Biking in Central Otago – Day 187

Today we’re going on a bike right along the Clutha River.

Today we are heading to the historic town of Clyde where we are joining the team from Bike it Now who are going to be renting some mountain bikes off to do the Clyde to Alexandra River Trail.

After we’ve finished looking at the map of where we’re gonna be going today Duncan is outside to show us our bikes that we’re gonna be renting. It’s well kitted out with a lot of accessories helmets mini-computers a day pack on the back and then we are hitting the river trail so first we need to bike through really lovely and quaint town of Clyde, cross over a historic bridge and then we’re onto the river trail.

The Clyde to Alexandra River Trail is super easy, it’s a 12km beginners track that will take us all along the river all the way to the little township of Alexandra. It’s seriously an awesome introduction to mountain biking for people that have never mountain biked before and want an easy way to explore the area.

Although it’s quite a quiet trail and most of the time Laura and I feel like we have the trail all to ourselves we pass a few locals which are mountain biking on the same trail as well they are all kitted up and geared up in their ultimate mountain biking gears it looks like even professionals would have fun along this track as well.

Most of the track is super well sheltered under a thick tree canopy and it’s really good because today’s really sunny and we would be cooking if the trees weren’t there but there are some openings onto the Clutha River which we take the time to take a bit of a detour to check it out.

It’s quite an interesting river because the water is so deep in the Clutha River it’s quite hard to tell which way the water is actually flowing. There is a lot of really deep water going into a circle it’s absolutely mesmerising.

Back on the track, we start to get some speed as there’s quite a lot of really short downhill sections which is really fun to do and along the way there’s a lot of relics from the gold mining. So there’s these huge drills that have been left here which actually are protected under conservation laws so when you see them you can look at them but you can’t touch them.

This was a tool used by the miners back in the early 1990s to dredge the river at a time when it yielded tons of gold. At that time the Clutha River was one of the most gold producing rivers in the whole country. But we’re a little bit more distracted by the whole really pretty flowers along the river which attract loads of birds and insects.

Although right here in spring is a beautiful time to do this bike trail we’ve heard that in autumn when every single tree alongside the river are of a different colour it is even better.

We’ve been on the bikes long enough now to appreciate how really good those bikes are. It felt really weird when we were fitted individually to our bikes when we rented with Bike It Now but now I really understand how good it makes the whole ride.

We feel super comfortable on our bikes there is no strain on our muscles it is just perfect.

And that showcases the passion of all the people in Central Otago for mountain biking. Central Otago is one of the main mountain biking regions in New Zealand with heaps of awesome rides all over the place. The most popular one of them being the Otago Central Rail Trail which is over 150km long going through river gorges, viaducts, tunnels, very small townships. It’s a former railway route which is definitely worth biking if you’ve got the time for it.

And another one is the Clutha Gold Trail which is 74km long and it’s a bit of a more intermediate level one it’s one of the New Zealand Great Rides and it goes over amazing world heritage landscape It’s definitely worth it if you’ve got the time for it.

Laura and I really loved this very easy introduction to biking Central Otago we had a blast but we feel that we deserve to treat ourselves so it’s kind of a race to the finish to the township of Alexandra because we know there is heaps of little cafes there but we know that most of them close very early.

I think we deserve a treat after that ride so we head to the Tin Goose Cafe and get ourselves a tasty treat a caramel slice and banana bread which is really big in New Zealand and it seems like we are really starting to mingle with the locals here in Alexandra and these little birds are absolutely not afraid to come right up to you and take the food right from your hand. i feel like I am one of the Disney princesses right here.

Today wooo we’re going on a bike ride along the Clutha River.