribbonwood Close
1682. Cleghorn Street
1683. Corsall Street
1684. Clava Street
1685. Nisbet Street
1686. Norwood Street
1687. Potters Road

1688. Cotter Road

While walking the streets, yesterday I looked across the harbour to see Mt. Cargill.  Today I walked the streets that would take me closest to Mt. Cargill.  I grew up with this view of Mt. Cargill. 

My walk today took me up the hill and I was able to look down to the streets at the bottom of the hill.  My plan for today's streets is taking me on a large loop and I will be finishing my walk on the street at the bottom of this hill.

As I walked further up the hill, Mt. Cargill (hill on the left with the transmitter) got closer and I was able to see how much further up I had to walk.  The group of trees on the skyline in the middle of the picture is as far up the hill that I needed to walk.

Today I was walking on the northern edge of the city and could look back over farmland.  At the bottom of the field is the Forrester Park sports fields that include a dog park and BMX track.  This used to be an old city dump and was covered over to create recreational facilities for the city many years ago.

As I walked around the side of the hill, I could look back over the northern part of the city.  From here, I was able to see the town belt easily.  The town belt is the 'belt' of trees through the middle of the city.  The town belt was planned in Scotland around 1848 and is one of only three town belts in the world. It is an example of the native bush that would have covered the hills before the settlers arrived and the city was built.

I walked a number of short side streets today and one of those side streets took me around the hill to a view of the harbour and the hills of the peninsula.  I was able to look down to where I was walking yesterday, around the road at the base of the hills.  This view was a nice surprise. 

Then I was back to the main road and onto the top of the hill.  This is as close to Mt. Cargill as I got and from here it is easy to see why the Maori legend tells of  Kapukataumahaka /Mt. Cargill being a warrior lying down.  Mt. Cargill has the transmitter on the top and is the body of the warrior while Buttars Peak to the right is the head with the legs of the warrior to the right of Mt. Cargill.

As I reached the top of the hill, I had one final view of the city before I walked down the hill to the street at the bottom (in the middle of this picture).  I had started walking from this street and walked up the hill around the left before walking down on the right back to where I started walking.

The road down the hill was a lot steeper and narrower than the one that I had walked up.  This road is mainly used by the local farmer but it made a nice loop to walk and had houses near the bottom.

The final view I had was at the bottom of the hill, looking back up to where I had walked earlier.  The houses in the middle of the hill are on streets that I had been on as I walked up the hill.

 

One place of interest that I walked past today is the Upper Junction School war memorial. The large macrocarpa trees were part of the school grounds and there has been a lot of work done recently to tidy the once overgrown site.

There is no school here as it was burnt down in 1945 but the war memorial site is still maintained   The memorial is for seventeen former pupils of the school who were killed during the first world war.

This memorial site is of particular interest to me as one of the memorials is for my fathers uncle who died aged 20 during the first world war.  A beech tree has recently been planted beside each memorial. 

 

At the view of the harbour, I saw how some enterprising locals have made their own seats and bar leaner.  I could see how this would be a great spot on a warm summer evening with a glass or two to drink. 

There were only two interesting letterboxs that I walked past today.  I really liked that it is shaped like the house that it belongs to and I thought the microwave was a good letterbox was a good use for something that was no longer needed. 

Distance walked:  8.4 km         Walking time  1 hr 40 mins    

Total distance: 1032.7  km          Total walking  189 hr 53 mins 

Catch up of streets not counted

As I am finishing my challenge to walk every street in Dunedin, I had a look at the list of streets and I see that I have missed a few off.  Most of these streets didn't get counted as I started and then walked parts of them over different days. Then there are small number of streets that got walked and just didn't get ticked off the list.  Whatever the reason, this is my catch up list of streets. I am adding 11 streets to my total of streets walked.

1689. Burma Road
1690. Dalziel Road
1691. Emerson Street
1692. Hawea Street
1693. Kauri Street
1694. Morris Road
1695. Osborne Terrace
1696. Rata Street
1697. Saint Ronans Road

1698. Eton Drive

1699. Brookside Place