Well we closed out our trip with a great day on the Otago rail trail.
It was a beautiful summer day… hot (85F) and sunny… something we’ll savor when we hit Portland in a few days. After several days with little activity, it was great to spend the day on bikes.
The central Otago region is a high desert plateau… reminded me of Montana and Wyoming. This is also the first place we’ve been in NZ that was brown… what a shock, somewhere in this country that does not get a ton of rain.
Today we biked 70KM of the 160KM trail. This is a gravel path contructed on top of an old railway line. For whatever reason today’s highways did not follow the same route as the old rail line, so for much of the time we were riding out of sight/sound of highways… just rolling through pasture land listening to birds and sheep while taking in the picturesque views of rolling hills with rock out croppings. We crossed over numerous bridges, some over 100M in length and we went through 2 tunnels, one over 200M in length. Very cool.
cycling the central Otago rail trail
We had a great lunch at the Muddy Creek Cafe and then we finished off the ride on the Alexandra-Clyde river path… a little more technical and challenging on the bikes and also in the shade which was helpful late in the afternoon.
A great end to a great vacation!!!