Where to go, what to do?

We’ve had a couple of days housekeeping, we stopped in a little place Mosgiel, because it is part of the free wifi libraries network and we had many photos to upload, and we knew Sarah had sent us some post, that always takes longer than expected. We’d been to the supermarket, and that always takes longer than expected, we are eating well, and cooking healthily, on the whole, but with very limited fridge space, and limited funds shopping happens little and often, and our meals are usually dictated by what’s going cheap! Steak going cheap is one of our faves, they do have very good steak here! 

So with time escaping us we looked on the web and sure enough there was a motor park in Mosgiel, turns out it was on the road we were on, oh look there it is! 17 pitches, behind the swimming pool adjacent to the sports ground, mad old man as caretaker, but for $27 (one of the cheapest we’ve had, with immaculate free showers (sometimes they are up to $2) and, first time ever, free laundry! Well you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even though it was going to rain, but free tumble dryer too…. Great kitchen which we commandeered and watched a film and really friendly locals. 

I thought we were heading further off the next day, but I think B had a secret plan, all along to do some cycling along the old Otago Railway line, which is now a walking/biking/horse track, so we stopped in Middlemarch, made the preparations and found another odd motorpark. Popped out to look at a salt lake which was ok, but it did mean we had opportunity to do some bouldering on some of the hundreds of interesting boulders we’d passed.

Serene views over the salt lake

The railway station at Middlemarch. end of the line for the Tairea railway

At Ranfurly, ready to start

Yesterday was grey and cool, ideal cycling weather, this morning was freezing and misty, until the sun burnt the mist away, it got a little warm! We got a bus, with our hired bikes, from Middlemarch to Ranfurly and cycled back to the van – 60km, really quite flat (well railways are) a tunnel, a viaduct, some great scenery (some not so) and some very sore knees. 

Having got back to the van we then drove to Ranfurly to set off tomorrow and see what we shall see! The whole track is 160km, and tends to take 4 days, so we did pretty well in our 5 hours to do what we did! Not as good as the older ish couple we met who move the van, cycle to where they stopped yesterday and then cycle back to the van, so effectively doing the whole trail twice, but we were happy, and now are very tired.