Mt Cargill: View from the Top

This past Saturday, the 11th of March, I decided to take a little bike ride. I did not know where I would go, but just headed out in one direction - North along the Otago harbour coast. After many ups and downs (although fewer and less severe than those not along the coast), and just before reaching Port Chalmers, Dunedin's main port city where the harbour meets the ocean, I headed up Mt Cargill Road, and began my ascent up the backside of William Cargill's big hill. He is one famous dude - mountain, city, Tunnel Beach...I suppose being the founding father of the otago region gets you some acclaim, especially considering that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Dunedin was New Zealand's first city...

The view I included looks down on the harbour, across to the peninsula, from halfway up the side of Mt Cargill. You may be interested to learn that Mt Cargill is an outcrop that still remains of the massive shield volcano that used to cover the region, of which the harbour is the crater, and the peninsula the lip on the other side. This makes most of the rocks in the area andesitic and rhyolitic, for you geologists out there. Mt Cargill is the highest point above the city.

It took me nearly an hour and a half to bike and hike to the top, and then twenty minutes of curvy, downhill coasting all the way back down the other side and into the city of Dunedin at the bottom of the valley! A good bike ride, which also compelled me to purchase a longer seat post for my bike, as it quickly became tiresome not being able to extend my legs all the way. A sweet little bike trip, and more to come.