Day 27: Lake Mavora to Frankton

Well last night was an adventure, it started with some wind, then some rain, then lots of wind, rain, and a few lightning strikes. Amazingly enough our tent stayed very dry and we woke up to a cold morning. It was 3-4C and occasionally a gust of wind would come through making you much colder. After eating oatmeal huddling next to a fire pit to block the wind we got on the road.

Unlike our last tour across the Southern US we were much better prepared for cold weather this time and no longer have to wear every item of clothing we have to stay warm. However no matter what you are wearing when cycling in cold weather it is a constant battle between staying warm and not sweating every article of clothing to a sopping wet mess to freeze the next time you stop. We fought that a lot today.

As we were leaving camp there was at least one tree that had been blown over and was blocking the road, luckily it was right a pullout for a campsite so we could get around it. After that we paused at the edge of “Fangorn Forest” or the place where it was filmed in the Lord of the Rings movies. It looks exactly as one would imagine, fields of dry tussock with a large forest just rising 30 feet in to the air with no transition zone. Pretty neat.

Then it was down the road into a large valley with mountains each side. We were heading up the valley for some time, it was gently sloped upwards in elevation, and had lots of time to enjoy the views of the freshly snow covered mountains. There were patchy clouds and it was still around 8C when we came to our first river ford of the day. We seem to have a habit of getting to these things right after fresh storms to ensure they are full of rushing cold water that requires us to get in to our shower shoes and walk the bikes across. It was cold, very cold.

While putting our socks and shoes back on we also noticed that there was some snow showers happening in the mountains, and not long after that we had some very light sleet ourselves. This lasted on and off for the rest of the ride. It was still very beautiful riding and was just a gentle climb.

When we reached the top of the valley it was a sharp descent down the other side into Von Valley. We were happy to be going downhill after 20km of climbing. Unfortunately the wind was roaring up the valley in gusts, we started down the 7% grade hitting 30kmh before a giant wind gust came and stopped us completely in our tracks. We gritted our teeth and made our way down the 250m descent in bursts. Towards the bottom the wind wasn’t as strong and instead just sort of became the annoying headwind.

Meandering down Von Valley we dropped low enough that we stopped getting the occasional sleet and it switched to rain, it even warmed up to about 12C, right before we decided to stop for lunch. While stopped for lunch the temperature plummeted to 7C and the winds picked up, making for a rather unpleasant lunch as we were sweaty, no longer moving, and trying to eat with gloved hands. It was bad enough that we had one sandwich, and then ate our ‘emergency’ bars, which we try to always keep on hand for unexpected food issues, they are densely packed sugar/carb filled bars with 400 calories crammed in to them. We were not the happiest of people at that point of time.

From our lunch spot we could see the second river ford of the day, and given how cold we were and it was we were grumbling a lot as we sat down to take off the shoes to cross another ice cold river. Somewhere along the fording, this was a larger ford of about 30 feet across, we realized that there are much worse things in the world then what we are doing, and with a little perspective shift became much more positive about our experience. We had a few more km of climbing into the headwind and finally we came with in view of Lake Wakatipu, which even with the rain and clouds you could see that the water was the beautiful teal blue of glacial fed bodies of water. Then we turned a corner and those 30-40kmh headwinds turned to a tailwind and pushed us along to Walter Peak Station rather quickly.

In fact we made it just in time, we bought our tickets and within 15minutes along came the TSS Earnslaw, a 102 year old coal fired steamboat to take us, and about 100 other people across the Lake to Queenstown. It was really neat being on this steamboat, they even had walkways above the engine room so you could see the steam engine working and watch them feed coal into the burners.

Arriving in Queenstown was a bit of culture shock for us, yesterday we saw maybe a dozen cars on the road we were riding, today we didn’t see a single car on the same road as us. Queenstown is the adventure tourism capital of NZ and it was full of people, signs, traffic, and some sort of rally car race was blocking some main streets. We didn’t have a good map of the area and were kind of out of it from our tough ride, so we sat there trying to decide what to do and where to go, and being very cold for some time. Finally we just ran in to the nearest coffee shop we could find, which happened to be a Starbucks, and ordered a hot drink and something to eat.

With clearer heads, warm bodies, and some free wifi we had direction. A quick stop at a grocery store for dinner and then we rode through the Queenstown Gardens which were very nice and full of blooming flowers, then made our way to Frankton about 8km down the road. We pulled in to the Holiday Park and called it a night. Phew what a day.

 Distance: 64.32km

Time: 5:20

Avg: 12kmh

Max: 35.27kmh

Climb: 565m

Beautiful cold morning at Lake Mavora

Edge of Fangorn Forest from the roadside, we choose not to walk to it

Sample of the views while riding

Our big descent in to Von Valley, Pam is a tiny speck in the bottom right

Walter Peak Station from the TSS Earnslaw