Day 9: Lake Tekapo to Twizel

The great thing about camping in a Dark Sky Reserve is when the sun goes down and there’s a clear sky, you get to go do some of the best star gazing on the planet. Matt and I took full advantage last night, and even though it cut into our sleep a bit, it was well worth it!

This morning dawned foggy and cold, so we quickly ate breakfast and packed up to leave. The weather report was calling for rain in the Mt. Cook area, but we were going to wait to decide whether we were going to head up that way or not. We followed the Tekapo Canal, first on a paved road, then gravel. They recently re-lined part of the canal and seem have to decided that they didn’t want to be bothered with paving the road, so the new sections are gravel. The Tekapo Canal connects Lake Tekapo with Lake Pukaki, moving the same milky blue water from the lake that we enjoy seeing so much.

At a certain point in our trip, we had to stop and take a few pictures of a group of sheep. These particular sheep helped supply the merino wool for one of my cycling jerseys, or at least that’s what the Icebreaker website said when we looked up the barcode on my jersey. Pretty darn neat! They looked like happy sheep J

As the day wore on, the fog started to lift, and we started seeing glimpses of the Ben Ohau Mountain Range, the range that Mt. Cook is part of. Gleaming white, snow covered peaks emerged from behind the clouds, providing a spectacular view. We had to stop many times for pictures, and sometimes just to take it all in. Unfortunately, at one point, while stopping for a picture, Matt’s phone slipped out of his bag and landed like a pancake on several pieces of gravel, shattering the glass, making it unusable. We took several moments to be very annoyed about that, and then had to continue on our way. We’ll just have to make do with my phone, even though it doesn’t have international capabilities at least it has wi-fi and GPS.

We continued to follow the canal, and since most of the road is closed to vehicle traffic, we had it all to ourselves for many km. Eventually, we came towards the end and joined the road. This particular road in the middle of nowhere with no through vehicle access has a bike lane, odd. A few km down the canal, well in the middle of the canal was a salmon farm. We watched some of the farmers working with the fish as we pedaled past.

We paused at the end of the canal for lunch, enjoying a bit of sunshine and watching fishermen try their luck at the small lake at the end of the canal. We didn’t see any of them catch anything, but they looked like they were having a good time. While there, an old man stopped his car, got out, and chatted with us a bit. He wanted to know where we were from, and how we like NZ and he told us stories about going to America and the different Americans he’s known.

We had a great view of the mountains while eating lunch, and we could see the clouds gathering. Looked like a storm. We figured it wouldn’t be worth it to ride up to Mt. Cook if we couldn’t even see anything, so we decided to bypass it. Instead, we hooked up with the Alps to Ocean Trail on the edge of Lake Pukaki, and followed it around to the end of the lake, and we watched as the storm kept coming toward us from across the lake. We linked up with the Pukaki Flats trail down the road a ways, which cuts across a pretty flat stretch of land.

There were several gates along this trail, and while we were trying to get our bikes through the first one, another cycle tourist came along. He’s from Peru, and has just 3 weeks to see as much of the island as he can. We rode together for a bit, but when we got to the highway to Twizel, we decided to stop, and he decided to go on. It was starting to rain and look quite stormy, and we were both ready to call it a day.

The Twizel Holiday Park, where the motto is “country living in a small town”, had reasonable rates, hot showers, and a kitchen area. We rented a caravan for the night, which is basically a camper with two beds and little else, however it was only $16 more than a tent site. Plus it will keep us warm and dry tonight. We’ve got big plans for tomorrow, and we’ll need all the rest we can get.

Darn wifi here came with “50mb free!” and is 10 cents a mb after that, so no pictures right now. Maybe tomorrow.

Stars over Lake Tekapo

Stars and ?Milky Way?

Tekapo Canal

Power Lines over the Tekapo Canal

Mt. Cook the tallest mountain on the south island

Lake Pukaki, the color is not altered, that is what it really looks like!

From the south end of Lake Pukaki

Who designed this gate for a national bike path?