Granny Up: Crown Range Pass

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.

Lake Wanaka, elevation 980 feet.

Crown Range Summit, elevation 3500 feet.

A fellow cyclist (Jeremy from the Isle of Man) on top, enjoying the view.

Dropping from the Crown Summit into Q-town. 

My street in downtown Queenstown!

Happy Tail Winds on the West Coast, NZ

The riding has been fun. The road has stayed just shy of the coast for the past 100 miles or so, which makes the hikes down to the beach even better than anticipated.Gorgeous Rocky coast here... reminds us of Oregon.  We have mixed feelings about coming to an end of the biking portion of our trip. If we had more time we would love to continue riding around the whole island. It sounds like some of the best rides are still in front of us.

From Salt to Snow: Franz Josef Glacier

We got rained out and a bit behind on our biking miles...so we hopped another naked bus! Now we're in Franz Josef, and just returned to our hostel from a day "tramp" up to overlook Franz Josef Glacier. We opted for the much longer, rougher, sparser traveled road/trail. We saw four hikers all day long, when across the valley, it was wall to wall tourists trudging in a straight line like ants.

Lessons learned:

1. No matter how many times you watch "Lord of the Rings", you'll still never remember the theme song. We tried all day.
2. Lots of sheep here. Reminded us of our days in Billings, when we were hard up to even find ground lamb for some Greek dish we were making. When we querried the butcher woman at Albertsons, she said, (we are not making this up): "Lamb? I don't eat no baby lamb." They did stock veal, however.

3. When a random dog barks at you on the beach, he wants the stick thrown in the ocean, not on the land.



Art is everywhere in Hokitika, a hot spot for jade carving and

beach sculptures.

 

Mauri art. This made us giggle.





Art cattle grazing on the beach.

 



 

Campsite at Lake Mapourika.



Sunrise over Lake Mapourika. We think the big peak coming through is Mt. Tasman.





Crazy stairs coming from Mordor....actually,
100 years ago these steps (supported by steel
bars drilled into the sheer rock) dropped right
down onto the glacier, which has since
receded another 200 meters up the canyon.



One of three swing bridges on the tramp to the glacier.



 



And tomorrow, WE RIDE!

Still Chuggin'...albeit slowly

Four days in the saddle and we're a bit sore, but I think we're finally starting to get stronger.  Yesterday we emerged from the rain forest and found the coast.  Wow! 

Lessons learned:

1. Use sunscreen...even if it's cloudy. Whoops.
2. Sandflies don't suck that bad...per Bill. Cass still thinks they're pretty awful.
3. Tomato sauce (ie: ketchup) is not a commodity to be taken for granted. We were reminded of that by a very friendly Kiwi who served us tomato sauce on the side of our fish 'n chips, for no extra charge! "I don't do this for everybody," he said. He runs his own dairy (small convenience store) and used to be a fisherman; so it was with great enthusiasm that he explained that the meal we were about to consume was elephant fish: funny looking but delicious. 
4. NZ uses 80% of the world's supply of the neurotoxin 1080. It's meant to kill possums, and is dropped from the air, but apparently it gets in the surface water supply. We didn't realize this until we'd downed several bottles of water we'd filtered from the above waterfall. We've not yet felt the effects...

 

Kiwi Road Trip

We made it to NZ! Only 7 short flights, one naked bus ride, and 60 miles into our biking tour, and we're feeling great! Currently we're in Westport at a hip little backpacker's hostel called Bazil's and have an internet connection.

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned so far:

1. Sandflies suck. They are like quiet, sneaky mosqitoes (just like black flies for you northern Mainers).
2. Never pack a bicycle helmet in checked luggage. Cassie's got crunched.
3. When crossing a road, look right, then left. Then stay on the left.
4. Pack less.
5. When someone says there are good pies down the road, they don't mean apple...they mean meat...and they are good!

The biking has been pretty easy so far. No major climbs. There's no shoulder to speak of, but drivers have been courteous and given us plenty of space. No flats so far. Bikes are working well. Everyone we've met has been really friendly and accomodating, even the bus drivers. One couple invited us into their camper for roadside coffee and cookies. They're from Christchurch and filled us in on the destruction there since the earthquake. Sounds pretty brutal.  

Tomorrow 62 miles to Greymouth...

Count Down

Only 18 more days until we take off on our next biking tour. We set big ambitions this year, planning to bike the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. Time constraints, excessive mileage, and significant elevation gains prompted us to scale back our original plan. However, our route is still pushing our limits (we think), with an average of 45 miles per day and several passes to climb. But even with the cut backs, we'll still get to pedal the majority of the west coast. Here's our planned route, from Murchison to Queenstown:

We were inspired to do this route by a fun book we picked up in Portland's Powell's Books some years ago. It's called Bicycling Along the World's Most Exceptional Routes. It's basically a compilation of rides put together by different tour groups--a coffee table book with pretty pictures, without the technical, nitty-gritty details of the rides, but it's given us plenty of ideas. We'll keep you posted with pics and updates along our journey.