Without dreams, where are the adventures?

Links   I should have mentioned this earlier.  In case you haven’t noticed any time I mention a business or cycle trail etc I always include a link to that website, in case you want further information.  I could go through manually and add code to all the links or I could highlight the text to identify links.  As a reader, which would you prefer – underscore text or highlighted text?  Please let me know for future blogs.

“Without dreams where are the adventures?”, these were Sari’s words of wisdom this morning as we cycled along the quiet country back-roads of Central Otago.  Hawkdun Hills on our right and Black Stone Hills on our left, with the big blue sky above.  The Hawkdun Hills changing colour depending on the sun – quite captivating to watch.

Clutha Gold Cycle Trail

This is a two-day adventure from Lawrence to Lake Roxburgh Dam, (or vice versa) following the mightly Clutha Mata-au River.

Lawrence – Miller’s Flat

27 February, 2018.  Belinda dropped us off at Lawrence, an early gold mining town.  It’s a cute town with very old buildings that seem to be well cared for.  In the gold mining days Lawrence was where the highest population of Chinese were settled.

This afternoon we are following the Clutha Gold Trail, through to Miller’s Flat.  This trail passes through four settlements: Lawrence, Beaumont, Miller’s Flat and Roxburgh.  It is approx 73 kms long, full of variety; the terrain is undulating, flat and meandering – mainly travelling beside the mighty Clutha River.  That river is huge.  We rode through a 440m-long Big Hill Tunnel.

The little towns we’ve pass through have some beautiful old stone buildings, some restored and some not. I’ve learnt so much about the gold rush days – gee they were hardly souls.

We found a lovely camping ground in Miller’s Flat – Miller’s Flat Holiday Park.  The new camp owners originally came from Levin.  We were advised to go across the bridge for dinner to the Millers Flat Tavern where I ordered West Coast Whitebait fritters, salad and chips – oh boy they were delicious and Sari had lamb shanks.  As we sat down to wait for our dinner a lady from the next table started talking to us about what bike rides we had been doing.  As it turned out they had seen us cycling Mt Nicholas to Mossburn and passed us in their camper-vans as we battled wind and rain on Sunday.  One of the driver’s recognised my purple hair of all things, he said “it was blowing out the side of my helmet“.  It’s been surprising the people we have met in the different parts of Southland and Otago who have been on the same adventures as us.  Many are Kiwis tripping around in their camper-vans in small groups.

Miller’s Flat – Alexander (51 kms)

End of Clutha Gold Trail and beginning of Roxburgh Gorge Trail

28 February, 2018.  It was a very foggy start from Miller’s Flat, heading towards Roxburgh continuing alongside the mighty Clutha River.  The Roxburgh Dam was very interesting and rather large.  This is technically the end of the Clutha Gold Trail and beginning of the Roxburgh Gorge Trail (this trail takes you to Alexander including a 13 km boat trip).

The Gorge part of the trail I found tricky at times (out of my comfort zone stuff – which is easy) as I’m not a natural mountain bike rider.  So very thankful for disc brakes on my bike – they certainly help with the step downhill sections and those hair raising hair-pin turns, which I’m hopeless at.   The track had a great surface, was up and down, with stunning views.

At the end of gorge section you have the option of turning around and going back or take a boat ride to the next part of the trail.  We had organised the 13 km boat ride with Clutha River Cruises on the mighty Clutha River to take us to Doctors Point (12 kms from Alexander).  The boat driver explained the gold mining history to us and showed us a number of old goldminers’ homes.

Apparently what a lot of people do is ride in and out on the trails, choosing not to take the boat trip.  I’m glad we paid the $s, the experience was well worth it – considering I may never do this ride again.

We’re camping in Alexander Holiday Camp.  The facilities are great and this is the first time I’ve actually prepared a meal.  We often eaten out, or eat dehydrated meals with a few add-ins.  I’ve missed cooking meals.

Wealthy miner’s home – Roxburgh Gorge We had a lovely visit from (my brother) Les and (sister-in-law) Carol who where on their way back to Cromwell – shame we didn’t have enough food to feed them!

