Cycling, Drinking, And New Zealand: Good, Good, And Good

I’m beginning to recognize that if I wasn’t born in America, the great Lord would’ve sent me appropriate down to New Zealand. Apparently, my fate drew the short straw (or would that be the lengthy straw?). I say that mainly because the additional I read about the place, the a lot more I’m positive I’d really like it. Middle Earthen beauty, bad-ass accents, and the tendency to encourage 1 to bike from bar to bar. In fact, I’m tempted to don an accent and pedal to the bar this extremely minute. But it’s 7:37 a.m., maybe that’s too significantly.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t be too significantly if you happened to obtain your self along New Zealand’s Clutha River. 150 years ago, you’d come across your self among 40,000 miners, frequenting the 42 bars and three opium dens — and that just in the town of Clyde. Nowadays, the table dancers and drug-fueled evenings may perhaps be a factor of the past, but the action is still just as hot. Think spandex.

Reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, New Zealand’s Otago Rail Trail is the country’s initial dedicated long-distance cycleway, paralleling the when “richest gold-bearing river in the world.” Using about 150 km of old railroad bed, the almost 20,000 cyclists per year have developed a different gold rush of sorts. Seeing the effects of the trail on the area, the New Zealand government has begun construction on seven more routes that will crisscross the country.

And don’t be concerned, even although the old mining towns along the trail have began crumbling, the pubs have carried on.  After all, that’s how we cyclists roll.

[image by Rene’ V. Rosengren/flickr]