When leaving Lake Tekapo, we got onto the Alps2Ocean Cycle Trail that leads from the mountains all the way back down to the East coast city of Oamaru. The weather was grey with some rain in the morning but it cleared up a bit around noon time. The trail lead us along a canal to the next bigger lake, Lake Pukaki, which is close to the tallest mountain of New Zealand Mt Cook. At first we wanted to make our way there but a wet and windy weather forecast made us pass Mt Cook as there is no need to go if you cannot see it anyway. Instead we passed Lake Pukaki, the city of Twizle and we arrived at our free campsite close to Omarama where we put our tent in between some trees to be sheltered from the wind. After a cold wash in the river, we had dinner and watched the beautiful sunset before going to bed.
The next day started with very nice weather and our biking lead us further down the mountains following some lakes, passing several dams and ending up just outside the small town of Kurow. We were lucky to get in touch with Renzo over Warm Showers (Couchsurfing for cycle travelers). He gave us a spot to pitch our tent, we had a great chat with his Wwoofers Lizzy and Pete, who could give use some nice tips on New Zealand and we had some great conversations about everythings and nothing.
When we woke up the next day, we packed up, had a tea with our host, Lizzy and Pete before heading into the hills and onto the last part of the Alps2Ocean Trail to Oamaru. It was way more hilly than we expected but very scenic when going over the hills and through the countryside. The wind was in our favour, pushing us up some of the hills but it was kind of cold when cycling on top of the hills. This day also lead us through some sheep herds, through an old railway tunnel and we crossed a meadow of cows. In the evening we arrived in Oamaru where we met with our host Ross, who offered us a spot of grass to pitch our tent in his garden. Before going to the sea to see the penguins he gave us some great seafood (Blue Cod and Crayfish) he caught himself.
Unfortunately the weather turned bad from there. We cycled South along the coast but did not have a lot of fun as it was windy and rainy all day and we finished pretty early and found a farmer that would give a spot of land to pitch our tent before we went on to Dunedin next morning. After a pretty windy and rainy night, we got up, packed our stuff and went on the road to Dunedin. With pretty grey and rainy weather we had to go over two pretty steep and long hills before arriving in Dunedin. There we picked up a local sim card (yes, we have mobile internet now) before heading for our Warm Shower hosts' place. There we were warmly greeted by Adrian, Jenny and their 4-year old son Fraser who invited us in, gave us great tips on where to go and cycle and we could even play with Fraser for a bit. In the evening Adrian invited us to join him on his weekly poker night where we played with a buy in of $10 and ended up winning $50 :-D.
Today we planned to have a "day off" on which we wanted to explore the scenic Otago Peninsula. We left in the morning but just when we arrived at the peninsula, weather got really bad. There were crazy gusts of wind pushing us along and almost into the sea and pouring rain that tested the quality of our rain gear. After half an hour we decided that it did not make sense to keep going so we stopped at a small store where had some fries and warmed up before getting on the bus back to the city. We could have never cycled back to town against the wind, see the video for what we mean by that. Before getting back to our hosts' place we got some groceries as we wanted to use their oven for an awesome pasta bake in the evening (that's something we really miss on our small camping stove). When we arrived back at their place, they could not give us the same room again that we slept in the night before as they had some family visiting but they offered us their small garden shed as they did not want to let us sleep in a tent in that weather. So we spent our afternoon cutting the video and planning our next steps before we went into the house to bring their son Fraser to bed when they went out for dinner with their family visitors. We had the whole program of watching a kids show, playing hide and seek, reading a bedtime story and tucking him into bed. After that we had time to make our dinner, enjoy our awesome pasta bake and enjoy the evening with our hosts when they came back from dinner.
Tomorrow we will leave in Southern direction and weather looks promising so for. We will keep you updated about what we are doing and hopefully you enjoy reading about our adventure. :-)
All the best,
Keep cycling,
Vroni & Jonas