Tomorrow we start riding the Otago Rail Trail, so good night – sleep tight!!  🙂

Otago Rail Trail

Alexander – Oturehua (64 kms)

1 March 2018.  Really looking forward to finally riding some of the Otago Rail Trail.  As usual we got away in good time after being photographed by an American cyclist (Larz) who was amazed at what we are doing.  He also said “if you two were staying longer, I would have loved to have recorded a video interview“.  Yeh right we both thought.  As we cycled off Sari passed the comment “we must be starting to look really old and haggard otherwise, why are so many people amazed at what we are doing?”  That comment gave me something to ponder on for the next few kilometers – without a definite answer.

We stopped for my coffee fix at Muddy Creek Café in Omakau (the only place selling coffee).  Had a delicious peach muffin and OK coffee.  The landscape along the trail is quite stunning.  We imagined ourselves on the old steam train slowly chugging up the inclines, through the tunnels and down again to Oturehau.  The trail winds through the Ida Valley – a huge expansive valley surrounded by hills and looking very green after the rains.  This was a place I’d read about and to be finally here – in the valley cycling, was special to me.

As we cycled along the trail we came across more interesting people also riding.  This South African (couple who live in Auckland) were out enjoying the surrounds.  They were riding 10 kms out to have lunch which was nicely packed in her blue and fawn spotted bag and back again to their camper-van.  Her lipstick and helmet colours matched perfectly – she looked very classy on the trail.

We found a camping ground called The Crow’s Nest Accommodation in Oturehau.  It’s a delightful place with a variety of accommodation options where we pitched our tents.  The hosts Bill and Mel had only recently purchased (September, 2017) the camp ground.  Bill had grown up around Central Otago and was keen to return.  They had come from Tauranga.  The kitchen is very well equipped and we had the place to ourselves – it was very relaxing.

Last year I read the book “A Way Home” by Jillian Sullivan.  The book was about her building her own straw bale home here in Oturehau.  Guess what, it is next door to the camp ground.  We popped over to have a chat with Jillian but unfortunately she is away.  Her straw bale home was one of the reason’s I wanted to visit Oturehua.  Next door to her home we saw a little mud-brick building in the process of being built – it looked very cute, another material I’m very interested in.  Oh, how I wished she was at home, I’m sure we could have had an interesting conversation.  Jillian does do AirBnB which we’d tried to book the night before but was not available – that would have been an amazing experience.

We had a very nice meal at local hotel (did have to wait an hour for it) and then home to bed.

Oturehau – unplanned rest day – full of surprises

2 March, 2018.  During the night when I got up to go to the toilet I found I couldn’t walk straight – wobbled all over the place and had to hold onto objects to get to the toilet.   A very frightening experience.  A first for me but probably something some of you have experienced!  Went back to bed and hoped by the morning all would be well – but of course that was expecting a bit much.  We decided to have an unplanned rest day here in Oturehau.  We visited Hayes Engineering Works and Homestead for our coffee fix and had a quiet day relaxing and chatting with the locals.

Guess what, Jillian (straw bale home builder) arrived home in the early evening and I was able to catch up with her.  She said “I often get readers calling in and only too happy to share my home“.  She also showed me her little mud-brick building outside which she and her son are building.  It’s going to be her studio, as she is an author.  They had got the old mud-bricks from an old building within the district that was tumbling down, cleaned the bricks and now using them.  Jillian did say “building her own home has given her much joy and happiness along with the hard work, but so rewarding.”  How I would have loved to stay and learn some extra skills.  But she has given me many ideas/thoughts to ponder over the coming kilometers.

The extra day in Oturehua gave us the opportunity to get to chat to the locals a little more and get a feel for the community which seems very active and engaged.  Bill our camp host recorded for NIWA the 9 am temperature and rain fall.  The wives were baking for the up-incoming ewe sale on Monday.  One of the local women were cleaning the public toilets, and at a recent community meeting 80% of the 30 residents attended, which is quite normal.

Oturehua – somewhere on Thomson’s Gorge Track, Dunstan Mountains via St Bathans (54 kms)

3 March, 2018.  Some months ago I’d seen a section in St Bathans I thought sounded interesting! (just a phase I seem to go through) so while we were up this way, why not check out the St Bathans section.

