| A long post so you might want to make a hot drink, or a cool one, and settle in for a while.  |
| setting out |
On day two of our walk we had a plan!
We would begin at the other end
and come back to where we were going to start.
Clear as mud?
We had talked over where we would be going and decided
that we would begin where we would have finished if
we started from where we finished the day before.
Oh dear, I think I'll stop there before it gets too confused :)
(I think it's the Irish coming out in me).
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| Hyde railway station |
We headed up the road to Hyde and duly set out
walking back towards Middlemarch - after a comfort stop.
We figured that doing it this way we would be walking downhill. In reality the walk from Middlemarch to Hyde
only rises 100 metres, so not a huge climb over 28 k's.
 |
| derelict wagon filled with old wood, this was the worst one. |
We weren't sure where the first passport stamping station was
so we called in to the local cafe where there just happened to be a full complement of the various stamps. Once we were stamped the walk proper was on. The first corner we went around brought us to the Hyde railway station, no longer in use of course and now privately owned, with a few derelict wagons on sidings.
And a hundred yards further down the trail was the stamping booth!
We hadn't gone too far when we decided that perhaps we were walking too fast and should go at a slightly more leisurely
pace than yesterday so that we didn't get so tired. So we slowed down a little. We looked at more stuff. And stopped more often.
There were a lot more cyclists about today so we had to give way to them as well. And as most of them were travelling in the same direction as us it was quite interesting and reminded me of when we were in Japan and cyclists are just considered to be pedestrians on wheels. They used the footpaths and you were always checking behind for them, they did have bells. It's surprising how quickly you adapt though. And so we adapted on the trail.
We came across these cows relaxing before the heat
of the day set in. These ones were chewing their cuds...
...but this lady was on a mission.
Can you see her in amongst the bushes?
When we first saw her she had her front legs up in the tree
but had settled for this by the time we got the camera out.
She had climbed up on a rock to get at the delicacy she was after.
Well, what was it, you may ask?
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| gathering apples |
She was after apples. All along this section of the trail was lined with apple and pear trees. There were bushes covered in clusters of red berries as well but we couldn't identify them and they were too far away to see them properly. Not handy like the trees.
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| gathering pears |
The trees have grown from the cores of the fruit thrown
out of the train windows by passengers as it was travelling from Cromwell to Dunedin. So some of them must be getting on
for one hundred years old. We gathered some fruit and put it
in our bags to bring home, this did not lighten our load
as we were walking :) But they were really sweet when
I cooked them up once we got home. Compensation.
There were also a lot of different flowers growing and
we wondered whether they had been part of some ladies
gardens as they weren't wild flowers.
We only had one other stamp to get on this part
of the trip and that was at the Rock and Pillars hut.
We took photos of each other here as well but they are so
inelegant they are only for private viewing, haha.
We were pooped for some reason. We had some
refreshments and got on the trail again. Didn't let our
feet dangle this time either, we learnt that lesson.
 |
| looking towards the Taieri Range |
The countryside is very dry and we came across
this reservoir which feeds down to one of the
farms and is probably part of an irrigation system. After we
had been walking a few hours we looked up and
Sis said 'that looks like your car over there'.
And I replied 'and that looks like my bloke over there as well'.
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| my GKB taking a video of us |
He had brought the car back and was waiting for us with a
full thermos and the tea and coffee. He was very good to us.
We had arrived at the Hyde Railway disaster memorial and we stopped to have a look and a bite of lunch.
There is a picnic table over the stile and behind the trees.
The cairn is the memorial to the 21 people who died in
the train crash in June 1943. The train would have been packed as it was on it's way to the Dunedin Show. We had walked through the
cutting where it had happened about 100 metres or so further back.
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| stone plaque The problem with stopping for half an hour, sitting with your feet up and just generally relaxing is that you don't want to start again. Oh dear. So we didn't. We had walked for three hours, only covered half the distance we intended but as the sun was getting very high in the sky decided to call it a day. We have a 6 km section to finish off and will do that next time. Maybe. |
Then again we might just start here, which is the bridge over the river from Hyde and takes us in the opposite direction to what we had been going, towards Clyde, which is the final destination.
We didn't think we had done too badly, we walked 21 kms altogether and that is a half marathon!
We didn't have ice creams today, we all went back to the
camp and fell asleep on our beds instead :)
Sis is coming back in May to do some more walking,
I'm not sure about that as it will be winter, we'll see.
