Trees true to their calling

The Exchange area was the centre of early Dunedin. Before foreshore reclamation, it was coastline where the harbour lapped ashore. Early Māori used it as a waka landing zone and it was where early Pākehā took their first steps in the new town.

Just a few hundred metres up the hill is a park that harks back in time too, Jubilee Park. In 1887 it was known as Tomlinson’s Paddock, when it was co-opted for the planting of an oak grove to mark the jubilee of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. A plaque says:

Thro’ the coming years we trust

When we are voiceless in the dust

Dunedin’s children brave and strong

Will guard Victoria’s Grove from wrong

Cringe, are we? There was once a council rubbish dump here. A huge hole in the 1930s put the park out of bounds for children. But we’ve done fine. The oak trees remain. Surrounded now by natives, they fly a majestic orange against an autumn sky.

Children are welcome again; there are three junior soccer fields. They’re used for all sorts of sport. There’s a mountain bike track. There’s a 3km tangle of bush walking tracks, a kitten’s ball of wool. Dogs love it and they’re allowed off leash. Turns out, it’s also the perfect place to bring one’s wife to break up with her, not long after her brother’s suicide, due to wanting to "find" oneself. Dogs are the lifeblood of this place though. It was a dog licking my face that brought me round after fainting on hearing the news.

Dogs break down the barriers. Dog owners chat away to strangers as the Jubilee Park playing fields become a playground for previously unacquainted dogs, their people indulgently enjoying the doggie pleasure. As one owner said, it’s like being a kindergarten parent, having a rest as your wee one self-entertains. For a while you are just "That Dog’s Owner". As she said, dogs make you smile. Dogs love their people with an open-hearted loyalty.