So I wrote this 3 months ago and thought I’d published it – apparently not!! Hope you enjoy now – just imagine it is late October 2019 and it’ll make sense – haha!!
I’ve been in Dunedin about a month now and the family is coming down next week. The weather is looking to be rather nice so what’s the best thing to do on my last weekend without the family around. You guessed it, a bike ride sounds rather delightful! So we started at Steve’s place in Mosgiel and had 3 hours before he needed to be at a baby shower – yes, priorities and all that!!!
With so many options staring us in the face as we scouted Google Maps and so little time, we just decided to hit the first good option we could see, and that was a little place called Hindon, a tiny little settlement in behind Outram that’s also a stop on the famous Taieri Gorge Railway. A road looped in and out of the area so off we headed with a whoop and a smile, waved and cheered on by Steve’s kids as we burned away!!
At Outram we headed off the main road up George King Memorial Drive, a very royal sounding road, that heads off to a small place in the middle of nowhere. We got into the hills and then started to follow our nose, what a feeling it is when you can just follow your nose and see where it takes you. It’s feels so free and the things you find feel so much more rewarding because you come on them unintentionally. And we got just that as we came over a ridge the valley, railway and road stretched off out in front of us. It was just spectacular.
After a break and a snack, we wound down to the bottom of the valley to a bridge in the gorge and there was the Taieri Gorge Railway line passing right through Hindon Station. Wow, what a spot it is. We were just in awe of the beauty and isolation of a spot that was less than 20km as the crow flies from the Octagon in central Dunedin. You just can’t beat riding for an hour out of town to get somewhere like this. We were just loving it!!
We left the valley and spent the next 20 minutes dodging cattle and calves, and sheep and lambs. We’d spotted a really awesome looking road on the far side of the valley disappeared onto the skyline, you can just make it out on the photo above the video. We wondered where that might head, and as the livestock ran out we reached the end of a dead end road. As we turned around we found a very friendly farmer who confirmed we could go no further, as much as we pleaded. We asked him about the road we saw and he confirmed it’s also over private land through Lamb Hill Station, but the farmer will let people through, and it headed straight through the Silver Peaks out to the coast somewhere near Waikouaiti. We REALLY wanted to do it, but no time today. Add it to the list, the problem with the list is that it gets longer and longer and no matter how hard we try we don’t seem to be able to reduce it. In fact, it seems like every time we knock one off, we add another two or three. Oh well, options are good right!
As time ticked on we had to start heading back, as much as it pained us to do so, but we wanted to stop in for a bite somewhere cool first. We headed back out to the main road at the other end of George King Memorial Drive and on up the valley to Clark’s Junction. I wanted to reminisce about drinking there 20 years ago, but sadly the old pub was under repair and closed down, which left Clark’s as nothing more than a little ghost corner. But we did run into a couple of other bikers who’d been cruising down the valley and stopped in here for a break too, one of them riding one of those big reverse trikes, man was the back wheel a big fatty!! We had a laugh together about the fact that on the first day of good sunshine in weeks the only vehicles out in the Maniototo today were motorbikes!
We ended up lunching back down in Outram at the Wobbly Goat Cafe, damn it was a good feed and great value. Definitely heading back there again, maybe even after another little day jaunt up into the Silver Peaks or the Maniototo. What a great little playground we have on our back doorstep, how lucky are we!!