The Central Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand is the driest region in the country. It sits in the rain shadow of the Southern Alps, and reminds me of some parts of the dry American west. It is relatively flat.
The Otago Rail Trail follows an old railway grade and is 152 km long. Since it follows a railway grade, there are no really steep uphill or downhill sections, so it's a pretty easy ride. It is an important economic factor for the region, and support structure is excellent. We arranged our accomodations and trip logistics for the rail trail before heading to New Zealand, as the trail is fairly popular and accomodations and resources in general are limited.
People normally ride the trail from Clyde, in the northwest, to Middlemarch, in the southeast. That's because of the predominant wind direction and the fact that there's less elevation gain traveling that direction. However, when we finished the trail we wanted to rent a car and continue traveling to the west, so it made more sense for us to do the trail in reverse.
We were renting bicycles through shebikeshebikes. We also arranged our overnight accomodations through them, and they shuttled our bags for us. As a result, each day all we had to carry was a little food and water, raingear, and our cameras and binoculars. When we got to our destination, our bags magically appeared. It was a flawless operation, and we highly recommend them. Dona loved her bike so much I got her one just like it for her birthday!
Because of our time constraints, we had gotten the last train up the Taieri Gorge from Dunedin. Our train only ran as far as Pukerangi, not Middlemarch, where we were starting our ride, so the folks from SheBikesHeBikes met us at the train and brought us up to Middlemarch. Pukerangi is basically a turn-around point for the train on days it doesn't go clear to Middlemarch; there are no public services there other than a toilet and a picnic table.
The folks at SheBikesHeBikes outfitted us with bikes, panniers and a guide-book for the trail, plus answering questions and giving us hints about things to see and do along the way. Of particular importance was where we could obtain food and drinks; the towns / way-stations along the way are tiny, and some have no grocery or snack operations. Then they dropped us off at Jack's Stone Cottage where they had arranged for us to spend the night.
|
|
| Jack's Stone Cottage |
We dumped our gear and hopped on our bikes to check out Middlemarch. We found Maggie's Store, where we bought snacks for the next day or two; Among the items we purchased was some licorice. There were two small rolls of the stuff in small plastic baggies, labelled simply "licorice." We bought them both, and assumed they were a locally made item we would be able to find all along our way. That was a big mistake — it was the best licorice ever, probably made by Maggie; in any case it was available nowhere else. We should have asked if she had any more, and bought her out!
We asked Maggie if she had grown up there, and she said yes, on a "small" sheep station (ranch) of "about 3,000 hectares." That's about 7,500 acres... their neighbor had a "large" place of about 26,000 acres. It's dry country so it takes a fair amount of land to feed a ewe and lamb, but any way you slice it their's was a good-sized sheep operation.
We had an excellent steak dinner at the Strath Taieri Hotel; built in the 1890's, it claims to be the last remaining pub in Middlemarch.
After dinner we rode down to the start of the rail trail to check it out and watched the sun set.
 |
 |
 |
| Hand Cart |
 |
We took five days to ride the trail; you can easily do it in three, but this way we thought we could enjoy the countryside more. We're glad we did.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Day 1
Middlemarch to Hyde |
Day 2
Hyde to Ranfurly |
Day 3
Ranfurly to Oturehua |
Day 4
Outurehua to Omakau |
Day 5
Omakau to Clyde |
What a fun five days! Then we were off to the Southern Alps.
This page last updated on 2016-11-29.
