We eagerly awaited this train trip. The Taieri Gorge train (http://www.taieri.co.nz/) is a sightseeing train trip travelling through spectacular scenery and departing from the historic Railway Station in downtown Dunedin. The railway station is supposed to be the most photographed building in New Zealand – one look at the architecture and it's easy to see that people have strong feelings one way (love) or the other (hate) about this structure.
We chose the longer 6-hour trip to Middlemarch since the weather was supposed to be adequate (which it was, just overcast, then patches of sun in the afternoon). While not quite as stunning as the Cumbres and Toltec or Durango-Silverton rides, this was still pretty darn good. We were able to spread out and get good views of the gorge on both sides of the carriage. There were numerous bridges that took advantage of the abundant local stone for buttresses. The Wingatui Viaduct stretches 197 meters across and 37 metersnabove Mullochy Stream, making it one of the largest wrought iron structures in the Southern Hemisphere. We passed through 12 tunnels, two on the state-owned tracks from Dunedin to Abbotsford and 10 on the private tracks to Middlemarch.
The train comes out of the gorge near Pukerangi (the turnaround for shorter trips) and continues on high plains through to Middlemarch. We ate lunch at the cafe there (they were very efficient in making meals for the large train crowds). The cafe owner said the crowds varied from 16 to 330 – he would call the station in Dunedin for a head count and then put on enough staff to handle the size of the crowd (sometimes two on the coffee machine, one on the register, one bussing tables, and two in the kitchen). A lady at the Middlemarch station was giving buggy rides around town and the local Lions Club was selling sausages lunches, so there was a lot of hands-on support from the community. We talked with a NZ couple on the return trip – the trip was the husband's birthday present. Like most other folks we've talked with, they admired our courage for becoming gypsies and shared our technological inclination for staying in touch with family (e.g., Skype).
