Tramping from Pukerangi to Middlemarch, Otago

As we were told, we ended up in the middle of the wop-wops. It was wonderful.

Saturday morning, we woke up a little groggy from the night before and walked to the train station, which happens to be the second most photographed building in NZ. We walked there via the farmer's market and bought breakfast- my apricot thing was good. We got tickets found the correct train (!) and left the station at about 9:30am. On the trip we marvelled at the great views from the 1920s vintage train along the Taieri Gorge Railway. We stood on the platforms between cars and then found the back of the train. We could see mountain chains and forests and rivers from the train- and also its pretty marvelous that they even built the railroad at all. About 2.513 hours later we arrived at Pukerangi population unknown but <10. style="font-style: italic;">nowhere. Rigor mortis was setting in at 8km for some of us, but I was on my 4th wind by then. I think everyone else may hate me. Approximately 4, 123, 114 sheep were seen (exactly the population of NZ) vs. 5 houses, and 6 cars.

We reached the real highway SH87 and found out that the next 8km were along the main highway. It also should be considered that "main highway" is not really what it sounds like. Immensley proud of the 12km walked so far in high heat and humidity (note I took off my shirt (!)) we trudged for quite some time to see that according to the next sign we had gone only one more km. K, L, and N's spirits dropped. So we did something "down-rayght bahrbaric" (that's Krystle's NC accent) and had peanut butter on a stick. When we got up, I accidently left my camera there. And so it sat, in the middle of the wop-wops making friends with the sheep.

Now because we were beside the highway there actually were occasional cars who honked and waved- I guess we really were coming in from the mountains. Apparently the word spread in the village (pop. 250) that we were approaching. We hobbled into town and stopped for ice cream at the one store aka the General Store where they looked at us suspiciously. The teenage boys (all 3 of them) played loud music from their car. It seemed pretty typical. We wandered around and found 3 places that were full. Finally there was found refuge at Blind Billy's Holiday Resort, which was funnily enough owned by blind Billy. Check-in consisted of handing over very little money and one of us writing down her name on the sheet. His wife was very kind when shortly later we discovered that my camera was missing! If you can believe Blind Billy's wife drove us all 5km back down the road to recover the camera and all is well. It was a close call but I almost left my camera in the middle of the Taieri Gorge in Otago.

So in Middlemarch there is always this "Single's Ball" that is widely attended by people all over the province, such that the town increases in size by about 1000%. We thought this was hilarious and asked Blind Billy's wife about it. She said "Girls. If you saw the bachelors in this town you'd be sick! They're all these dirty sheep shearers and you can't get a hooker in Dunedin that night cause they all come up here!" We then went to the pub for dinner where we ate everything but the kitchen sink, drank some Speight's Pride of the South, and watched some Rugby with the local middleaged sheepshearers, one of whom seemed interested in Nanette. Afterwards, we went back to our bunks and slept a lot.

On Sunday morning we got up to the dull roar of Laura's alarm clock (the girl packed a friggen drug store!) , I went on a run and everyone else limped out of bed. I'm pretty sure they despise me, but I can't help but be awesome (!). We kind of washed ourselves. This is great: the bathrooms at the camp have "Rams" and "Ewes"on the doors. Classy.

Then we had breakfast at the Kissing Gate Cafe where we saw the same people working there as at the bar the night before. It was pretty great! We walked around a bit more, got more ice cream (!) and then took the train back to Dunedin where we passed the 21.5km tramp (up many many mountainous hills!) we did the previous day (in 6.5 hours) in about 20 minutes, which was a little depressing. At that point the conductor pointed out the road we tramped and said "That's the road you take to hike from Pukerangi to MM- its awfully hard. Don't do it." The rest of the trip was the day before's trip in reverse although no less awesome.

We got home after failed attempts at hitchhiking, I made everyone dinner (it was my turn) and yes, they are all still alive. Later, I went to Mass and read a little Microbiology for tomorrow, and am now going to bed. This was quite the adventure and I can't wait for the next one- maybe to the Fiordlands!