Today we relied heavily on our granny gears. We climbed up and over the Crown Range Pass from Wanaka and dropped into Queenstown. It was a hot sun, and nearly 50 mile day, so we're beat. It was our last day on bikes, but what a fantastic route to end on. The road is claimed to be the highest paved road in NZ, ringing in at about 3500 feet.
Queenstown is hip and buzzing! Lots going on here. We had dinner at place called "The Cow", which is basically a tiny, old, stone-walled barn house on "Cow Lane" which used to house cows; it's right in the middle of downtown. We shared a table with a nice young couple from England who are just as excited as we are to travel. So nice to meet people from all over the world.
Lessons learned:
1. "If you care anything about conservation in this country, you'll poison the possums." Spoken by a worker at an eco lodge when we queried her about the widespread use of 1080. Almost seems to be a contradiction of terms, until you see the destruction the introduced possums actually do to the forest and the bird population; they have no natural predators.
Tomorrow we head to the Fiordlands and try our hand at driving a car in NZ.
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| Lake Wanaka, elevation 980 feet. |
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| Crown Range Summit, elevation 3500 feet. |
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| A fellow cyclist (Jeremy from the Isle of Man) on top, enjoying the view. |
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| Dropping from the Crown Summit into Q-town. |
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| My street in downtown Queenstown! |
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