Taitua Arboretum (Summer)

In 2017 I returned to living in Hamilton, New Zealand (I had gone to University and worked there for a few years after in the 1980s).  I had a job there teaching for the year, not something I enjoyed very much (due to the NCEA program and lack of student motivation), and owned a house in Dinsdale for about 12 months while doing that job, then being unemployed for months afterward.

A 4km walk from the Dinsdale Countdown supermarket is a lovely nature reserve called Taitua Aboretum, containing a variety of trees, and wildlife.  Once my job ended in December, I spent many early (pre-dawn departure) walks out and around there.

One of my interests is fictional writing (in addition to blogging about my walking adventures), and it was on a walk out to the arboretum that I had the idea for a tetralogy of murder-mystery novels based on the four seasons, each set in or around the arboretum.  The core of the books centre around the disappearance of a teenage girl and the effects that has on the community.

Anyway, long story short, I began taking photos of my walks during the summer, and then again during the autumn, I guess as both a way to remind me of the images from those seasons of the year and as a way to inspire me later when I knew I would not be living in this neighbourhood nor have as easy access to this area.  As I sold the house in May and left Hamilton once again, I (as yet) did not have the opportunity to take photos during the winter or spring months.

These are the summer pictures, mostly of areas within the arboretum itself.  The autumn ones will come in a post, here, that mostly depicts the walk out to the arboretum from Dinsdale.