March 12th to18th – Dunedin and Otago Rail Trail here we come!
Lucy and Rowena Say:....
My go again, this is getting a bit of a habit…
The following morning the children did a bit of work about the dolphins in Curio Bay. They are quite special as they don’t get fed here but are always around and come in really close to the shore and will even swim between you.
I am not one for getting in the sea at the best of times, unless it is really warm, like in Fiji or have a thick wet suit on, however the thought of having a dolphin swim next to me tempted me!
It was freezing, but after a while once your feet and legs had frozen and you had no feeling left it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately I got knocked off my feet and lost my prescription sun glasses , so if David Attenborough makes a series about the blind dolphins of Curio Bay …….
I know we are not far (relatively speaking) from the Antarctic, but I didn’t expect to wake up the next morning to find the temperature had dropped from 28 degrees to 4 degrees! The weather had changed during the night with torrential rain and Southerly winds, I woke in the night and all I could think about was that the children’s body boards had been left propped up next to the van. I couldn’t go back to sleep, Greg seemed unwilling to go and check on them so….I found them the other side of the campsite! It was much warmer inside than out!!
We wandered along the beach the other side from Curio Bay and found a couple of Yellow eyed penguins huddled behind rocks to keep out of the wind and a petrified forest, where you could clearly see the tree trunks that had fossilised where they had fallen and hundreds of tree stumps. I am sorry but it was much more spectacular than the one at Lulworth Cove.
That night we stayed at an amazing cap site, even more amazing as we were the only ones there. It had a fully equipped kitchen, brand new, so I indulged in a cooking frenzy making crumble, a cake, some bread and Rowena cooked tea for us, grated courgette, onion and cheese, fried like an omelette, Yummy.
Still very cold.
.
Arrived in Dunedin and treated ourselves to a night in a cabin as we were so cold. It had a heater.. we kept it on all night, lovely.
Wandered around Dunedin, and got persuaded by A&R to do the tour around the Cadbury factory, Greg was convinced when he found out that they gave you samples, not quite a brewery tour but next best thing.
It was quite interesting they explained how you got different types of chocolate ie dark, milk and white. And we all got our chocolate samples....
Went to see a very nice man in the Immigration office, who as it wasn’t very busy and extended our visas for a further 3 months, so we can now stay here until end on August, but we do need to enter Australia by the 23.8.07, so we won’t stay that long. But we are thinking of trying to find a house to rent for a couple of months and stay in one place for a while.
Headed out of Dunedin to Middlemarch to start the Otago rail trail the next day. Stayed at a campsite called Blind Billy’s no prizes for guessing how it got its name!!
The Otago Rail Trail follows the old Railway line between Middlemarch and Clyde, which was part of the line between Dunedin & Queenstown and is 151 km long! Rowena and I were doing the first leg which is 27 km! The reason for this is because Alistair has decided that he wants to cycle the furthest so he has chosen to do the longest sections.
It was cold and then it started raining, then hailing, fortunately we happened across a railway workers hut and took shelter from the elements. Once it eased off we continued on to meet Greg & Alistair at the first station. I felt sorry for any other bikers as they didn’t have their own moving refreshment station like us (didn’t feel sorry enough to invite them in for a coffee!!)
The Rail trail is a great track as it’s basically in the middle of nowhere. It runs through a valley along side the Rock and Pillar Mountains. The landscape is very bleak with grass covered mountains around you. The colours though, were beautiful…when the sun was out they appeared different shades of green, but when the sun when in the vegetation changed to a deep dark green, but the grass was a yellowy brown colour.
We changed over riders at Hyde, after 27km and then Rowena and I drove to Ranfurly where we were staying the night and waited for a very windblown Greg & Alistair to turn up!!
By Rowena
Mummy and I started at the campsite in Middlemarch and went to the first station , that was Ngapuna then we went to Rock and Pillar and met Daddy and Alistair, we had a cup of soup while we waited for the rain to stop.
After that we went on to Hyde and met them again, It was very windy and we stopped in a shelter to get out of the wind and rain and hail.
We drove down to Ranfurly and found a campsite and I did my Maths and we went to meet Alistair and Daddy.
