From Day 4 & 5 Biking Train Adventures to Strange Boulders and Wonderful Food

From Day 4 and 5 Biking Train Adventures to Strange Boulders and Wonderful Food 

Bike Day #4: Ranfurly to Hyde (32 km)

Friday March 2^nd

Back in Ranfurly we ride 7 km to the village of Waipiata (for coffee & to see the Waipiata man) and then continue on to Hyde a total of 32 km. 

Along the way John meets a rider from the Philappines. Turns out this man was familiar with the very place where John was in the Peace Corps 50 years earlier. He and his wife, both retired executives are planning on biking for 3 months in New Zealand and want to see all the places they didn’t see when traveling as executives.  After New Zealand they plan to hike in Napal and then on to USA and then South America biking. Another retirement plan, especially interesting as he said his wife only learned to bike 3 years ago.

John is white speck in distance 

We bike through the gorge following Taiera River and stop for a picnic at a place with amazing views. We proceed through another tunnel and on to Hyde. Here we are picked up by Frank and taken to Kokonga Lodge, owned by Alexis and Frank Siermans. This couple also recently retired from the north island Auckland area when their children left home for college and bought this gorgeous place to operate as a B&B.  

Konkonga Lodge 

Christ Church Friends Julie and Stuart 

Alexis and Frank operate as a team in operating this place and jokigly aruge about who does the most work.  They have not worked together before has Frank was a sales person and Alexis an HR person.  They plan to take off 3-4 months a year in low tourist season to travel. We have dinner on the deck of their place with Julie and Stewart and another retired couple from Belgium. 

Meal on Deck

Our Belgium biker was previously a butcher who made his living working 100 hours a week along with his wife of 40 years. He expounds on the value of hard work after dropping out of high school and agrees with the environmental problems of cattle ranching.  He talks about the congestion in Belgium  and difficulties in his country's survival and seems attracted to life in New Zealand. The setting of our dinner includes panoramic views  and again a warm New Zealand hospitality. Happily for John we are served salmon and for me an amazing pavolva desert with fruit. I ask for the desert recipe and vow to make it when I return.

View from Deck 

Pavlov Dessert 

Kokonga Lodge to Hyde to Middlemarch to Celebratory Lunch Kissing Gate Café (31 km)

Saturday March 3

At times seems never ending! 

For our last 31 km ride it is sunny and beautiful and we meander along stopping frequently to enjoy the views and to postpone the end of our amazing trip.  My legs seem stronger and I am definitely more confident on my bike than when I started. My left leg and foot still goes numb but stopping to walk a bit seems to help the problem.  

We arrive in Middlemarch around 1 pm and head off for a celebratory lunch at Kissing Gate Café with Julie and Stewart at a quaint garden restaurant where we are also served champagne. I am sure I have not lost weight on this trip because despite the 4-5 hours per day of exercise we have had some amazing meals.  

Julie and Stuart

Afterwards we attend a small community fair and enjoy watching the horses and a peculiar race where the men carry the women on their backs jumping over hay stacks and pools of water. 

After showering up at a local biker shower place we reluctantly turn in our bikes, rest at Cycle Surgery and are bused to Pukerangi station where we meet the Taieri Gorge daily tourist train.  
Will I ever do a bike trip again?  Hmm I might but will consider an E-bike unless my body pump training improves my legs or is it my butt that needs help? 

This 3 hour ride in a 1920’s train with comfortable seats takes us through amazing gorges, across viaducts and through a long tunnel and eventually to Dunedin, New Zealand’s first city constructed at the time of the gold rush.   What an amazing way to complete our biking adventure which has definitely taken us on a trip bringing the past history of this place into our current thinking.  Consistent with New Zealand’s incredible hospitality we are picked up at the train station by our B&B host and taken to Bard Place which is 2 miles away.

Dunedin Train Stati

 John had previously made 8 pm reservations for dinner at Plato restaurant, highly recommended by Trip Advisor and our tour book. This is a funky restaurant is an adventure in itself as the restaurant has a kooky decor of thousands of tchotchkes and while the food is fantastic I am driven to distraction by the junk everywhere. Sorry should have taken pictures so you could appreciate the junk.

