The Otago Central Rail Trail is a 150-kilometre walking, cycling and horse riding track in the South Island of New Zealand. A pioneering project for New Zealand, the successful cycle trail joined the New Zealand Cycle Trail umbrella organisation in 2012, having been one of the inspirations for it.
The trail runs in an arc between Middlemarch and Clyde, along the route of the former Otago Central Railway. The trail has become a popular tourist attraction, with 10,000-12,000 users per year as a conservative estimate, and yearly (and ongoing) user increases for 6 out of the last 7 years (as of 2011). The trail is also accepted as being, by a large margin, the biggest non-farming economic factor in the Maniototo-Alexandra area.
Read more about Otago Central Rail Trail: History, Trail Walking / Cycling, Usage / Statistics
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“Old man, it’s four flights up and for what?
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—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)