Otago Rail Trail Day 2 – a curly one

The Trail today wended its way through some hills. Thanks to it being a rail trail that presented only the most minor problem. Steam trains don’t do steep hills or sharp turns so it’s all gentle corners and when the Trail hits a steep hill it goes right on through. We went over some great viaducts and through two wonderful tunnels. Made by hand, they were a lovely bit of engineering and long enough to be exitingly dark.

Even through the Track is lovely and smooth from a hill point of view, it’s still a dirt track and you constantly bump along and slide about a bit. That makes 30km a decent ride. We did it in three and a half hours including rest stops. We probably would have taken longer if we hadn’t had a rather surreal appointment in the afternoon.

We went curling. Yes, curling. If you haven’t heard of it imagine lawn bowls on ice with a large stone with handle on top instead of a ball. And your teammates using brooms to make your stone go faster. It’s all faintly ludicrous in even normal circumstances. It was great fun to have a go at, partly because of the utter incongruity of going from a warm Summer’s day to a freezing indoor venue to play a quintessential Scottish game in the wilds of New Zealand. It was all rather glorious really.

Lovely tunnel on the Otago Rail Trail.
Lovely tunnel on the Otago Rail Trail.
Curling.Yes, curling.
Curling.Yes, curling.

 

 

 

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