Day Seventy Nine Pine Hill

New Zealand is in Lockdown  Alert Level 4 which is our highest level of restrictions due to an outbreak of Covid 19 in the community. It means that I am only allowed to exercise locally.  I have not walked the streets close to home as I had thought if NZ was to go into Lockdown, then I would be able to continue my walking the streets of Dunedin.  Today I walked 3 streets

983. Pine Hill Road
984. Maxwellton Street
985. Patmos Avenue

I started my walk by walking up the hill towards Mt Cargill from my home.  It only takes about 10 minutes walking to reach farmland and the views of the city really start to open up. It was a good feeling looking at this view knowing that I have walked every street that I could see. 

As I walked around the hill  I was rewarded with a view of Pine Hill which is where I live.  I still need to walk these streets but with Lockdown, these will be the next streets that I will be walking. 

 As I started walking down the hill to Leith Valley I crossed over a bridge that goes over the Northern Motorway.  This is State Highway One and is the main road to get into the city from the North.  Normally this is a very busy road but as we are in Lockdown and the only travel allowed is for essential services (e.g. food and medicine) there was very little traffic. 

On my walk I caught a glimpse of the magnificent house built by Dunedin's first bishop.  This house is huge and was built in the 1880's by the the first Bishop of Dunedin who lived here for 50 years and raised a family of five children.

At the entrance to the property once owned by the first Bishop is the gatehouse which is, itself, a beautiful home.  The gatehouse is much smaller that the main house.

Spring is definitely in the air and it was wonderful to walk past these trees covered in beautiful blossom.  I have walked past these trees before back in April when they were losing their leaves.  

 

And finally I walked back up the hill towards home by walking up Pine Hill Road, and over the bridge over George Street which is the main street of Dunedin.  As it is Lockdown, the streets are very quiet with no traffic today. 

It might seem a strange photo but this fence is a new fence, only a few weeks old,  that replaced a very old fence that ran up the side of the road.  This is a much nicer and safer fence.  

 

Looking over the side of the fence part, I could see that road has been built up with most of the road not actually on the ground but suspended on a bridge. 

On my walk today I walked past a number of these traps which are part of the Halo Project.  The Halo Project maintains a number of predator traps to protect the native wildlife.  There are a variety of traps for possum, stoats and rats around the fringes of the city that are regularly checked by volunteers

To show that half my walk was past farmland on the edge of the city, here are some of the farm animals that I walked past today.

I walked past this lovely stone fence built from the stones that the farmer cleared from his paddocks.  This is a very old style way of making a fence but this fence is only a few years old.

I walked past these two letterboxes.  One is painted with a kereru (NZ wood pigeon) and the other is shaped like a man going walkabout.

Lastly is this painted telephone cabinet that I walked past today. 

Distance walked:  10.4  km         Walking time  1 hr 55 mins  

 

Total distance: 641.8 km        Total walking  119 hr 42 mins 

Day Seventy Eight Fairfield

Today it feels like spring with warmer weather and a few spring flowers starting to show.  I walked 10 streets today.

973. Bremner Street
974. Howorth Road
975. Duxford Crescent
976. Holyport Close
977. Sunnyhurst Drive
978. Main South Road
979. Chadwick Street
980. Flower Street
981. Bellona Lane
982. Kennedy Road

The area that I am walking was once the main road out of Dunedin but when the Southern Motorway was built in the early 1970's, Fairfield became a quiet suburb.  The streets I walked today are wide and reasonably flat. 

At the start of Fairfield is the Sunnyvale sports fields.  These are very large sports fields that are popular for weekend sports

 

On my walk today, there was only the occasional view of the surrounding hills today.  The name Fairfield was given to the farm by one of Dunedin's early settlers.

Fairfield is one of the cities newer suburbs and borders farmland. I found it interesting where the city streets end and the gravel roads to the farmland begin.

One part of Fairfield borders a wetlands area.  It is a nice quiet and pretty space in amongst the roads and houses. 

The wetlands are home to a family of pukeko.  These pukeko didn't seem to be too worried about people and I spent some time watching them feeding among the plants of the wetlands.

 It was a lovely warm, sunny day today and I noticed lots of spring colour starting to show with rhododendrons and daffidols coming to life after the cold of winter.

 

 During my walk today, I saw these coloured ladybugs on the side of the road. They are super cute and I wonder if they are placed to stop cars from parking on the grass.

