On our last evening in the pub at Mount Cook and we end up talking to another interesting fellow named Angus who is travelling in the same direction as us the following day - and best of all he has a car. He offers to drive us to a place called Clyde where we are due to start the Otago Rail Trail bike ride. As Angus was a native, he knew all the...

Pip and Andy are selling Oliver's. In the few days we stay with them, they negotiate through the final parts of an offer. They fell in love with this place on their honeymoon and have nurtured it back to a regional getaway destination. Along with the restaurant, inside the block's worth of stone walls Pip and Andy have rescued the various rooms ...

At midday, while "the girls" visit a wool shop and enjoy a lingering lunch, Andy takes me for a "shortish" bike trip. It amuses him that I've never used a camel water system before; I'm fascinated by its simple backpack design and self-serve water nozzle. I'm less happy with the stability of the bike, which feels like the forks have been chopped...

A day of rest. At 6:00 am I post a couple of online journal entries in a futile attempt to stay less than a month out of date, then slip back to bed to get up with everyone else at 10:30. We're esconced in the home of my old roommate Pip and her husband Andy in the tiny hamlet of Clyde. Last night, we drove out of the farmland near Wanaka and fo...