Biking in Dunedin

10-Nov-05
We arrived to our Dunedin hostel late, and were treated with a free upgrade as the place was somewhat empty, and the owner "hated to see it go empty". It is just a bigger room with a skylight and a TV, for the price of the standard double, but, hey we'll take it! Nicely equipped hostel by the way. Quite an old building, but nice amenities like this computer I am typing on now. Not hooked up to the internet, but free to use to look at photos and type blog entries that can be saved to memory stick and cut and pasted to blog later! (Nice!) We slept well, and headed out this morning to the information center to see what to do with ourselves in this town. Driving into the town yesterday, I was quite impressed with what I saw. Very nice first impressions of the city. Lots of very old, Victorian style buildings, a bustling, yet not overly crowded downtown, and quite hilly with views of the bay. And the service so far has been very nice - free upgrade at the hostel, bus drop off service at the doorstep, and free coffee at the bike shop!

So yeah, we ended up at a bike shop, rented ourselves some mountain bikes (after indulging in a free 'flat white' cooked up on the bike shop's very professional espresso machine), and headed out on what turned out to be an epic, tortuous, rewarding, and fun(?) bike ride. The Otaga Peninsula stretches out East of Dunedin and houses one of only two nesting grounds for the great and endangered Northern Royal Albatross. For those who don't really know what an Albatross is (it's OK, I was having memory blocks as well), it is a very large bird. Huge bird. And quite interesting. They mate every other year, and spend most of their lives literally flying around the world, only resting every other year, in the same place. The colony on the end of this penninsula is one of only two in the world for this particular type. They can fly for up to 1000 km a day, and at speeds of up to 100 km/h. They are very large and heavy birds so they maximize the use of the wind currents to minimize the amount of energy the expend.

Anyway, we thought a fun way to get out there would be to ride bikes, since all we've been doing is walking everywhere, we thought it would be a welcome change. And it was, but as usual, we overextended ourselves, and are quite beat up and exhausted this evening. Keith figures we probably ended up riding about 60 miles today. Yikes! We made it out to the end (28km) with no problem and although the viewing area to the Albatross was closed due to hanky panky of the birds, we were fortunate enough to spot one flying in the air over our heads. Before knowing much about the birds, we weren't sure we'd recognize one when we saw it as there are so many other birds flying around (mostly seagulls), but when we saw it, there was no question because it was enormous and dwarfed all the other birds around it. Very cool. No picture, sorry, I was too busy watching it.

Then we got ambitious on our bikes. On the ride out we followed the coastal rode, which was pretty much flat the whole way. For the ride back, we thought we'd first detour and see another beach on the other side that might have some yellow-eyed penguins, then take the high road back. Fine idea, but it added a lot of distance and a whole lot of uphill to the ride. I suppose we were rewarded by all the climbing with a nice long continuous downhill ride, but by that time it was hard to enjoy it as sitting on the bike was quite painful at that point. Long story short, we did it all, (and enjoyed most of it) but by the end we were sore all over (back, knees, butt, neck, hands) and just happy to be back. Needless to say, tomorrow is a take it easy, wander around town kind of day.

Here is me at what I am hoping is the top of the hill (trust me the smile is forced at this point). See the water way down there? That shows you how high and relentless the climb was.

And some random photos. Remember I said how NZ public places are generally not dog friendly? What do you think gave me that idea? First time I saw one of these signs, I couldn't figure it out. But after seeing my umpteenth sheep field, I figured out that dogs are probably shot in interest of preserving the sheep....

And the railway station in Dunedin. One of the many ornate and interesting buildings here.

Hope all is well back home!
Lots of love,
Em and Keith