The kids slept through Geraldine so we set our sites for lunch at Tekapo, where a new playground was recently installed at the lakefront.

Milo rejected the pb+j that we’d packed, and opted to spend his own money on bacon and egg pie at the cafe.  “This is The BEST bacon egg pie I’ve ever had!” he declared.  Autonomy from parental food choices tastes fantastic.

The track started at Clyde Railway Station, appropriately enough for a Rail Trail, and it was dead flat.

The Rail Trail has boxes at all the former stations where you can stamp your Otago Railtrail Passport. Most of the time there wasn’t much left to see at the site of the former rail stations, but there are little red shelters with historical info inside. We stopped at all of them.

Here’s one of the former train stations. We have our coats on, which means we just made it through a shower.

Our first day was the only one where we saw rain, thankfully. Clear spells and rain showers, which became increasingly rainy toward evening. The last leg towards Omakau was the only time we towed Milo on the whole trip. The kids were troopers, keeping up a brave face despite cold hands. Maybe the fists full of gummy bears helped.

Next morning dawned bright and crisp, and we cracked on.  Here was voiced the most memorable complaint of the whole journey, when I asked Milo to brush his hair:  “Ug! When am I going to lose my hair?!”  Now, that’s a pessimistic way of expressing the optimistic side of an aging process about which most men feel negatively!

It was a quick downhill ride to the first treat stop, a nice little cafe at the Lauder cross roads.  I don’t think we’ve ever patronized cafes quite as frequently as we did on this trip.  

Tricycle riding looked like more fun to Naomi than bicycle riding.

With hand rails added and some extra boards chucked into the deck between the train sleepers, the old bridges are still being used for the cycleway.

There are two long (~200 meter) tunnels on the second day of riding. It took a crew of something like 40 men two years with wheel barrows and picks to carve out this tunnel. Old photographs from the later 1800s showed a crew of bearded men staring morosely into the camera, leaning on their shovels.  Just imagine the drudgery of their lives.

Here are the remnants of one of the tunneler’s huts.  The huts were roofed in canvas. Otago is the coldest part of NZ in the winter, with regular frosty nights.  While cheerful on a summer sunny afternoon, in winter it would be abysmal.  We read a newspaper clipping from the times with two politicians complaining against each other’s management of the rail project.  “The work is proceeding heroically with men working tirelessly to open the pass, the government should support it with more money” versus “The work is proceeding over-budget and over-schedule; they should use horses and drays instead of hand labor to rectify this wasteful situation.”  Half truths and one-sided stories aimed at damaging the other’s reputation.  Nothing has changed in 125 years.  

Oturehau is the hamlet where we stayed that second night, and it boasts the oldest general store still operational in NZ. The friendly proprietress/historian served us ice creams, despite being technically closed for the day.

We had been encouraged to book accommodation well ahead because the Christmas season is busy, but the days preceding the holiday were actually very quiet. We were the sole occupants of this humble hostel.

On the road again…..to the tune of Dr. Seuss’s ABC’s and what felt like dozens of renditions of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. A mild hill, then it was mostly down or flat for the next couple days.

The rail trail doubles as a scale model of the solar system. One step equals 75,000 km. As we got closer to Ranfurly (where the sun was housed) we passed planets with more frequency.

Somewhere near the trail high point was a sign for 45 degrees South latitude. It was light until after 10:00 p.m.

We got ice creams and stocked up on groceries at Ranfurly, for the next couple days food was self-catered. Just outside Ranfurly was this hillbilly’s idea of comical fence decor–dozens of pig skins (and heads) left to dry over barbed wire in the sun.

We stayed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at Peter’s Farm in Waipiata.  One brother runs the sheep and cattle farm, while the other runs the guest lodgings in the historic mud brick farm house. The sister returned with her family for Christmas, and the grandparents, retired and in their 90s, came up for the day. It could have been quite awkward, as we were the only non-family staying there, but it was actually lovely. It was like borrowing an extended family for the holiday, and we enjoyed laughs over their white elephant gift exchange as if it was our own.

