Naseby Sept 8-9

I managed to escape Dunedin for the first time in over a month to spend a weekend in the quiet northern Central Otago town of Naseby with some fellow geology postgrads. We stayed at a holiday home of someone in the department, which was the perfect base to explore the area. During the Otago gold rush Naseby sported a population of about 4000- today it sits around 100. Many relicts of extensive alluvial gold mining operations still exist such as water races and lakes. These days Naseby is known for two things: curling and mountain biking, and we were sure to sample both.

Saturday morning we went curling at the indoor rink. Curling is a silly sport played in wretchedly cold places. It consists of skillfully sliding a 20kg stone of granite across the ice with the goal of being the closest stone to a target. There are of course complications in that the stone is out of play if it touches the side of the lanes, goes too far or not far enough. It is surprisingly hard to land a stone within the narrow playing field. To ease this difficulty slightly, team members can sweep brooms in front of the stone to reduce the friction and encourage the stone to slide further. Unfortunately there is no option to slow the stone down. Sometimes the two teams' stones would collide, knocking the other team's stone out of play and ideally landing yours into the scoring zone. A weird game to be sure, but surprisingly difficult and fun.

After lunch Marco, Nathalie and I drove to Danseys Pass to attempt a potential mountain bike loop I spied on the topo map. We parked the car at the pass and climbed 350m in elevation in 3km along a four-wheel drive road past a sketchy-looking runway strip. The climb was steep so we mostly pushed our bikes up. At the top we enjoyed the landscape of frozen tussock. There was a biting wind, but otherwise the weather was grand- classic Central Otago sun-bathed tussock, blue skies and puffy clouds.

We then traversed a ridge over Mt Alexander (1357) before starting our delicious 4km downhill descent. Unfortunately most of the ridge was recently covered in snow such that the ground was soft and muddy. At the worst of it we had to pedal vigorously downhill just to maintain our speed. Thankfully conditions improved as we dropped altitude. We enjoyed panoramic views of Central Otago and the Kakanuis before jumping on our bikes for the core-shaking 600m downhill.

The downhill was amazing and was well worth the effort! 600m of squeezing brakes and vibrating my triceps to mushy oblivion. The track was in great shape and we made it back down to the road in no time at all. Here Marco and I pedaled back up the steady incline of the Danseys Pass Road to the pass to retrieve the car. I was quite hungry and exhausted and the road seemed to drag on forever. When we reached the top, Marco kindly offered to drive which allowed me to race down the road back to Nathalie and her bike. The grade was perfect for a bike and I sailed comfortably at top speed, keeping well ahead of Marco for much of the 6km. We stopped in at the historic Danseys Pass Hotel for a soothing cup of hot chocolate before returning to Naseby for our pub meal.

On Sunday Marco and I went for a 2 hour mountain bike ride through the Naseby Forest, a pine plantation atop an old alluvial gold working area. We rode a nice mixture of forestry roads and single tracks and passed many reminders of the gold mining era. We stopped at the edge of a lake for a break in the sun and I marveled about the oddity of the landscape looking like a scene from the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. I also notably lounged shirtless in a hammock for some time back at the crib. Bring on summer!

Thanks to Nathalie, Marco and John.