As soon as we cycled into St Bathans I knew I couldn’t live here, and when we saw the section there was no way I could build there – no wonder it was cheap!!!  St Bathans is in a valley and would get very little sun in the winter months when it would be extremely cold and a little too far away from towns etc.  We had a very interesting hour there though.  The people we met:  firstly the abseiler from Auckland who lives in St Bathans for 3 weeks, then flies back to Auckland to work for 1 week and then returns.  He has brought an old barn and doing that up on the inside.  We had a brief hello to his girlfriend who comes over from Dunedin, she has the cutest little house – it was in the movie “Light between the oceans”.

We saw table and chairs outside the Vulcan Hotel along with an open sign, so we assumed it was open for business.  But it wasn’t open yet, they’d had a hard Saturday night and the cleaner was still working.  Luckily for us she was happy to make us a coffee give us a delicious date scone each.  Then we saw the owner of the pub, she was old – much older than us, hunched over and didn’t say a word – she gave the impression she wasn’t interested in communicating with customers yet!!

While we were waiting for our coffees etc, in walked the reason for the previous late night.  He was in charge of a group of mature male trail bike riders (from Christchurch) who had stayed the night, he’d come to settle bill – well part of it $350.00 was his share, his mate came in after and settled the rest $300 – it must have been some night!!

As we sat outside enjoying our coffee & scones, the main street (the only street) was choka with campervans, motorbike riders, utes and cars.  There was so much happening – we couldn’t quite believe what we were experiencing.

Thomson’s Gorge Track over Dunstan Mountains

This afternoon’s big ride was starting our climb over the Thomson Gorge Track, which takes us over the Dunstan Mountains to Tarras, Bendigo and on to Cromwell.  My brother Les had suggested this ride to us; he had driven over some time ago and thought it’d would be a great journey.  Motorists and cyclists have very different perspectives when checking out roads and tracks!!!  While we pushed, pulled and sweated our way up the first 3 kms or thereabouts, the rest of the ride was unique.  Being surrounded by mountains, on narrow single drive tracks (not that smooth), with no other noise than what you make yourself – it’s special to both Sari and I.  It’s the first time I didn’t feel nervous coming cautiously down the steep rocky sections of road; reckons it’s about time my confidence level improved but also about gaining confidence in my bike.  We never saw or heard another vehicle for 22 hrs – it was magic!

We are camped somewhere in the Dunstan Mountains which had a delightful little stream running between our tents.  Wide and deep enough for us to have a bath/wash and get fresh drinking water.  Tomorrow we will ride out tomorrow to Cromwell.  It’s 7.45 pm, Sari has gone to bed and I’m about to get into bed and read.  It’s been another very special day, and we feel very blessed.

When we camp the only sign you know we’ve been there is the flattened grass where we pitched our tents.    Nite nite

Mid Thomsons Gorge Track – Cromwell (65 kms)

As we hadn’t managed to get to the top of Thomson’s Gorge Track, we knew we’d be in for an early morning climb.  We weren’t to be disappointed but with the sun coming over the mountains we couldn’t complain.  Up on top of the saddle the views down to the Clutha Valley were impressive.  It was a long winding downhill, we were thankful we didn’t come up this side.

After reading the book Dust to Gold, by John Perriam, home of Shrek I’ve always dreamed of visiting the Tarras Country Store and Bendigo area.  When we finally arrived at the Cromwell – Tarras Road intersection, the Tarras Country Store was only 7 kms away but in the opposite direction.  Thankfully Sari was very accommodating and said “yes, let’s go and see your café“.  The Perriam Merino shop which is part of the Tarras Country Store has very fashionable merino garments for all the family.  It could have been very easy has spend many $s there, the clothing is beautiful and quite unusual – just as well we didn’t have room to carry any additional clothing.

After a delicious brunch it was back on the road to Cromwell, cycling around the Bendigo Loop to check the Bendigo vineyards.  The landscape is so rocky and dry you could wonder how ever do grapes grow here?

It was wonderful to return to Cromwell and be very well looked after by Les and Carol.  Time for story telling, reflections, washing and bike cleaning.

We cycle to Wanaka on Wednesday to ride the Matatapu ride on Saturday.  Then it’s off to ride the Alps to Ocean, our final adventure.  Norm (Sari’s husband) will pick us in Oamaru and drive us back to Picton around 16/17th March.  Till next time, take care out there!  GoldCard gal  🙂