Otago Rail Trail

Ok - last I wrote we were going to rest a bit - and rest days mean eat "lollies" - (well I do that EVERYday but even more on rest days), do laundry, and read - so we rested in Wanaka which is BEAUTIFUL! It's a great town on a gorgeous lake - I could stay there forever.
We left there and did the Otago Rail Trail which is a 150 km trail that you can bike, horse back ride or walk. We decided to bike - no horse :) and no way I was going to walk 90 miles! It's called the rail trail because a railroad used to be there way back in the 1800s; it had been laying there dormant for years and the Dept of Conservation decided to use it for recreation - really great idea!! the best part is that trains can't get up steep hills so it makes for nice, flat riding for us! It was AWESOME!!! It was so fun to do another sport - we had been hiking a ton so it was nice to do something different. And there is just something so fun about riding bikes - makes me feel like a little kid!

The first leg takes you from the little town of Clyde to Lauder. The only things in Lauder are sheep, an old town hall, a hotel, more sheep and an old schoolhouse that is now a B&B. There wasn't a hostel of backpackers as they say here so the lady at the bike rental place told us the hotel has a "bunkhouse" in the back we could stay in. We get there and the hotel owner walks us out to this tool shed that looked like it was about to fall over and there was junk all over the ground around it...and Jessie said - haha watch that be our hostel...and she was RIGHT :) But, it turned out to be SO cute on the inside! It was TEENEY just enough room for a bunk and a space heater. Oh, and the toilet was right outside in a joined shed and it had a lock - unlike our room - so we had to lock up our cameras and money in the potty :)

Our bunkhouse obviously didn't have a kitchen where we could cook dinner so we had to go into the hotel and order food there. Turns out, the entire town comes to the hotel bar to watch rugby! It was packed - we didn't eat until 10 pm bc they were so slammed...and slammed is relative :) they only have one employee so customers would just jump behind the bar and help the bartender when he had a few drink orders to fill! haha - it was cute.

Jessie and I were some reason the hit of the night at the bar :)! Don't ask me why - there were no showers so we smelled like goats and I was wearing my cycle pants...you know, the ones that makes it look like you pooped your pants. Yep - so I am fairly certain they were just bored and people seem to love to chat with Americans :) We had all kinds of Kiwis chatting with us - asking us questions, telling us where to go, etc - it was really fun. One older man, Jessie aptly named the "Silver Fox", bought us a round of drinks and another lady pulled up a stool and sat with us for over an hour telling us all about her life! When we were walking back to our shed for bed - Jessie said it's too bad we're not as big of a hit with people our own age :) Oh well!

The next leg was Lauder to Ranfurly. If you are ever in NZ - do not go to Ranfurly. It is the twilight zone...very weird. For example, our backpackers was in an old post office building that is a hostel, dvd rental store and laundromat. Yep. Weird trio, huh? Well the owners were even weirder..and the interior of the place was awful!! I literally slept with my pants, fleece over all my layers and socks and tried to sleep as lightly as possible on the grody sheets - so when our alarm went off all I had to do was put on my shoes and I was dressed to leave :) We biked the hell out of there first thing in the morn! It was below zero Celsius so it was a chilly few hours in the morning but it was really neat to see all the farmland covered with frost. When we felt we were a safe distance from Creeptown we stopped for a coffee and muffin a teeny town called Hyde. All the towns you pass through all are just small, sleepy little farm towns - it feels like stepping back in time. So neat! One town is home to NZ's oldest general store - I think it opened in 1891 - anyway - they have all kinds of memorabilia in there - it was so cool to see!

We rode on to Middlemarch which is the last town and a shuttle picks you and your bike up and drives you back to Clyde - pretty nice, ey?

The bike ride was one of my very favorite things so far - the scenery is amazing - golden mountains in the far distance,rolling hills, green grass, rivers and streams, and acres and acres of beautiful farmland as far as the eye can see and of course heaps of dairy cows and sheep - which are my favorite :) It's definitely an NZ MUST DO :)!