Update on the trip

I went to see my GP on the Monday after I got back from the trip, as the doctor at the medical centre in Queenstown had said if my jaw hadn't settled down in 2-3 weeks I might need to see a specialist. He poked and prodded and agreed to refer me. I rang up to book an appointment at a private clinic a couple of days later, and was told the earliest appointment they could make was the 24th of... June. But they also offered to put me on the 'short notice' waiting list. Since my work hours are quite flexible, this was not a problem. A little over a week later I got the call asking me to come in the next day (Tuesday 13th). They did a CT scan of my jaw, which showed that it was actually broken.

The good news is I don't have to have my jaw wired shut, or surgery or anything at this stage. There is a bit of a kink in the bone at the fracture (which is located about level with the earlobe on the right hand side of my face) but providing I don't chew too much and refrain from contact sports and don't fall off my bike again (just as well it's winter ay?) it should heal reasonably well by itself. The soft tissue in the joint will supposedly sort itself out but might take a year or two.

I go back for a quick check on 4 June.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

In other news...

1) I'm now an auntie to Aaron Stuart, born 24 April. Congrats to Stu and Nicola!

2) This weekend we start training in earnest for our marathon walk in Brisbane on 2 August

3) I go to Melbourne next week for a workshop and to give an invited talk

South Island day 23: Kaikoura to home

The good thing about autumn is you don’t have to get up super early to see the sunrise.

Not much to report on the rest of the day: we drove from Kaikoura to Picton, had lunch, and got the ferry back to Wellington. Again it was a pretty smooth crossing.

Once I got back home I collated all the GPS data. Here are the totals:
Driving: 2599.5 km
Biking: 325.2 km (of which the rail trail was 268.5 km)
Walking: 8 km (we did more than this, but most of the time they were such short walks I left the GPS in the car)
Boats: 452.3 km
Shuttles: 337.6 km (i.e. other people driving us)
Trains: 77.2 km
Planes: 129.1 km (not counting the helicopter ride at Franz Josef; I forgot to take the GPS)

Total: 4197.4 km!

So that's all folks. Until next time. We will be back, as we have unfinished business with the Milford track...

South Island day 22: Dunedin to Kaikoura

Today was a long, long drive – about 550 km. We left Dunedin around 8:30 in the morning and arrived in Kaikoura around 6:00. We had a few stops along the way at the Moeraki boulders and Oamaru, and at Ashburton for lunch.

We were tossing up whether to bypass Christchurch or not. Neither of us had visited since the earthquakes, and since we were making fairly good time we decided to have a wander around. I’m glad we did, if only to see for ourselves what the central city is still like. Buildings in various states of falling down, the new Cashel St mall made out of shipping containers (which are looking semi-permanent), people wandering around getting on with their lives despite the cracks in footpaths and walls everywhere.

Cashel St mall

What's left of the cathedral

Visitor centre

South Island day 21: Otago rail trail, Kokonga-Middlemarch-Dunedin

The final day of our rail trail journey, and we knew it was going to be a long one distance-wise. However it was also mostly downhill, so we were able to make good progress. The weather looked ominous as we started out, and within half an hour or so it started raining. This was the first rain that we’d really had (apart from some light drizzle on the way out to St Bathans and riding through the fog up to Naseby). But 20 minutes later the sun came out again, again giving us some pretty cool cloud formations. Lunch was at Rock and Pillar Station, and shortly after leaving there we needed our raincoats again. The last 10 km into Middlemarch it started to get quite windy and cold along with the rain which showed no sign of letting up, so it was a case of head down, keep grinding, not far to go now. We all made it, and found the place where our shuttle would depart from without too much difficulty. After some initial concerns by Raewyn’s dad earlier in the week that we might not arrive in time, we actually got there nearly 2 ½ hours early. That gave us plenty of time to change and warm up before all loading up in the ute that was to drive us back to Dunedin.

(Total distance biking: 44.4 km, 268.6 km cumulative)

Raincoats on

The sun coming out

Raincoats off

Awesome sky

Ominous clouds

We made it!

The final stamp

Drying off

South Island day 20: Otago rail trail, Ranfurly-Kokonga

Kokonga is not that far from Ranfurly – about 18 km. Our first choice of accommodation for the night would have been at Hyde, which is about equidistant from Ranfurly and Middlemarch. But unfortunately everywhere in and near Hyde was booked out when we started planning the trip last August. Naseby is about 14 km from Ranfurly, making it a nice side trip for a day and then a reasonably short ride along the trail to our next stop. So actually it worked out quite well in the end.

Why go to Naseby? Aside from being another picturesque little town, it is home to an all-year indoor curling rink. Basically like bowls, on ice. Raewyn’s parents hired a car from Ranfurly, and her uncle and aunt happened to be on holiday in the area too, so they came and joined us. It was lots of fun, although a bit frustrating at times because you would think that you delivered the stone with about the same amount of force, and one time it wouldn’t get over the line and the next time it would go out the back.

Although it was quite foggy when we were biking up to Naseby, by afternoon the fog had all burned off and we had some very cool cloud formations. Our accommodation at Kokonga was in a homestay with four other people who were also biking the trail.

(Total distance biking: 47.2 km, 224.2 km cumulative)

Riding through the fog to Naseby

Raewyn and her dad showing teamwork in sweeping

The motley curling crew

Back on the trail

Scene between Waipiata and Kokonga

South Island day 19: Otago rail trail, Lauder-Ranfurly

Today was going to be a pretty long day as well, as we were meeting up with Raewyn’s parents in Ranfurly. The trail from Lauder to Oturehua passes through a gorge with some impressive viaducts and a couple of short tunnels. In other words, a number of photo opportunities. We arrived in Oturehua at around 11:30 and decided to have an early lunch there. This also gave us time to visit Gilchrist’s General Store, the longest continually running store in New Zealand and, like the hardware store in Invercargill we visited, was half-museum half-shop. They had some old-style lollies for sale and we couldn’t resist availing ourselves of some giant Jaffas (remember them?).

