Alexandra to Chatto Creek

The ride from Alexandra to Chatto Creek starts with a very open flat 7km rural section from Alexandra to Chatto Creek traversing around the base of Tucker hills.  There is a short optional side trip just as you leave Alexandra before heading along the obvious long Galloway climbing up to Lower Manorburn Dam.  During cold winters locals will use the dam lake for ice skating. The name Tucker Hill is supposedly derived from the fact that this area only ever turned up enough gold for miners’ basic necessities and food (tucker).

Reaching Galloway Railway Station there is nothing to suggest that this once was a bust staging post.  Sidings, stock yards and railway housing have all long gone. Before that time reaching the Galloway flats mean’t the end of the trip crossing four huge mountains that made up the traditional Dunstan trail for the gold prospectors making their way to the Otago gold-fields from Dunedin.

Inside the ladies waiting room at the Galloway Railway Station site is an interesting and informative display of petrified wood.

The Old Dunstan Trail can be today completed in one to two days for an adventurous cyclists. From Galloway head over the Crawford Hills (part of Raggedy Range) through to Moa Creek and Bonspiel Station and then on past Pooldam Dam and Styx. Accommodation is available on the Station in the old Moa Creek Pub or the stacked stone huts built by Chinese gold miners in the 1860s (No electricity or running water). Alternatively you can camp at Styx by the old Jail. Mountain biking adventures are available on the station on request. From Bonspiel Station it is a short hop up to Poolburn Dam. Pooldam Dam was the Land of Rohan in theLord of the Rings film.

From Galloway the trail continues for a further 10km crossing the Manuherikia Bridge and departing from the rural landscape and entering the typical schist and wild thyme countryside of much of the Otago Rail Central Trail. At the Manuherikia Bridge are the remains of one of CEntral Otago's earliest gold dredges. Look for Olrig Gangers’ Shed. Inside this red painted corrugated iron shed you’ll find the first or last (depending on which way you’re travelling the Rail Trail) of a series of information panels installed by the Otago Central Rail Trail Trust along the Trail. Stampsare also inside the Gangers Sheds for your Official Rail Trail Passport.

Previous route: Clyde to Alexandra

Next route: Chatto Creek to Omakau