Central Otago Rail Trail!

Hey all,

Since we came to Dunedin we've been talking about doing the rail trail. And now with mere weeks left in our time in New Zealand, we've finally found a weekend where we could take off on the trail. The trip worked out really well as the hospital Drea works at was sponsoring an Oncology conference. The conference had booked the train out to Middlemarch for a function and we hitched a ride on the train and joined in for the dinner and entertainment the conference had arranged.

The train ride out was gorgeous. The Otago Central Rail line is a privately owned rail line that was bought by people in Dunedin. The rail line winds its way along the stunning Taieri River Gorge up to the township of Middlemarch. The rail line was originally constructed to take miners back and forth to Dunedin during the gold rush and to bring sheep back to dunedin from a number of ranch stations in central otago. The rail line was decommissioned in 1990. The segment of track was removed from the line between Middlemarch and Clyde and the rail trail opened to the public in 2001. Here are a few pics from the train ride out...

Apologies for my beard. It's the last weekend of Movember during this trip.

We were provided with wine and appetizers on our way up

We arrive in Middlemarch.

Our accommodation for the night.

The conference dinner featured a country band and line dancing afterwards. The band is not near as numerous as it looks in the above picture. If you look closely you'll see that four band members are painted wooden cutouts. The line dancing was a lot of fun but horribly organized (which actually made it more fun in my opinion). The woman teaching was down on the floor with everyone, ran through the moves once and then started everyone dancing. Problem was, she was facing the stage so you couldn't hear her and the dancing lines were about 4 deep and only the people in the first two rows could see what she was doing. Correspondingly, each successive line of the dance had an exponential amount of chaos. It was ok when the dance went side to side. Once we started going forwards, backwards and diagonally it way mayhem. But fun mayhem.

The next day we started early only to be sidetracked by a flat tire on Drea's bike. Once fixed we hit the trail...

The start of the trail!

Central Otago is known for it's rugged countryside and exposed schist geology. For Lord of the Rings fans, it's where they shot the countryside of Rohan.

The bikes taking a rest while we soaked our feet in a nearby stream.

We surprised a pair of blue ducks lounging under one of the rail bridges.

The trail has several really cool tunnels. The tunnels were hand dug in the late 1800's with bluestone and schists walls and brick roofs.
We stopped for a well deserved beer at the end of the trail and liked that there's a spot for everyone at the neighborhood pub. Including the dog.

Our accommodation for the night with another pair of trail riders that we met along the way.

A derelict bicycle fence near Ranfurly.

At this point we were feeling good! Superhero good!

So good in fact we were ready to throw our bikes over our heads. The sign behind says, "highest point". It was all downhill from here. So let's try and take a picture with the bikes over both of our heads....

Uh... close

Uh...fail

There it is!

Our favorite section of the trail was from Oturehua to our final stop in Lauder. The trail winds into the hills and passes through 2 tunnels and over a beautiful bridge...






To our final stop in Lauder. The trail actually continues on to Clyde but we only had a weekend so stopped our trip here and caught a bus home. What a great trip. The government of New Zealand is currently underway trying to build a national cycle path that would take you from one end of new zealand to the other, all on separated bike paths. I really hope they can make it a reality and that other countries (I'm looking at you, US) follow in their footsteps.

With Love,
Dave and Andrea