Daily Photo – A Stroll along the Silver Stream
If you’re familiar with the geographical make-up of Dunedin city, you can probably afford to skip the next few sentences and skim further down the page. For the uninitiated, Mosgiel is a suburb roughly 15 kilometres from the city centre, a place that sits somewhere between suburban living, retirement homes and a country town. It was here that I found myself on an idle Tuesday evening.
I can’t say I’ve spent much time in Mosgiel, apart from the occasional visit to the rugby ground or a quick stop at the supermarket or takeaway, so I decided to take a stroll along the Silver Stream. It was autumn, and over the previous few days the afternoons had taken on a noticeable chill as the light lingered into the evening – perfect walking weather.
If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s Silver Stream walk that’s classified as “hard”, described as covering rough, uneven ground with partly cleared vegetation, the odd marker to guide the way, and short stretches where the track becomes steep. As I wasn’t evening adventurous, on this occasion, I opted for something far more sedate, a gentle walk along the floodbank on the edge of town. Having identified a likely starting point, I parked the car and set off along a path that followed the river with an easy sort of confidence.
Every so often I passed a fellow walker and we’d exchange a casual “hello”, but otherwise I was left to quietly take in the surroundings. Lush paddocks stretched out on either side, farm machinery sat idle in the distance, and beyond it all rose the outline of the Maungatua Range. I walked on and on, sometimes stopping to look more closely at something, sometimes pausing for a brief chat. It really was a most pleasant sort of walk, the kind that asks very little of you. Eventually, though, the light began to fade and it became time to retrace my steps and remember the way back to the car.
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