Cycle: 61km (gravel)

Middlemarch to Ranfurly.

We weren't quite sure what the quality of the Otago Rail Trail would be like. We knew it would be flat and unsealed but unsealed can mean anything from packed dirt to deep gravel. It turned out that everything was completely ridable on our road tyres, the worst sections simply being a bit rocky.

We made it about 1km before we had to stop and feed our carrots to some horses! They were a bit timid because of an electric fence between us and them but we managed to lure them over with carrots! All was going well with our wildlife experience until I got a big shock from the fence! It was a long fence so I guess they had a high voltage running and I'm not sure if I actually touched it or I got close enough for it to arc across. Anyway, it bloody hurt as my contact points were my left hand and a barb on the barbed wire fence on the left hand side of my torso. I'm not sure if the old bionic arm has an effect but I seemed to act as a pretty good conductor and the earth point was so small (via the barb) that it left a burn mark! I felt dizzy, apparently turned completely white and had to sit down for five minutes! Yowsers!

After all the excitement of the first km we had no idea what else the rail trail would hold for us! We pushed on and began to meet a few cyclists coming the other way. We were a little surprised to see that their average age must have been 60 and many of the ladies were wearing lots of makeup! The trail proved not to be difficult and us the youngest people on it by some considerable margin. Still it was brilliant to be off the road and to be able to ride side by side and chat without fear of getting run over.

We were hoping that due to the client? on the trail there would be good facilities catering for us. On Day 1 we were not disappointed. We had a great lunch with a couple of beers (again because we weren't on the road) at the Hyde Cafe which served fantastic food, although you did have to pay for it.

Over the course of the day we passed over a couple of cool bridges (or are they viaducts?) and some nice scenery. We were going pretty slowly on the gravel so we were still out for most of the day and were tired by the end of it. Not so much of a strength day, but being on the bike for over 4 hours will be tiring whatever the terrain is like.

We got to Ranfurly and set the tent up in the midst of a school trip group. We got chatting to the teacher's husband who grew up in Middlemarch and kindly explained that the noisy animals we'd been hearing were stags not distressed cattle! There were less cyclists around than we imagined. It seems as if most do the trail via an organised tour with specific stops and in the opposite direction to us.