Tooling along tantalising trails with good friends, savouring the sunshine, admiring the scenery, anticipating the next coffee stop… Recreational cycling does not get much better than in Central Otago.
Even better when your trip is all organised for you. We couldn’t fault Clyde- (and Cromwell-) based Bike It Now, who arranged all the accommodation including breakfasts, and bag and shuttle transfers which enabled our group of eight to cycle for six seamless days.
While Bike It Now does hire mountain and e-bikes (now the norm not the exception in Central!) we all brought our own, having driven down from Tauranga via different routes to meet in Clyde for the ride; six of us on standard bikes, two on electric. Bike It Now provides a full itinerary and a briefing so comprehensive you’d have to try very hard to get lost.
We were linking the Roxburgh and Clutha Gold Trails that follow the Clutha River, then returning to Clyde to ride the well-known Otago Central Rail Trail, which tracks the original railway line between Clyde and Middlemarch.
Clyde is a pretty little historic town above the Clutha with interesting shops and plenty of places to eat. Our accommodation there was the Antique Lodge Motel, a small complex run by two friendly golden retrievers and their equally affable owners who let us leave our vehicles in their paddock while we were away cycling.
ROXBURGH GORGEOUS
The Roxburgh Trail officially starts in Alexandra. We rode there via an attractive 12-kilometre track weaving through the trees along the Clutha riverbank. Coffee in Alexandra is compulsory, going by the number of Lycra-clad latte drinkers.
Next, the best part of the entire six days, through the Roxburgh Gorge with the river right below, craggy hills either side, and only a couple of slightly gnarly bits where it pays to look where you are going rather than at the view! The several kilometres gap in the trail is filled by a jet boat ride, where our driver shared his deep knowledge of the area’s rich gold mining history and swooped from side to side to show us old mine sites. Our bikes went on the boat too of course.
More river tracks and a few steep switchbacks later we arrived at the Roxburgh hydro dam to spend the night at the Lake Roxburgh Lodge… in time to watch the America’s Cup, a daily deadline until we cheered the final race several days later on the Rail Trail.
Our second day, now on The Clutha Gold Trail, involved a short side trip for coffee in Roxburgh township and lunch outside the pub at Miller’s Flat some 30 kilometres later.
It started to rain mid-afternoon by which time we were very comfortably settled at Melrose Cottages on an apple orchard a few kms off the trail. I soaked in the outdoor bath in the drizzle while the others watched yachts race. Dinner was a sumptuous BBQ, ingredients provided by our hosts.
The weather was threatening the following morning as we started our 43-kilometre ride to Lawrence. We had just taken a short and very interesting walking detour along the Horseshoe Bend Track to a suspension bridge built in 1913 when there was a downpour. Despite raincoats, we were pretty soaked by the time we reached Beaumont, nothing that could not be solved by a whitebait sandwich and bums by the heater at the characterful Beaumont Hotel.
The rain eased as the Gold Trail left the Clutha and wound its way through countryside to Lawrence, an old Otago town with some gorgeous homesteads. Gabriel’s Gully, site of New Zealand’s first gold rush, is just up the road, worth the ride, especially on e-bikes. That was the advantage for the e-bike riders; they could go more places and do more side trips with less energy expenditure.
Bike It Now picked us up in Lawrence and ferried us the hour and a half return trip to Clyde, past some of the tracks we’d cycled and back to a waggy welcome at the motel. Next morning, we hit the next trail.
RAIL TRAILING
The Otago Central Rail Trail starts (or ends) in Clyde. As it is a rail trail and rail lines run in straight lines where possible, there are lots of long straights. The first starts right at Clyde. You can avoid it by riding along the Clutha River to Alexandra but then you’d also miss the great Industry Café beside the trail for that fix you need after a whole half hour in the saddle.
Day one from Clyde also has some long steady uphills. Luckily it was calm, as they can be challenging with a strong headwind. The straights and climbs are rewarded by the huge expanse of sky and the wide rural panorama.
Forty-four kilometres later we arrived at Lauder Railway Schoolhouse’s quirky accommodation for our first night on this trail, in time to watch NZ win the America’s Cup. We celebrated at the local Lauder pub, and were fed and entertained by its very droll publican. We got the feeling these old hotels are a dying breed as fancier options threaten to usurp them.
Waking to four degrees on a bright clear morning necessitated coffee at the cute Stationside Café before we even got on our bikes. Typical Central Otago autumn weather – freezing in the morning and gloriously warm later.
The second day (if riding it over three days as we were) on the Rail Trail is the best, for its concentration of viaducts and tunnels. Lunch at Hayes Engineering’s cafe in Oturehua, and the short detour via Ophir and its historic bridge are other highlights. We pass the trail’s highest point near Wedderburn, site of the railway shed featured in one of many paintings of this region by Grahame Sydney. We biked through Ranfurly to stay the night in the rustically luxurious Tussock Lodge, with dinner at the nearby Waipiata Hotel, fairly pumping on a Thursday night.
We left Waipiata shrouded in morning mist and biked in atmospheric gloom until the fog lifted to another perfect day. All steady, gentle downhill from here, so it was a pretty quick 52 kilometres to Middlemarch, stopping for coffee at Hyde and passing the site of a 1943 rail disaster that killed 21 people, New Zealand’s second worst after Tangiwai.
Very satisfying to arrive in Middlemarch, having happily cycled a total of 285 kilometres over six days. Bike It Now had us shuttled back to Clyde, where we farewelled the motel dogs and headed to Wanaka for some R and R. Lots of great biking there too…
