Doing the Otago Rail Trail with a 13 month old

Day 1 – Clyde to Omakau 37km

Day 2 – Omakau to Wedderburn 42km

Day 3 – Wedderburn to Kokonga 38km

Day 4 – Kokonga to Middlemarch 42km

Accommodation: 

We booked everything through shebikeshebikes who arranged the bikes, accommodation and luggage transport for us. As we had our luggage transported we took a portacot with us which made things much easier although they were able to be provided at most of the accommodation places on request.

Night 1 – Killarney Cottage. A large house which we had all to ourselves, reasonably child safe and included breakfast and full kitchen. We weren’t charged for our one year old.

Night 2 – Wedderburn Lodge and Cottages. We had booked a single cottage and planned to 

squeeze in but they kindly gave us two separate cottages so we had much more room. The cooking facilities were minimal – just a microwave and not much crockery or cutlery. Wedderburn tavern was a short walk away for a drink and some food. There was no charge for our one year old.

Night 3 – Tussock Lodge. This requires a shuttle transport from Kokonga back to Waipiata. This would be problematic if you don’t have a car seat with you. The modern lodge has huge bedrooms off to the sides all with their own bathrooms and a central communal area with living room and massive kitchen downstairs and separate TV area upstairs. We had the whole place to ourselves. This is a long way from any food but we had our own with us and the owners seemed more than happy to get anything if we wanted it. There was no charge for children under three.

The Bikes and Trailer:

We had bikes as provided by sheikeshebikes. Myself and my brother had ‘sport’ bikes while my mum opted for the comfort option. They all worked well and we didn’t have any problems 

with them on the way. The only thing that wasn’t working too well was the speedometers. One was measuring too far, one not far enough, and one was vaguely right. For my son we had a trailer that clipped on to the back of my bike. As he’s still pretty small we had a baby capsule (our own) which we brought and tied into the trailer with ratchet ties (also our own). The trailers are definitely designed with older children in mind and he wouldn’t have been restrained at all in just the trailer as the harness was huge. The trailer was the biggest issue really, following are pros and cons of it:

Pros of the trailer:

·      It had a good waterproof cover. This kept out the wind, the rain and the dust being kicked up by our bikes. It also provided some sun protection.

·      It was large enough to fit our pretty big capsule and had enough space below and behind this to store everything else extra we needed like blankets, rain gear, food etc.

·      It let our one year old see everything that was going on and also sent him to sleep pretty easily!

Cons of the trailer:

·      By far the main problem was that people generally do the rail trail on bikes without a trailer. This has led to a pretty smooth area on either side of the trail with big ridges of 

stones/rocks/other debris in the middle and at both edges. No matter where I biked one of the other of the trailer wheels was on the extremely bumpy edge or middle of the trail. This was problematic in that it not only made it an extremely bumpy ride for our son at times but also it often felt like dragging a dead weight through massive piles of gravel. I’ve done a lot of biking and there were times when I was in bottom gear going downhill just trying to drag the trailer along. The alternative was to bike in the middle in the mounds of gravel so the trailer wheels were on either side in the smooth areas. While this did work some of the time it was very hard work trying to keep the bike from skidding one way or the other and made my hands numb from the constant jarring.

·      The waterproof cover prevented much airflow and as it was in the mid thirties most of the time we were biking it got very hot and we had to open it front and back to let the air flow through and keep it cool.

·      The back of the trailer is pretty close to the back wheel of the bike and an older child could easily kick out and get their foot caught up in the back wheel of the bike if the cover is off.

·      One of the bridges near the end (can’t remember which one) was very, very narrow and it was a tricky squeeze to get the trailer through and required a bit of manouvering.

The Trail: 

The trail itself is really variable in it’s quality. There were very short rocky bits. Most of it is like your generic gravel road and the part nearer the end is very well graded limestone. In general it is rougher than the brochures lead you to believe but if you’re not towing a trailer then you can usually just bike in the nice smooth grooves!

Activities on the way:

Generally looking at the landscape and the information on the way.

There are many cafes and pubs on the trail providing a great place to have a break and some refreshment. All the ones we went to were pretty good. The oturehua railway hotel in particular had great food and a massive amount of kids toys.

There are also a large number of geocaches on the trail which is a great activity with older kids. If you don’t know what this is then look it up. Some of them involved climbing over fences and down steep gullys and require close adult supervision.

At the End:

As our car had been left in Clyde we needed to get it. One of our party got the 2:30pm shuttle from Middlemarch to Clyde and then drove back. This made for a long trip for them but avoided having to do the whole journey with a fractious one year old. We then stayed in Middlemarch for the night as we had somewhere to wait!

What I would do next time:

To be perfectly honest I’m not sure that the trailer was a great idea. If I was doing it again with a slightly older child then I think a seat on the back of the bike; or a tow along kids bike for even older kids would have been a much more relaxing option. Most of the way I was worrying about 

what damage all the bumping along would be doing and consequently didn’t find it as enjoyable as had to go much slower than I 

otherwise might have. Saying that the trailer gave us the opportunity to do a great journey as a family and it was definitely a good experience overall. I think with a one year old he would have spent a lot of time falling asleep in a seat on the back of the bike in which case I would have worried about him obstructing his airway instead. Also as we had such incredibly hot weather he would have been very likely to get pretty sunburnt.

Must have gear:

·      If doing it with a trailer I would definitely recommend taking a capsule and some way of tying it properly on to the trailer. One of the accommodation providers said they’d seen a number of people give up with using the trailer as they have a metal bar just under the child’s knee and with all the bumping most of them got too uncomfortable after a short distance.

·      The other thing that we took which became essential was a small blanket and some bulldog clips. We used these to clip the blanket on to the front of the 

trailer to stop the sun blazing in so much and enabling us to open the front still for some air flow.

·      As with any trip with a child we took loads and loads of snacks and toys and had regular breaks and I wouldn’t change that!

·      Baby (and adult) sunscreen.

·      Something to do nappy changes on the move. We took a disposable change map that we just plonked down any old where.