Day 29: Wanaka to Makarora (West)

Journal for 2014-11-17 | Published on 2014-11-20 20:41:53

Our camp neighbors last night were very noisy so we didn’t get a terribly restful sleep, never a good sign when you are putting in earplugs. Either way we did breakfast and hit the road. Well actually we hit the trails, our path out of town led us on various tracks giving us views of Lake Wanaka and the Clutha River. It was an incredibly beautiful morning and we spent a lot of time making our way through it, pausing very often to take pictures or just take in the natural beauty.

After about the first 8k the trails got smaller and were frequently referred to as mountain bike trails. Our touring bikes handled them just fine with the exception of a few small hills that were too steep and loose for our heavy bikes to be ridden up them. It was a great ride.

We made our way over from the Clutha River, NZs largest river, and one of the swiftest in the world, to the Hawea River, NZs shortest, which had a suspension bridge over the river which we had to push our bikes up the stairs and then walk them across. Then we were on another mountain bike trail making our way along the Hawea River to Hawea Lake. Again stopping frequently to take pictures.

Along the way we paused at an odd sight, there were some white water rapids and there was somebody surfing them in the river. Yes standing up on a surf board. Turns out that this section of the river has been specifically turned into a “whitewater playground” and you can come kayak, body board, or even surf the playground.

Making our way to Lake Hawea we found a spot near the dam for lunch and enjoyed the views. Pedaling on after that we had a lot of rolling hills as we followed State Highway 6 along the lake. The lake was very calm and the mountains were reflected on it, just more beautiful riding. We paused at a few lookouts and enjoyed the view while riding.

We reflected a little on bicycle touring itself and how we got to enjoy hours of staring at this lake and mountain views that would have been whisked by in about 10 minutes in a car. We also know every meter of the road, the climbs up, and the wild descents with the childlike grins that come with them. There is a lot to be said having earned each of these views by pedaling along.

Overall we found traffic to be rather light, a few cars every few minutes, and with the exception of that one guy who honked at us in an unfriendly fashion, everyone else was nice enough.

We made our way to the small piece of land between Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka, called the “neck”. And found a sign that said 17km to Makarora. This puzzled us immensely, we knew that we had about 25km left. We have found that the NZ km markings are more estimates than anything, but this was way off.

Pedaling along now back on Lake Wanaka we encountered some headwinds, but nothing terrible. Along the way there were two sections of the road being worked on that had landslides being cleared off them. These were blocked off completely and then they would periodically let the cars through. This meant that for long stretches of time we had the road completely to ourselves. Then a cluster of cars would pass, and again nothing but the sounds of our gears whirring as we pedaled along.

Right at the 17km from the roadsign we found ourselves in Makarora, which has nothing but a few houses and a sign that says all services are 10km down the road in Makarora (west). Very annoying. But to make up for it 5km later we hit a small store/café just before closing and got ourselves some double scoops of ice cream. They had funny little double scoop cones that had holes for two scoops, and they put two scoops in each one. So we had plenty of ice cream.

The people in NZ make a big deal about how good NZ ice cream is. Unfortunately we haven’t found it to be anything special, it’s decent ice cream, but not knock your socks off good. Guess we will have to keep hunting for that special scoop of NZ ice cream.

We pedaled that last 5km to the Holiday Park to find that the office had closed, and there wasn’t clear information about where we should set up our tents. So we found a little tucked away corner, set up the tent, showered, ate, and now are heading to bed early. It was a very enjoyable day and immensely beautiful.

Distance: 76.56km

Time: 06:05

Avg: 12.58kmh

Max: 62.43kmh

Climb: 846m