Ross Creek

There are a quite a few very nice hikes on the fringes of Dunedin.  It’s amazing how close they are yet how few people know about them or take advantage of them.  The Ross Creek Reservoir and its surrounding trails are great examples of such places.  As always, a beautiful long hike is a great way for me to relax and rejuvenate after a long week.  It’s becoming a regular thing for my good Swedish friend Stina and I to go exploring on Friday mornings while everyone else is nursing Thursday night hangovers as they amble to class. 

It’s striking how similar the social pattern is to that at DU. Personally, spending my Thursday nights kickboxing and feeling jazzed for a Friday morning hike are more fulfilling ways to spend my time now, especially when I’m limiting myself to going out to only one night a week.  Who knows, maybe I’m getting, dare I say it?, old.  Saturday night is usually all that I need and sometimes that is even too much.  The same clubs every weekend and the same inebriated antics all over town have lost their novelty I guess.  I prefer kicking back with a group of good friends, loosening up, having good conversation (that can actually be spoken rather than screamed over horrible new age music) and dancing like self-respecting people (without the need to constantly be gyrating against someone else’s pelvic bones). 

But to each his own.  I went through the partying phase once and may go back again.  Right now though I’m in the do-what-I-came-to-New-Zealand-for phase:  exploring nature.  It’s thrilling that, also so similar to DU, there are spectacular wild things to be had just down the road and some lovely people to see them with me.

People (exempting many uni students) in New Zealand are soooo nice!  A woman and her dog Honey (below) joined us for our walk to the reservoir and on a a few other side trails to show us around.  So unnecessary of her but so nice.

Stina and me doing something nice :)

Stina and me doing something naught :) 

Not bad views...

New Zealand in Maori is Aotaeroa, meaning "land of the long white cloud."  I feel that it is a good name, especially since the hills fringing Dunedin are regularly shrouded in cloud, their tops poking through the white blanket remind me of the spine of a humpback whale breaking the layers of ocean foam just before a dive. 

I'm not sure why, maybe the changing colors and the way the light was illuminating the plants, but when we turned the trail's corner and found this scene, I couldn't help but feeling like I was back in Evergreen.