The trail climbs very moderately for about fifty miles, and then begins a very gradual descent. An engineer in our group explained the ratio of climb-to-distance; it could never go above an incline too challenging for the old steam engines. Our first two days were pretty toasty warm and featured a long gradual uphill ride, the third day was more moderate, and on the last, easier day we pulled in to the Central Otago Hotel’s Pub, just beating an unseasonable rain that was spattering through.
We spent our first night in Omakau, a dot on the map in danger of extinction before the rail trail brought its cascade of hikers and bikers. We were booked into a B+B that had an earlier life as a small town post office. It had been elegantly restored with red brick and white pillars and was flying the bright blue Kiwi Union Jack. It featured a late-summer garden courtyard, where we had made arrangements to have a barbecue dinner prepared by a local chef, a friend of the South Islanders on the trip. Between the sunflowers and black-eyed susans, grilling rosemary’d lamb and chicken perfumed the air, accented with grilled pears and peppered strawberries.
There was a plate beyond overflowing with “dabbies,” a huge orange crayfish that was bigger than many lobsters I’ve seen. A few of us had earlier gone on an off-road trip to a stream in a canyon, waded in and caught buckets of them using liver for bait. Local wines were sampled and sore body parts were compared. Grilled veggies, sliced tomatoes were topped off with more local wines, coffee, and an amazing cheesecake. We all slept so very well.
Dawn found us assembled on the street, groping for strong coffee and fortitude. We mounted up and rode off into the sunrise, hoping to put in miles before the heat of the day. Crystal spider webs lined the country road, the surreal architecture of dried flowers of early autumn dusted by dew and backlit by the rising sun. A herd of red deer glanced up, then began lumbering slowly toward one with magnificent antlers. The vista was quilted with stitches of fencing and tufted with tussock grasses. A silvery-blue path of water drew the bead of fresh sunlight toward the distant landscape. Morning birdsong filled the air. We rode between the notes, breathing our breath into a vast silence.
