Te Anau, South Island, NZ
Cycled into Queenstown. Brisk morning with temps in the 40s. Crazy tourist town in a spectacular setting.
How'd ya like to live on that strip of land?
So the plan was for "Gary of England" to phone me after he dropped his daughter off at the airport...2ish. I found a coffee shop to charge stuff and eat, of course. And while I'm sitting there 3 guys from Europe that I met on the Crown Range the day before showed up...and then moments later Ben (of Ben and Laura, who I flew over the river with...Laura's headed onward to Asia) appears. Just got to a new town and I've had more contacts than having coffee in Fairport. What's wrong with this picture? Actually everything is right with it. I've known for a long time I didn't fit in Fairport.
So I chatted with Ben about the cycle trail to Te Anau and my concerns about the 2 track and the trike. He's gonna text me what he thinks after he does it, since I'm planning to do it in reverse. Out to Milford Sound by car with Gary from London, then bike the trail back to Queenstown. At least that was the plan that day.
Since I had some time, I ran some errands then decided to find a place to dry Rainbow, my tent. Oh there's a little park. Pull her out. Spread her out. Spread out her ground cloth. What's that pitter patter I hear. Is that rain? No! It's getting harder quickly. I can restuff her in a hurry. I have a hard enough time getting her in her bag anyways. She just hates it in there and fights me every step of the way. Oh, stuff her under Blaze...quickly. Now she's wetter than she was. It lightens up, I repack her and give up the idea if drying for now. Thank goodness that doesn't happen often. Back to the coffee shop to wait out the rain. Eventually it's really sunny, I get Rainbow dried out, meet an interesting girl from Sweden who's been living all over the world for 10 years, settling and working wherever she goes. Gary calls. We meet up. The car us a hatchback and when he opens it, it's filled to the gills. Not organized. He thinks if we unpack everything, put Blaze in, and then stuff all the rest in neatly, it will all fit. You got to be crazy!
It did!! Barely!
So off we go towards Milford Sound, a couple hundred kms away with plans to camp somewhere that night.
Driving along I felt like I was missing everything. There were many photo ops that just flew by. This is too fast! We passed Te Anau and decided to camp at a DoC site north of there. Pulled in and found all the spots quite rustic and Gary's is huge. 2 cabins. Tough to find a spot for it. We decide to set up just his and we each can use a separate area. What a monster to set up. 3 poles. 20 stakes. Palatial! What will I do with all this room?
Next morning we still had nearly 100 kms to drive. And it was a mind blowing trip through forested areas and then majorly steep high mountains. Right there. There's also this long creepy tunnel that's one lane and down hill. Sorta lit...sorta. I'm so glad I didn't have to bike that! Claustrophobic! Then one hell of a downhill to the sound. No fun to bike up. Nope. So only minor regrets I didn't bike out.
The view there is unlike anything I've ever seen. The tide was out.
Even though it was cold, I had to get my feet in the water!
BagLady
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