Cycling to Clyde and Stalking Sam

Thursday 30 April

It was a fristy frosty morning at Como Villa Estate - another chance to capture a few lovely sunrise images, this time with added icy sparkle. The old weighing scales were a subtle reminder that I should probably get back on my keto diet?! Probably need to lose about a stone! Loved the colour of Jonny's iconic poplar in the morning sunshine.

Jimmy came to say good morning a wee while later and about 10ish we set off on the bikes along the Clutha River Track to Clyde. It was about 9km along a lovely track winding along the riverside in the autumn sunshine with the sun twinkling on the teal waters - probably the best time of year to enjoy the trail. A few kms along we came to a fascinating object but could not find an information sign about it - I presume it was some kind of bore from the gold mining days - looks rather steampunk!

At the end of the trail we cycled under the end of Earnscleugh Bridge towards the dam which is an impressively large structure, then looped round to cross the bridge into Clyde, and popped into The Merchant for morning tea. Historic Earnscleugh Bridge is pretty special - the abutments date from 1874 and the current structure was completed in the 1930s to accommodate motor vehicles. Clyde Dam is the second largest hydropower dam in NZ and was built between 1982 and 1993, blocking the Clutha River and creating Lake Dunstan.

The Merchant of Clyde is a very fine establishment selling a variety of delicious sweet & savoury items from the cabinet - and is rumoured to be a favoured haunt of my quarry, Sam Neill! No luck today, but Louis had an ANZAC caramel slice and I had ginger crunch, as usual, so we weren't too disappointed!

From here we passed the war memorial with its ANZAC wreaths, recrossed the bridge and followed Earnscleugh Road, paused to admire the vibrant colour & reflections at Picnic Creek, then detoured down Fraser Road to check out Sam Neill’s Two Paddocks vineyard…

It looked like a lovely spot, but sadly he did not appear to be home so we carried on along the back lanes and byways until we found ourselves back at Banjo. We cycled along McIntosh Road in tribute to sister-in-law Susan, and passed many many orchards and long stands of golden poplars.

While we were out a classic cars group had showed up and Banjo’s two new neighbours were a gorgeous green 4by4 Morgan and a 1954 red Triumph TR2 - loved hearing the Morgan purr as it drove past us later. Chatted to the Morgan's owner briefly - Stig used to have one of these and we used to zoom around in it, the passengers in the back getting very windswept as the rear seats are significantly higher than the front seats, so your head was above the windscreen height! I also used to work with Bobby Morgan when I was a teen - she was the daughter of the Morgan founder and was Mum to the Gilbert-Scott girls who let me help them with the show ponies for many years.

I popped back into the wine cellar as it was open again - it really is fascinating! The bottles on the lower right are all over a century old and imported from the champagne region of France 🍾 I also checked out the smithy - just look at the size of those bellows! I bet they wished they had the powered bellows that Ernest Hayes invented!

Jonny very kindly let us plug in our bike batteries at the main building, and loaned us a ladder to clean our solar roof panels, then suggested we should enjoy a sundowner at the London Cottage at the top end of the estate - so we took our drinkies up there and watched the evening colours change, looking out over the gorgeous landscape.

Small panic back at Banjo when we could not get the power to work after we switched off the generator, but it turned out we’d accidentally flicked a vital switch so an hour or so later we were back in business! Yay! 🎉 We had dinner by the glow of our fairylight/emergency light that we never remember to use otherwise!