Daily Photo: Saddle Hill in Dunedin

One of the more overlooked features of the Dunedin landscape is, rather ironically, one of the hardest to miss. Saddle Hill sits out to the west of the city, visible from all manner of places, yet rarely seems to attract much attention. It’s a bit like an old neighbour you’ve lived beside for years, someone you acknowledge in passing but never quite get around to visiting. Unless it snows, of course. Then Saddle Hill suddenly becomes the subject of local conversation, with the familiar observation, “There was snow on Saddle Hill this morning.” In Dunedin, this is less a weather report than a polite warning that winter hasn’t quite finished with us yet.

About 18 kilometres west of the city centre, Saddle Hill rises to 473 metres. Hardly a mountain by international standards, although it would be churlish to hold that against it. A visit to the lookout on its northern slope rewards you with a fine view across the Taieri Plains, stretching westwards towards Lake Waihola, some 25 kilometres away.

Saddle Hill is also something of a geological old-timer, having been around for millions of years. It began when molten rock pushed its way through the Earth’s crust and cooled into a hard volcanic plug. The surrounding, softer landscape gradually wore away, leaving the more stubborn rock standing proud. And there it remains, its distinctive saddle shape a reminder that sometimes the best way to survive the passage of time is simply to be a little harder to shift than everything around you.