Around Central Otago

Central Otago became famous when people found gold from there on the 19th century. Nowadays the towns are still alive, but mostly because of tourism or agriculture. The Otago cycling trail is consisted of three different trails:

Clutha Gold Trail, from Lawrence to Roxburgh Dam
http://www.nzcycletrail.com/clutha-gold-trail

Roxburgh Gorge Trail, from Roxburgh Dam to Alexandra
http://www.nzcycletrail.com/roxburgh-gorge-trail

Central Otago Rail, Trail from Clyde (through Alexandra) to Middlemarch
http://www.nzcycletrail.com/otago-central-rail-trail

I started from Balclutha and stayed overnight somewhere after passing Lawrence. The next day I cycled to Alexandra, but skipped the Roxburgh Gorge trail by using Highway 8, because the trail had a short, but expensive boat trip of $95. The third day I went to Clyde and from there to Middlemarch and just a bit further to Pukerangi from where I took the scenic Taieri Gorge train to Dunedin.

This trip was just awesome, like all the others as well so far. If you want to cycle in New Zealand, this is maybe the best option. Beautiful scenery and plenty of nice little towns.

So at the moment I am in Dunedin, but tomorrow I will continue to Oamaru, where the next bicycle trail is waiting. The route from Mt. Cook to Oamaru is called Alps2Ocean (http://www.alps2ocean.com/trail-map), but I will cycle it to the opposite direction. Once I arrive to Mt. Cook, my next target is Christchruch where I'm plannig to spend my Christmas. How religious is that?

At the moment I have done 1900km and the route to Christchurch via Mt. Cook is 600km, so it will be around 2500km in just 6 weeks. A bit more than I scheduled!