If you are an arborist or topiary enthusiast, this might send you over the hedge.<\/p>\n
Dunedin author Antony Hamel is about to publish his fourth Dunedin track and trail guidebook – this time, about the hedges of Andersons Bay, which includes \u2018\u2018The Oculus Hedge\u2019\u2019 and \u2018\u2018The Hedge of Death\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
The 64-year-old lawyer by day has spent many of his evenings over the past 30 years writing the guidebooks which take people on history-laden trails of the city\u2019s disaster-stricken areas – like the Abbotsford slip and David Bain\u2019s paper run – and some of the popular walking tracks around the city.<\/p>\n
He said inspiration for his latest series came from an article in the\u00a0Otago Daily Times\u00a0about Musselburgh\u2019s \u2018\u2018hedge of death\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
The 80m-long, 5m-high and 4m-wide row of macrocarpas sits on the edge of a 40m-high cliff in Alton Ave, Musselburgh, and is known by arborists as \u2018\u2018the deadliest hedge in Dunedin\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Retired arborist Dave McPhee said he and others trimming the hedge in the early days, had a very healthy respect for the 112-year-old hedge.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s always been a very dicey hedge to touch, because in the early days we used to try to walk along the top.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The difficulty was finding the branches that would support your weight.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Who knows where you would end up – especially when you\u2019re working on the edge of a cliff face.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It would have killed you if you\u2019d fallen.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s the deadliest hedge in Dunedin.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Hamel said he had sold more than 12,000 walking guidebooks, but it had been 18 years since he had published a new one.<\/p>\n
Now fans of his publications were calling for new material.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It was inspired by the article about Dunedin\u2019s deadliest hedge in the\u00a0ODT.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018When I went and looked at it, I thought, \u2018Gee, that is deadly\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s really visible from Musselburgh.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I also have a series of very early cadastral maps, done in the 1900s by a guy called WT Neill, and it shows a series of significant hedges being planted in Vauxhall – long rows of trees down the edges of the subdivisions.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018And so I thought, well, you can go and look at \u2018Dunedin\u2019s deadliest hedge\u2019, and then you could wander over to Vauxhall and look at the Vauxhall macrocarpa hedges.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Of course, one of those is in Braeburn St – an amazing piece of topiary – a hedge with the most amazing ocular window.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The guidebook, like his others, would include information and history about each of the sites.<\/p>\n
Mr Hamel said he was part of the Summertime Walkers group which did weekly walks around the city, and he had tested his latest guidebook on its members.<\/p>\n
It seemed to go down well with them, he said.<\/p>\n