Finding some land

 At Christmas 2021 I did a little road trip into Central otago, via the Pigroot and Maniatoto valley, stopping to do my favourite section of the Otago Rail trail at Lauder and Poolburn before freedom camping on the shores of lake Dunstan. The next day I headed to Alexandra and biked part of the Roxburgh Gorge trail before heading on to Roxburgh and Miller’s Flat.

One of the tunnels on the Otago trail trail near Poolburn. 

A short rest on the Ida Valley section

Ida Valley

the Maniatoto

The Clutha (Mata-au) New Zealand's fastest flowing river. 

Heading into Roxburgh gorge

The Clutha river

Roxburgh Gorge 

Driving through Miller’s flat I spotted some land for sale. Actually, I’d spotted it a few days earlier while searching Trademe for land in Central, a section just under 1600m2 on the main highway, so went this way to check it out. 

I’ve spent a bit of time at Miller’s Flat in the past few years. Firstly, when Julie and I did the Roxburgh Gorge and Clutha Gold Rail trails at the end of 2017 just prior to me going and volunteering with VSA in Kiribati for a year. On that trip we’d stayed with my cousin's who farms near Roxburgh at Teviot and learned that Miller’s flat was where my grandfather, the youngest of 10 children, was born in the 1890s, so there are family connections to the region as well. 

 Anyway, I had a look at the section and over the next 2-3 weeks kept looking at it on Trademe. It was fully fenceed and has water connection to the gate and definitely has potental. A few weeks later I made another trip south for a holiday, this time with Julie, and decided to put an offer on the section and after a bit of negotiation I was the new owner of a bit of land on the banks of the mighty Mata-au, or Clutha river, across the river from the Clutha Gold Trail. 

Job done.