Arrival at Dunedin (Ōtepoti)

Two days to cross the horrendous 2km high hills from Middlemarch down into the fine city of Dunedin and along the Otago Peninsula coastline to Pukehiki, where we are staying for the next few days.

Luckily, a lady we met outside a cafe in Middlemarch took one look at us and our overly laden bikes and promptly took charge. She volunteered her friend Liz to take our panniers ahead for us on her commute to work. Before we knew it, all our worldly goods were whisked away across the hills to be safely deposited at a cafe in Outram, ready for us to collect once we’d puffed our way up and down the 40 miles between. I never asked her name but we will be endlessly grateful to her. Climbing the hills with all our panniers would have taken us much much longer (and almost killed me).

Even without having had to carry our panniers over the hardest bits, we were done in by the time we rolled into Dunedin. Here we did essentials: coffee, cake, washing at a laundromat, a food shop, before heading to our Airbnb (which is, of course, at the top of an incredibly steep hill. Took us over an hour to push our bikes all the way up it 😆).Read more