Boxing Day - Gold Mine, Sheep and Getting Home
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2006
1
50
54
Trip End
Mar 30, 2007
Middlemarch, New Zealand
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Saw plenty of halfbred sheep (Merino / Romney crosses), visited the goldmine at Macraes and talked a lot about farming and farming conditions in Central Otago.
Very, very interesting!
And after 3 hours seeing the country and livestock, back for lunch with Leslie, Russell and Gray.
Leslie and Russell will be over in Ireland in April to see their daughter, and could well be driving up to Belfast to catch the ferry over to Scotland...so I trust the folks in Whinpark and Antrim will look after them, because they have been just wonderful to me over Christmas and are super, super folks!
A fond farewell to them, and a promise to come back in a couple of months before I go back to Europe.
After lunch, ripped down the wee tent and packed everything on the bike for the ride back-down to Middlemarch.
Arrived there at 3.30pm.
So about 3-4 days. 230kms. 179 photos.
The bus picked me up and drove back to Clyde, I picked up the Lantis, back to Queenstown at about 8.30pm.
One of the best Christmases ever. And a superb way to see Otago. Along with walking the Rees Valley and running the Auckland half-marathon this was the best thing I have done in NZ.
Here's the description of Hyde to Middlemarch:
"Beyond Hyde the narrow confines of the upper Taieri Gorge and the river open up to the wide spaces of the Strath Taieri plain, where you will cross flat and gently rolling landscape until you reach Middlemarch. East of the Taieri river is the 700m high Taieri Ridge, while to the west, the 1400m high Rock and Pillar Range dominates the skyline, its tops accentuated by the outlines of huge rock outcrops.
The trail crosses numerous small bridges and culverts of dressed local stone. The sites of three former railway stations are passed: Hyde which is privately owned, Rock and Pillar and Ngapuna, and south of Hyde station the trail passes the site of the Hyde Rail accident where 21 people lost their lives in June 1943.
Watch out also for a characteristic cloud formation known as the 'Taieri Pet', which forms over the Rock and Pillar range indicating that strong northwest winds are approaching"