We stayed at the sleep out next to the old farm house, kids and parents in separate huts. Luxury.

Merry Christmas! We haven’t preserved many Christmas traditions, but stockings is one of them. We had a box with a few treats sent to the farm.

Sand banks are hours of fun.

Boxing Day we resumed our ride.

Leaving the farm, Milo got to “heard” sheep along the driveway. I thought this might be the most memorable part of the trip to him–the power of one small human to move hundreds of sheep is amazing–but the next day the rabbit chase was even better. You’d think a rabbit being approached by a bike would duck into the nearby grasses, right? This silly individual scampered straight ahead on the road for well over a kilometer, until Milo, on his bike actually gave up chasing it.

Yum, cool-aid tongue in the shade for lunch.

Train cars….an excuse to stop for a diversion.

Milo had a little bike computer that told him the distance we’d traveled and the time it took. “22 kilometers and 1 hour 52 minutes biking,” he’d announce, impressively. I’d glance at my watch; 2:00 p.m. We’d departed at 9:30. Ah, MOVING time. We made a lot of stops. And the kids did great, really they did. It was just the last day or so when patience was wearing thin, on all sides.

Oddly, if one kid was throwing a wobbly, the other seemed to behave like a saint. Naomi had increasingly frequent stuck spells where she didn’t want to get on the bike or get towed, and Milo was usually the one to coax her forward again. Here she is, in full pout, hackles up, with Milo ready to go in for the rescue.

We spent five days biking, in total, and one rest day at Christmas, and covered about 150 kilometers. 158 if you count the jaunt up to Peter’s Farm, Milo reminds me. Mission accomplished.

There are old friends—the bare bushy branches have leafed out into a lilac and a dogwood, transporting me back to New York springs of my youth. The rhododendrons ae starting to open their flowers now, and I remember my grandparents’ massive bushes they could see from their kitchen window, with the myrtle underneath.

Every bare patch of soil has been colonized by forget-me-nots, which remind me of how my mom used to shake the drying seed pods over her own garden to inoculate it for the spring to come.  Then there’s a lemon tree, just to remind me that I’m NOT in NY.

And freesias of various colors, which seem very exotic.

There are frumpy finnicky plants that probably won’t stand my laissez faire style of gardening. To heck with those standard roses with their mean thorns and healthy aphid colonies. Of course they haven’t bloomed yet, I do reserve the right to adjust my attitude in future.

There’s a magnolia, like on the cover of my university biology book. It came out white, to my disappointment—who would plant white when they could have pink?

And there are various other plants that I don’t know. These fantastic sprigs of red berries make a tapestry window behind our bed, and seem to last all year.

These lipstick pink sprigs are sure to be Naomi’s favorites.

There’s a generous (for Christchurch standards) raised garden for vegetables, and I’m impressed with the quality of the soil. In back there’s even a bed of asparagus and rhubarb, with grapes along the fence.

Irises of varying types have come up in random patches. My neighbor has a color I don’t have, so I plan to do a swap. When I first worked for the veggie guys one summer in the Capital district I had big dreams of being an extension agent, driving all over the state, and collecting irises while I was about. That dream never materialized, but I can start a mini collection now.

Wisteria seems like such an elegantly fancy plant. They weren’t hardy in most of NY so we never had them growing up, but I remember an English gentleman in Owego carefully cultivating one around his front porch. Now I have one of my own, and it came out in fancy purple frilly flowers. It’ll be the summer shade for the patio, dropping its leaves and letting the sun in again for winter.

Oh, I must spare a paragraph for the kitchen. One of my non-negotiable points for house hunting was that the kitchen had to have good windows, and be near the living space. The last place had good cabinets and cook top, but it was internal. It was dim even on the sunniest summer day. I wanted light and windows, a nice view from the kitchen where I spend so many hours of my life. And this new house has this! A big window over a counter looks out to the veggie garden, and the rest of the counters look out over the dining area to the beautiful green of the rest of the garden. The cabinet fit-out isn’t fancy, but I still feel I’ve moved from the galley to the captains quarters.