It took 16 years to blast and barrow the Otago Central Branch Railway. Opened in 1907, the route connected the raw frontier and Otago's goldfields with the Dunedin City banks. The whistle of locomotives on the long-defunct line may be a distant memory but the route has never been busier.

Today it's the puff of cyclists rather than the chug of carriages passing this way through landscape that morphs imperceptibly between John Wayne territory, Rolf Harris' outback and the highlands of Rob Roy.

The terrain resonates with the spirits of pioneers, gold seekers and farmers. Adjacent fields are littered with chimneystacks and the corrugated iron debris of our early colonial dreams.

The party of pushbikers I'm riding with are more accustomed to backpacks than panniers, so our three-night, four-day trip (most do it in three days) would be a positive coast for hard-out riders. The upside of our approach is that life slows to the revolution of the pedals and there's a sense of real time over distance.

Relaxing into the saddle, one melts into an ever-changing register of scenes reminiscent of local painter Grahame Sydney's back catalogue. Out here amongst gnawed hills and druid stones, it's easy to see how painter Colin McCahon had visions of angels and an Egyptian god and why the locals refer to clouds above as "Taieri Pets".

Heading northeast out of Alexandra the trail threads past the raw schist rock face of the Rough Ridge Range.

The buttes and hummocks carved by the once gold-rich Manuherikia River are pure cowboy country. The long straights cut through overhanging rock bluffs more befitting the Lone Ranger than our own oil-skinned Southern Man. My posse hums the Bonanza theme.

When the last train pulled out in 1990, the 150km stretch of track between Clyde and Middlemarch was removed, leaving the way for the rail trail and the rejuvenation of many otherwise remote communities. Now city types can find a latte and a comfy bed without too much effort.

Heritage buildings (usually a pub) are within a short swagger of the trail. The Chatto Creek Hotel marks the end of the mostly flat 25km from our start at the Clyde railhead. With 10 more clicks, Tiger Hill and an icy wind whipping our tails before we hit Omakau and the hot showers at Ophir Lodge Backpackers, I resist the urge to turn the trip into an ale trail.

We cross the Daniel O'Connell suspension bridge into Ophir (locals pronounce it oaf-ah,) a town named for the fabled land where King Solomon sought his gold supplies and where I source my first pint of liquid amber followed by cod and chips at Blacks Hotel.

Speight's hoardings line the bar walls where staunch Highlanders supporters clutch their Speight's, reservedly cheering the blue and gold figures chasing the oval ball across the TV screen.

One bloke I talk to can't see the attraction of the rail trail.

"Mate, the scenery's boring, if you ask me." I didn't and I guess familiarity breeds contempt because all I've seen so far is so dramatically different from the green, green grass of North Island back roads, that I feel like I'm in another country.

Nice thing is I'm not, but you know you're in the south when the rivers become burns. Taking stock of the spectacular gorge from the 37m high Poolburn Viaduct, I consult my map and promptly locate Pigburn, Hogburn, Sowburn and Swineburn.

There is no mention of saddle burn in any of the literature I see. I'm no stranger to a bike seat but never have I spent four consecutive days bouncing cheek to cheek in one, either. Then I spare a thought for the marvellous Mrs Hayes who, in the 1880s, traversed the Maniototo as far as Lindis Pass on her penny farthing, hawking farming implements.

The ghosts at the original Hayes' workshops and homestead just out of Oturehua are apparently still working overtime. A custodian there reluctantly claims he has seen the historical factory come alive "I don't want to talk about it, but I am regularly disturbed by the to and fro of historical figures in the night".

You'd be forgiven for thinking the phantoms are in the Goods Station at Wedderburn, too. The siding made famous in Sydney's July on the Maniototo has been returned to its original site after spending a stint at Idaburn as a coal shed.

Ranfurly, the big smoke on the Maniototo, has revamped itself "the rural Art Deco centre".

Unbelievably, the town's iconic Centennial Tea Rooms were not-so-long-ago destined to be used for fire fighting practise. Fortunately it was a false alarm and today they're home to a deco museum.

Fifteen kilometres off-trail from Ranfurly is Naseby "2500ft above the worry level". This one-time hub of the goldfields is now the epicentre of curling with the country's first indoor curling rink.

The town boasts some beautifully restored colonial architecture and a range of mountain bike and walking tracks through the forestry trails. Rail trailers can be transported in for evening meals or a night's accommodation.

It's a downhill run to Waipiata, where due to staff shortages our publican John is winning an uphill battle tending the bar and feeding his houseguests before nightfall.

His only real concern, though, is that we "don't miss the sunset from Hamilton cemetery".

On an empty back road we pass the brick incongruity of the former Waipiata Sanatorium, now a Christian retreat. It's hard to imagine the hills teeming with prospectors, but before the 1900s the short-lived Hamilton's Goldfields spawned a small town. Other than the banks of a local dam, the only other remaining vestiges of the community lie behind the walls of the cemetery.

We make it in time to see the sun sliding behind the distant, cloud-clutching, Kakanui Mountains. Golden light paints an allegorical scene befitting the resurrection of any number of messiahs.

Down the line there's a welcome and surprising miracle of the caffeine kind at the Hyde Central hotel cafe overlooking the gorge in the one-horse settlement.

The former Hyde station is now a private residence, but out front, broken rail cars sit trackside, awaiting a ghost train.

A more sobering memory can be found at the nearby cairn that marks the site of the 1943 Hyde crash. Here, a train rounded the bend at twice the recommended speed, claiming 21 young lives.

The Rock and Pillar range flanks the last indeterminably long straight towards the trail end at Middlemarch.

I can already taste the promise of a celebratory brew but a headwind is conspiring to make this last day on the rail trail unforgettable in more ways than one.




Source: Sunday Star Times