What’s to do in Waimate? Firstly, Where is Waimate? Located in Canterbury, Waimate is not on the main highway but situated just inland from the eastern coastline. It’s a short detour west of SH1, 45 km south of Timaru. It’s not a large metropolis but this town has many services that meet the needs of […]
We don’t ‘do’ cities very often, but we thought it might be a great opportunity to stay and play awhile in Oamaru. We have both visited Oamaru in times past, but we felt that we haven’t really given it the justice it deserves. Where is Oamaru We had been staying at the NZMCA Park in […]
Keeping with the theme of backcountry roads, we decided to take on the Mt Buster Track within the Hawkdun Range. We had successfully traversed the Danseys Pass and Old Dunstan Road – See Part One and Part Two, so we were keen to tick this one off the list as well. We were still at […]
Following on from my Old Dunstan Road – Part One blog, we set off from basecamp at Ranfurly, to continue along on the old wagon and bullock trails of our pioneering forefathers. This time we were covering a greater distance, but by all accounts, it should take us less time. We had already covered the […]
We were still parked up at Ranfurly and it was time for another roadie. We had completed the Danseys Pass a couple of days prior (see my previous blog). This time we had done our research on the best way for us to travel the Old Dunstan Road. We decided we would tackle it in […]
Finish What We Started We got a taste of the Danseys Pass when we travelled half of the Pass from the Livingstone end, during the winter months. As expected, it was closed around 23km into the drive over the Danseys Pass. We never got to climb the summit or make it all the way through […]
Where is Waipiata? That’s pretty much what I asked when I first heard about Waipiata. Little did I know that I actually cycled past it when we rode the Otago Rail Trail about 8 years ago. Leaving our camping spot after spending 3 days exploring St Bathans (see my previous blog), we headed to the […]
Like the miners in the 1800s, we were lured to St Bathans to discover gold. Well actually, the history surrounding the discovery of gold to be exact. The Creation of St Bathans St Bathans began as a boomtown known as Dunstan Creek way back in 1863. In less than a year, there were 1,000 miners […]
Thomson Gorge Road – Dunstan Mountains The day after we ‘nailed the Nevis Valley’ (click on the previous blog here), the sun was still shining so we thought we’d conquer the Thomson Gorge Road. We decided to travel the road over the Dunstan Mountains from west to east. This meant we joined Thomson Gorge […]
Nevis Valley – A remote backcountry road We Nailed It We had been hanging around Central Otago for a few weeks (see the previous blog on Alexandra), but the Nevis Valley Road was still sitting on our ‘Things to Do” list. An entire day is required for the full loop from Cromwell, through the Nevis […]