2000 Biking New Zealand

Day 05, 12 December 2000, Tuesday
Wanaka – Makarora; 67.6km @ 13kph, Makarora Tourist Centre, $50

What a glorious day – which not even a hellish headwind for the last 15km could mar.

It rained in the night, but we awoke to perfect weather. Windless and warm – with a sky blue enough to make a photographer’s heart leap. Both of us feeling rested and ready for the day’s challenge. We agreed to take it easy and so set off at a steady pace from Wanaka, passing Puzzling World with its off-beam buildings on our right just before turning north toward Lake Hawea.

Today’s road was in perfect nick and virtually free of vehicular traffic – although we did see several cyclists heading in both directions. Including a German couple with whom Charl had conversed on the streets of Wanaka yesterday – heavily loaded and chatting to each other as they passed us walking up a long steep hill!

The road rolled gently to Lake Hawea – where we stopped for tea and to top up our bottles and buy bananas for sustenance on the road – and then less gently northwestish along the west shore of Lake Hawea; crossed a spur at about the halfway mark and followed the east shore of Lake Wanaka; dropped into the Makarora Valley and proceeded more or less flat to our destination.

Both lakes are stunning. Huge and a deep deep blue except on the edges before the ground drops away. Here they are the colour of greenstone – as are some of the rivers flowing into them. Both with waterfalls dropping from on high and running under the road and into the lake waters. Which are beautifully clear. The road hugs their respective shores with hills right beside us and mountains all around – some snow-capped. The terrain ensuring sometimes swooping wonderful descents on sweeping curves – and a high for the day of 70kph.

Quite often we were entirely alone out there. With the sun strong on our exposed arms and the wind of our passage whistling in our ears and the whirr of our tyres gentle on the gravel seal. When we stopped to drink from our water bottles or simply to drink in the fantastic views, we were surrounded by birdsong. Or the complaining of sheep – I don’t know why, but sometimes entire fields of sheep baah incessantly.

On the north-end shore of Lake Wanaka we came across a collapsed section of road with a temporary-seeming single-lane bridge spanning it – and several signs warning of maximum weight and maximum number of vehicles. Also a graphic sign warning of falling rocks from the mountain immediately to our right – on which someone with a sense of humour had drawn a skier also falling from the mountainside.

Nearing the top end of Lake Wanaka and the entrance to the Makarora Valley, we noted white tips on the water’s surface up ahead. And realised – actually Charl realised and passed on the bad news (!) – that we were about to encounter a wind. And pretty strong it was too. Dropping our average speed on pancake flat sections to less than 10kph! Hard work, but the valley a joy to behold nonetheless. Venerable old pines towering above us. Green and gentle pastures with white-faced cattle. Fields of foxgloves in purple and cream. And a circle of mountains framing it all.

We stopped 4km before Makarora itself at the Country Cafe for something to eat – along with tour-busloads of touring tourists. And then tackled the last leg in a still strongly gusting wind. We are staying in a very cute A-frame cottage under a mountain covered in rain forest. With birdsong galore (the squeaky-gate bell bird song being most prolific). And relatively basic shared showers. Charl took a walk in the forest and persuaded me later to join him on a shorter ramble through the heavily-ferned and mossed woods – beautiful. We have dined on salad and cold meat from the tearooms, sent an email home, showered basic and are planning a relatively early start.

This morning as we were loading the bikes, a young man dressed in T-shirt, shorts, sandals and sunglasses, and with a backpack on his back, came out of the hostel to straddle his own bike. I asked where he was headed. To a conference on the other side of the lake, was his response. Which left us with nothing to say except Oh!