From Oturehua it was a bit more of a climb to the highest point on the trail. From there it was downhill to Wedderburn, about 8 km away, which we managed to ride solely on gravity and a tailwind – no pedalling! Then from Wedderburn to Ranfurly we were averaging around 30 km/hr across the Maniototo valley. Here the trail is dead straight and slightly downhill, and we still had a tailwind. We passed a number of people battling into the wind going the other way, and basically smiled and said nothing. What can you say? ‘Only 25 km to go...’?

Raewyn’s parents had also made good time and arrived in Ranfurly in the early afternoon. We rewarded ourselves with a break from cooking dinner and went out for a meal at the pub instead.

(Total distance biking: 49.9 km, 177.0 km cumulative)

Light and colours at the Poolburn Gorge

One of the Poolburn Gorge tunnels

Raewyn on the Poolburn Gorge viaduct

Gilchrist's general store, Oturehua

The sign says it all!

Riding across the Maniototo plains towards Ranfurly

South Island day 18: Otago rail trail, St Bathans

Today we parted ways temporarily. Raewyn and I were staying two nights at Lauder, then biking from Lauder to Ranfurly in one day, while her parents were taking two days on the trail to get to Ranfurly, overnighting at Oturehua.

We headed off on some backcountry roads to St Bathans, an old gold mining village and site of the Blue Lake, once the largest man-made pit in the southern hemisphere. Again it was uphill going there and downhill coming back – although we only really noticed the difference in that we were able to go about 10 km/hr faster coming back.

(Total distance biking: 55.5 km, 127.1 km cumulative)

Heading up to St Bathans

Blue Lake

Blue Lake

Riding through the 'moonscape'

Better weather coming back to Lauder

South Island day 17: Otago rail trail, Alexandra-Lauder

The day dawned with some more ‘weird cloud’ hanging around the hills (which by this point was becoming less weird). We had a fairly long day ahead of us: 37 km from Alexandra to Lauder. This section of the trail is predominantly uphill. In places it’s not so noticeable, although at Tiger Hill we did notice it and decided to break the climb up into a ‘before lunch’ and an ‘after lunch’ section. What goes up must come down, and the downhill coming into Lauder was much appreciated by all.

Our accommodation was at the Lauder Store: a mud-brick building with all the mod cons (except for a TV, the absence of which just added to the charm really). They had scraped off the plaster from some of the interior walls to show the bricks, which was really cool.

(Total distance biking: 46.4 km, 71.6 km cumulative)

Group photo where I'm not sure everyone knows what they're doing!

Perfect weather for a bike ride

Approaching Tiger Hill

Raewyn's parents battling up Tiger Hill

The view at our lunch stop

Downhill to Lauder

The Lauder Store

South Island day 16: Otago rail trail, Dunedin-Clyde-Alexandra

This was it! - the start of the second major activity of our holiday (the first being the Milford track). The first day was always going to be a bit cruisy, since it involved 3 hours on a train, 2 hours in a shuttle, and a gentle 8 km on a bike.

The train in question was the Taieri Gorge Railway. Here are a couple of photos:

Crossing the Wingatui viaduct.

'The Notches'.

All the transport and bag/bike transfer operators work like a well-oiled machine. We found the shuttle and were soon on our way towards Alexandra, where we would be staying the first night and therefore where our bags needed to be dropped off.

The Otago central rail trail extends from Middlemarch (the end of the Taieri Gorge line) to Clyde. There was a slight dilemma in the Clyde-Alexandra leg, because as well as the 8 km section of the rail trail, there is also a scenic river track which is about 13 km long. I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to do, so Raewyn and I decided to do both, by getting off with our luggage at Alexandra, biking along the river track to Clyde, and back to Alex along the rail trail. In the meantime Raewyn’s parents were dropped off by the shuttle at Clyde and just rode the rail trail section. So everyone was happy.

(Total distance biking: 25.2 km)

River track

Start of the rail trail with pretty autumn colours

First major bridge

South Island day 15: Invercargill to Dunedin

We left Invercargill fairly early and continued on the ‘Southern Scenic’ route to Dunedin, via the Catlins. There were a number of places we had read about that we wanted to visit on the way, so here they are in pictures:

Waipapa Point. The lighthouse here was quite reminiscent of the one at Cape Reinga. We also saw some sea lions in the grass – a couple only after we had passed them, which was a little disconcerting!

Curio Bay. One of only three places in the world where a petrified forest can be viewed, and here only at low tide – which it happened to be. Cue a bunch of tourists who ignore half a dozen signs about not going further than the yellow rope, due to penguins nesting. Anyway the petrified logs (horizontal lines) were cool to see.

McLean Falls. 30 minutes’ walk in, 10 minutes’ walk out makes for a 40 minute round trip. I think we both decided these were the best waterfalls we had seen on the trip. Highly recommended!

Florence Hill lookout. We could see Stewart Island from here.

Purakaunui Falls. As on most postcards from the Catlins. The walk from the carpark is only about 5-10 minutes, but if you had to choose between these and McLean Falls, I would say go to the latter.


We arrived in Dunedin with just enough time to join a ‘short tour’ at the Cadbury factory, then met up with Raewyn’s parents at the motel and spent the evening packing for the Otago central rail trail.