My go again, this is getting a bit of a habit…
The following morning the children did a bit of work about the dolphins in Curio Bay. They are quite special as they don’t get fed here but are always around and come in really close to the shore and will even swim between you.
I am not one for getting in the sea at the best of times, unless it is really warm, like in Fiji or have a thick wet suit on, however the thought of having a dolphin swim next to me tempted me!
It was freezing, but after a while once your feet and legs had frozen and you had no feeling left it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately I got knocked off my feet and lost my prescription sun glasses , so if David Attenborough makes a series about the blind dolphins of Curio Bay …….
I know we are not far (relatively speaking) from the Antarctic, but I didn’t expect to wake up the next morning to find the temperature had dropped from 28 degrees to 4 degrees! The weather had changed during the night with torrential rain and Southerly winds, I woke in the night and all I could think about was that the children’s body boards had been left propped up next to the van. I couldn’t go back to sleep, Greg seemed unwilling to go and check on them so….I found them the other side of the campsite! It was much warmer inside than out!!
We wandered along the beach the other side from Curio Bay and found a couple of Yellow eyed penguins huddled behind rocks to keep out of the wind and a petrified forest, where you could clearly see the tree trunks that had fossilised where they had fallen and hundreds of tree stumps. I am sorry but it was much more spectacular than the one at Lulworth Cove.
That night we stayed at an amazing cap site, even more amazing as we were the only ones there. It had a fully equipped kitchen, brand new, so I indulged in a cooking frenzy making crumble, a cake, some bread and Rowena cooked tea for us, grated courgette, onion and cheese, fried like an omelette, Yummy.
Still very cold.
.
Arrived in Dunedin and treated ourselves to a night in a cabin as we were so cold. It had a heater.. we kept it on all night, lovely.
Wandered around Dunedin, and got persuaded by A&R to do the tour around the Cadbury factory, Greg was convinced when he found out that they gave you samples, not quite a brewery tour but next best thing.
It was quite interesting they explained how you got different types of chocolate ie dark, milk and white. And we all got our chocolate samples....
Went to see a very nice man in the Immigration office, who as it wasn’t very busy and extended our visas for a further 3 months, so we can now stay here until end on August, but we do need to enter Australia by the 23.8.07, so we won’t stay that long. But we are thinking of trying to find a house to rent for a couple of months and stay in one place for a while.
Headed out of Dunedin to Middlemarch to start the Otago rail trail the next day. Stayed at a campsite called Blind Billy’s no prizes for guessing how it got its name!!
The Otago Rail Trail follows the old Railway line between Middlemarch and Clyde, which was part of the line between Dunedin & Queenstown and is 151 km long! Rowena and I were doing the first leg which is 27 km! The reason for this is because Alistair has decided that he wants to cycle the furthest so he has chosen to do the longest sections.
It was cold and then it started raining, then hailing, fortunately we happened across a railway workers hut and took shelter from the elements. Once it eased off we continued on to meet Greg & Alistair at the first station. I felt sorry for any other bikers as they didn’t have their own moving refreshment station like us (didn’t feel sorry enough to invite them in for a coffee!!)
The Rail trail is a great track as it’s basically in the middle of nowhere. It runs through a valley along side the Rock and Pillar Mountains. The landscape is very bleak with grass covered mountains around you. The colours though, were beautiful…when the sun was out they appeared different shades of green, but when the sun when in the vegetation changed to a deep dark green, but the grass was a yellowy brown colour.
We changed over riders at Hyde, after 27km and then Rowena and I drove to Ranfurly where we were staying the night and waited for a very windblown Greg & Alistair to turn up!!
By Rowena
Mummy and I started at the campsite in Middlemarch and went to the first station , that was Ngapuna then we went to Rock and Pillar and met Daddy and Alistair, we had a cup of soup while we waited for the rain to stop.
After that we went on to Hyde and met them again, It was very windy and we stopped in a shelter to get out of the wind and rain and hail.
We drove down to Ranfurly and found a campsite and I did my Maths and we went to meet Alistair and Daddy.
posted by greg and lucy | 4:02 PM
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