Dunedin to Fleurs Place on South Island

March 4-5, 2018

Up for another typically English breakfast of eggs, bacon and great toast for John and granola for me and we meet 2 other New Zealand guests who have traveled widely and we share travel tips. At this point we have no reservations or plans of where we will go after Dunedin.  Along the way various travelers have shared their recommendations with us which include going further south to Stewart Island for birding, as well as going back to the north island to the wine area, or visiting Julie and Stewart in Christ Church. We will have 2 days at Bard B&B so have a day to think about the next adventure. 

One couple had mentioned going to Fleurs place, an internationally renowned destination-restaurant and we drawn to this idea like mice to cheese. This restaurant set in a picturesque village on the north Otago coast about 70 km from Dunedin means renting car and we manage to get 2pm lunch reservations.  The drive north is along the ocean shore and has amazing beaches that are absolutely breath taking. 

We stop to see the famous Moeraki boulders on the beach which are spectacular spherical concretions that have eroded out of mudstone slopes behind the beach and may have taken 4-5 million years to form.  

What are these Moeraki boulders? 

John says the boulders look like God pooped there while I imagine they are dinosaur eggs. The Maori Legend says they are there because colonists in canoes were wrecked there and the seeds from their food baskets grew into boulders.  In any case they are a message that we are about to arrive in a fantasy world that exceeds our expectations.

We arrive at Fleur’s fish restaurant that looks as if it has always been there and is set on a beach promontory with amazing views.  Fleur built this place from recycled fittings, furnishings and salvaged materials including an elegant wooden stair case to the 2^nd floor. It is indeed a magical place that is very special leaving us with a lasting memory.  Our meal there is incredible with its fresh fish and I even manage to have 11 rather large green lipped mussels while John has cod wrapped in bacon and scallops.

Green lipped muscles

Fleur 

Fleur Sullivan, a well known New Zealand restaurateur, dedicated to serving top-quality locally produced food bought this place in 1997 after being diagnosed with cancer. She was an advocate of the ‘slow food’ movement long before it was in vogue and was committed to food that was fresh, honest and locally produced.  I wanted to buy the autobiographical book about Fleur, now aged 72 but unfortunately they were out of it. While I was buying a different book with Fleur’s recipes in it, Fleur came over to talk with me and invited us over to her table so she could autograph the book. Her warmth was infectious and this led to a lengthy discussion with her telling great stories and meeting 2 of her friends, who were also in the hospitality and restaurant business. 

Fleur and her friend try to calm me

It was a special afternoon which ended up with these New Zealanders telling us not to despair about Trump and reassuring us that all will be better and America will recover in the future. I asked Fleur if she could come to Vashon to open such a restaurant there and she asked for my address saying she would send me her book so that I could do this. Later John asks me if Fleur is my model and I say yes, although I still have no cooking aspirations despite buying her cookbook (except for the pavlava recipe). My aspirations continue to be to cook up new delicious programs and training for supporting families and teachers. I also have noticed that Fleur like me wears black, so perhaps I don't need a color transformation as has been recommended by friends and family members.  We stop on the way home at a cheese factory and buy some different cheeses.  Really? Hungry already!  In the evening unfortunately John has some stomach ailment (mussels?) so we stay holed up in our room and I eat cheese. We postpone making a decision about where we will go next and live "in the moment".

Larnach Castle

Today we have a lazy day driving out to Atago peninsula to see the only mainline nesting place for the Northern Royal Albatross birds and also other rarely seen birds including yellow-eyed penguins and dolphins. The weather is rainy and misty so we are unable to see the nesting birds but there is a nice museum with videos about the study of the Albatross. Sorry no pictures. On the way home with ocean views we stop at Larnach Castle and gardens, which has been the life work of the Barker family to restore. Still wet so we don’t do the garden.  Afterwards John agrees to a few minutes of Marino wool sweater shopping in town followed by a lovely lamb dinner at the Bacchus Restaurant. I try not to think of the cute sheep we saw lazing about on our bike trip. John is feeling better now.  I prefer the simplicity of this restaurant to the tchotchkes-laden restaurant of the prior night. John likes the tchotchkes. What can I say we have different interests, perceptions and imaginations.