Day 3 wasn’t very exciting after my breakfast fracas.
30 kms of cycling on a crystal clear but cold central Otago day. There are pluses and minuses of cycling on an old railway. The good thing is that it’s never going to be too steep, and it would be very hard to get lost. The downside is that there are some very long, straight and fairly unexciting sections.
We cycled from Oturehua to Ranfurly. The latter is a support town for the local region of farmers, as well as being a way point on the rail trail. They try and sell themselves as being Art Deco, mostly on the strength of one architect who used that style on the local buildings for a number of decades from the 1920’s, much longer than anyone else thought was a good idea. Apart from that it doesn’t have much in the way of distinguishing features. We only stayed long enough to have lunch, and then were ferried to the much older and more stylish township of Naseby, where we are staying two nights. It began life in the 1860’s, originally with farming but soon after became surrounded by goldfields. It is remarkably well preserved, although very sadly one of it’s original two pubs burnt down last year.
We had dinner the first night at the only remaining pub, the Royal Hotel. The food was amazing – apparently they have a French chef who is very ambitious but has thus far been kept in check by the more pragmatic manager. I had mushroom soup, followed by a rabbit pie, and then a crumble dessert. I’ve been trying to eat mostly vegetarian or fish dishes, but I figured you couldn’t get more sustainable than rabbit around these parts. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night in great gastrointestinal discomfort. The rabbit was having it’s revenge. I slept very badly and made my husband promise me in the morning that he would never let me overeat again.
Coffee only for breakfast and then we went to try a brand new sport for us – curling. The local curling club is over 130 years old. They have the only proper indoor curling rink in the Southern Hemisphere right here in Naseby. It was great fun. In 20 minutes we had grasped the essentials and then played a game. Basically it’s like any other game of bowls, except you have three different ways of pushing your 20 kg stone out onto the 150 foot long track, and by using special brushes you can make a stone move faster by smoothing its path on the ice. Great fun, and I’m going to keep an eye out for it at the next Winter Olympics. Every few years it gets cold enough to use the outside courses here in central Otago, and when they put the call out for players that then come from as far as Australia, it usually makes the news. I’ll be keeping an eye out for that too.
One of our group had very cleverly schmoozed the local bus transfer driver, who turned out to have the key to the local museum, so we could then spend a very pleasant hour looking through a very interesting assortment of local settler memorabilia, even thought the museum doesn’t officially open until next week.
A quick late lunch of whitebait fritters thanks to the French chef, and we were off to explore the countryside and visit the local landmark, the hotel at Dansey’s Pass. This is another historic old pub right in the middle of nowhere. Once again, it was fabulous inside, full of glorious wooden paneling and deer heads with antlers. I ate too much and my husband paid not a jot of notice, very poor form considering his promise earlier in the day. Anyway it’s nearly 10 pm, and I don’t feel too bad so far.
Back to cycling tomorrow. We were supposed to be picked up at 08:45 but since our new friend is also in charge of cyclist transfers back to Ranfurly, he’s letting us have a sleep in, and will pick us up at 09:30. I wish I was that good at making friends. What a useful talent that would be! But hard for those of us on the spectrum. When I’d gone to pay our bill at Dansey’s Pass hotel, a man had come up to me and been very friendly. He was choosing the music at the bar, and asked me what my favourite song was, and then played it. (I chose “American Pie” which isn’t my favourite song at all, but is unfortunately the only one I can think of when put on the spot.) He then admired my Tam O’Shanter – a traditional Scottish hat I’d bought at the curling rink – and asked me if I was Scottish. I was getting quite uncomfortable by now, trying to make eye contact with the barmaid as I denied my Scottish heritage (sorry, Dad!). When he asked me where I was from, I muttered “Wellington” and gradually continued shuffling away from him until he finally took the hint and left me alone. It was only as we were leaving shortly afterwards that I discovered he was actually the owner of the hotel, and officially our host for the evening. I am such a plonker. Especially embarrassing as I was trying to buy a t-shirt with the name of his pub on it while I was studiously attempting to ignore him.