Daily Photo – Waipiata-Kyeburn Road, Kyeburn

To call Kyeburn a settlement is stretching things a little. Technically true, geographically accurate, but a touch misleading. Look it up on the map and you’ll find it tucked along State Highway 85 in Central Otago. But drive through, and you quickly realise it’s more an idea than a town. You pass a lone house here, a weathered cemetery there, the occasional gravel driveway leading past the crumbling remains of long-abandoned buildings. And then, just when you think the land is empty, the Central Otago Rail Trail threads its way across the Maniototo – a reminder that people do, in fact, come this way, though maybe not in droves.

But that’s the delightful thing about Central Otago, and in particular the Maniototo region: it’s the lack of anything at all that makes it so wonderful. You don’t arrive in places like Lauder, Becks, Waipiata, Ranfurly, Wedderburn, or Kyeburn and immediately start looking for a Westfield Mall to get your nails done or replace your phone battery. Instead, you slow down, breathe in the crisp air, watch the light shift across the tussock, and let the quiet, wide-open spaces do their work. Kyeburn is the kind of place where you spot a track and think, “Now I wonder what’s down there,” and off you go with little more than a jersey, sturdy footwear, and an inquisitive mindset – and that’s exactly what I did.