New Zealand Explorer Motorhome Tour - Days 31-32

In Dunedin we were joined by a fellow Club member on a 40k cycle on Otago Central Rail Trail. 

We were collected from the campsite and driven out of Dunedin on Highway 87, a stunning, twisting high moorland route littered with rocks. In the low cloud it was easy to see why the area was yet another film location for Lord of the Rings.

In Middlemarch we were fitted out with our bicycles and then driven to Ranfurly where the sun now shone and we joined New Zealand’s first Rail Trail, opened in 2000. Just 7km along the track we had the important task of stopping at the pub in Waipiata, sadly not to replenish our sports bottles with beer, but to collect our packed lunches for the day!

The 152km former railway line starting in Alexandra is well set up for cycle tourism and we passed eco-toilets, shelters and information boards along the gentle gradient. Frustratingly we had a keen headwind which necessitated pedalling downhill so we even formed our own mini peloton for a stretch and we were glad of excuses to stop and rest to photograph the wide green valley and viaducts.

With plenty of time to spare we took our Driver’s option of continuing further along the trail to an agreed rendezvous. We had enough time for a cup of tea back at the depot before we were driven to a remote train station at Pukerangi. Here there were tracks instead of cycleway and the final element of our day was on the Taieri Gorge Railway, which was built to service the area’s gold rush but fell victim to economic depression in the 1880’s. 

The 90 minute journey back to the 1906 Flemish Renaissance-style Dunedin Railway Station was breath taking as we dropped 250 meters through cuttings, viaducts and a tunnel high above the Taieri River.

The campsite at St Kilda was a short bus ride from the city centre and a sand-dune hike away from the beach. We took a walk north along the beach and saw huge colourful 15cm mussels nestled in the rock pools.