We had a longer day ahead of us leaving Dunedin and heading to the Clutha Gold Trail and Lawrence.

Leaving our home of two nights, we pushed our bikes up the first 100 m slope, and then rolled on down to the bottom.

Leaving via the suburbs, Dunedin has a large spread. Interesting fact, Dunedin has one of the largest geographical spreads globally at 3,314 km2, comparable to the size of English counties Cornwall and Cambridgeshire.

We went through St Clair, recognising it from dinner the previous night. We then climbed.

Two climbs early on to get us out into the country. The first alongside a motorway had a separated bike path.

We were also facing a SW wind, in our case, a headwind. It was quite gusty at times.

We rode about 17 km along the verge of the SH1 main highway. Busy with lots of forestry trucks, we were very glad to finally hit the quieter country roads for the rest of the ride.

Nice distant views, some 40 km into our ride.

Alpacas? llamas? Im never sure. They were funny to watch with one skipping around.

Always a good sign to see bike route signs.

We followed the Taieri River along a quiet gravel road, dotted with farms and forestry operations.

The town of Waihola was a good place to stop and grab a hot drink and rest. We chatted with a cyclist who had left Lawrence that morning, benefiting from the tail wind he was enjoying 🙈

A wild town pub.

Here we go, Clutha Gold Trail this way.

This section of the trail is a more recent 62 km extension. The trail is now 135 km long.

This first section involves a considerable length of decking. There were further examples of this later in the ride. I think we’ve likely ridden 1.5 km of decking today.

The trail continues to follow the lake, with quirky features.

The Trail crosses many roads, always with signage where to continue. No way to get lost!

We went through numerous farms. In the distance there were two brown red structures that we were curious about, as the path headed there.

The first was a covered bridge.

The second, something the Vikings built.

A significant structure that crosses the farm road and stock crossings. Perhaps it floods here in winter too.

This was a beautiful property. We felt we were riding down their driveway.

Milton township would be our last chance for food, so we stopped for lunch at our now frequent Four Square store. Nice, fresh sandwiches and drink.

Leaving town was this old Toll House. It is the last one remaining on South Island.

The headwinds were quite difficult around this section as it was so open. Further along there were ploughed paddocks, with the wind whipping up dirt that we rode through.

I enjoyed this section through the flowering broom plants.

Riding through this forested area was nice and cool, offering us wind protection.

There were two tunnels today, the first Mt Stuart.

It was hard to believe this was 442 m long, but riding through we agreed it likely was. We thought it looked shorter.

We turned our front riding lights on to see more clearly. It is a solid muddy like surface, that kept climbing slightly.

Out the other side, and the trail climbed some more.

The Swiss flag was flying proudly.

Bike junk.

Another animal obstacle. These two horses did not budge. You can see the gap is narrow between their head and fence for two riders.

Another rail cutting as we head to the second tunnel.

Warning sign pre tunnel. Seriously there was no turning back.

A shorter tunnel.

This tunnel was curved.

Out the other side, descending, we found this little roadside shop. Elderberry juice $10. If you don’t have the $ now, pay next time you come past.

More farms and cycling quirky.

Our final climb.

Our final descent.

Ah, another obstacle on the trail. We detoured to the adjacent road, on the outskirts of Lawrence.

We had seen lots of trees damaged earlier on the Trail that had been cut up and removed off the track. Must have been a recent big storm.

Lawrence, our overnight destination. We’re here for the revrockandhop!

We settled in, showered and walked into the centre of town in search of food.

The local pub had good fare and we both enjoyed our meal.

Car enthusiasts were all around and this car caused quite a commotion when he departed. Incredibly noisy.

Heading out of the pub, very Kiwi….leave your gumboots at the door.

A solid 104 km today, with 940 m climbing. Our orange route of where we have ridden has started its circle back.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow is a shorter day and we will need to chill along the way.

Thanks for reading 😊❣️