I walked past a number of interesting letterboxes during my walk today.  The telepone pole with insulators really intrigued me and I loved the one with the dog on top.  The Snoopy letterbox looked like a fun letterbox and the wooden plank made me wonder about the size of the tree that it came from. 

And finally I have added the map of Dunedin with the streets I have walked in red.  The streets I have been walking in the last few weeks are on the bottom left.

Distance walked:  7.5  km         Walking time  1 hr 18 mins  

 

Total distance: 631.4 km        Total walking  117 hr 47 mins 

Day Seventy Seven Green Island

Today I walked the last few remaining streets in Green Island which were a mixture of flat walking and some small hills.  I walked 11 streets today.

962. Westland Street
963. Burgess Street
964. Jensen Street
965. Brooklyn Street
966. Trudi Place
967. Elwyn Crescent
968. Weir Street
969. Allen Road
970. Allen Road South
971. Clariton Avenue
972. Taylor Street

 

I started my walk today by walking alongside the busy off ramp of the Southern Motorway.  Recently there have been three big roundabouts built to help traffic flow exiting and entering the motorway.  

 After the busy off ramp of the motorway I enjoyed a short section of walking beside the Kaikorai Stream.  I have been following this stream off and on for quite a few months as it flows through a number of city suburbs before it reaches the sea.

 

While most of my walking today was reasonably flat, there was a small hilly section that opened out onto a playground.  This gave me the opportunity to see where I was headed in my walk and the streets that I would soon be walking on. 

It was also interesting to see the contrast where the houses (and streets) of the city finish and the farm land begins.  

 

I continued walking in this area until I eventually came out on the road behind the houses that bordered the farm land and I could look back to where I had been earlier.

As I continued on my walk, the road  changed from tarseal to gravel with houses on one side and farmland on the other.  I was also able to see Saddle Hill which continues to dominate the view looking South.

The gravel road eventually got me back to the tarseal and I finished my walk on the side of this road where I saw two different groups of Pukeko.

 

I really enjoyed seeing pukeko during my walk today.   Pukeko is the New Zealand name for a swamphen and are predominately found in swampy wetland areas although they are very adaptable and live in many areas throughout New Zealand. 

And lastly today, I walked past this wizard hat letter box .  I wonder if the owner is a Harry Potter fan. 

Distance walked:  7.8  km         Walking time  1 hr 24 mins  

 

Total distance: 623.9 km        Total walking  116 hr 29 mins 

Day Seventy Six Sunnyvale

 I was back finishing walking the streets around Abbotsford and also Sunnyvale.  I walked 23 streets today.

939. Teigmouth Street
940. Totness Street
941. Torquay Street 
942. Exeter Street
943. North Taieri Road
944. McKinlay Road
945. Lambert Street
946. Hyslop Street
947. Freeman Close
948. Abbeyfield Close
949. Will Street
950. Thomson Street
951. Pottinger Street
952. Watson Street
953. Sunnyvale Lane
954. Abbotsford Road

955. Abbotts Hill Road
956. Waldron Crescent
957. Severn Street
958. Tate Crescent
959. Grand Vista Drive
960. Reeves Street
961. Miller Street

The first part of my walk today was to finish streets that I had walked part of yesterday.  Of course these streets all involved walking either up or down a hill.  The good thing about walking hills are the views and, like yesterday, I was able to look over at the streets of Green Island which I have already walked.

 Also like yesterday, Saddle Hill dominated the view.  From this angle it is hard to see why the hill is called Saddle Hill but once I reach the streets of Mosgiel, the shape of the hill will look more like a saddle. 

I was pleased to be able to look down onto the newer part of Abbotsford where I would be walking late in the morning, once I had finished the streets on the hill.  

Another area that I would be walking once I had finished the streets on the hill were the streets of Sunnyvale which behind the sports field. 

As I walked closer to Sunnyvale, I could hear the noise of the traffic on the motorway.  I could also look across the motorway to see streets that I have not walked yet.  

The houses in this area get a good view of the surrounding hills and down onto the streets of Sunnyvale.  I have now walked all the streets in the foreground of this picture.  

I was happy to find four interesting letterboxes today.  Three of them are very solid, metal letterboxes and the forth letterbox has been made interesting by the owners. 

And something else that I spotted that I thought was interesting was both of these gates that are not connected to a fence. Other than holding up the letterbox, I am not sure what the purpose of having a gate that you can walk around.

Distance walked:  12.2  km         Walking time  2 hr 14 mins  

 

Total distance: 616.1 km       Total walking  115 hr 5 mins