Day 35 - February 14, 2023

Day 35:  Makarora - Wanaka

We ride from Lake Wanaka to Lake Hawea and back to Lake Wanaka.  It sounds like a circle, but it's not.  It's quite hilly and can be windy but if we're in luck the resident nor'wester will blow us to Wanaka with the last part on a fun riverside cycle trail.  

Good thing it was a relatively short and easy day.  We left an hour later than usual, and I stopped for 128 photos.  Still got in at a reasonable hour.  What a feast for the eyes the entire ride was!  Of course it helped that we had another bluebird day for it.  The first 10 km was in a wide valley, then beside Lake Wanaka for about 15 km, then crossed "the neck" over to Lake Hawea until lunch at about 50 km.  After lunch we were mostly on river (Hawea and Clutha) trails until reaching Wanaka.  And what a lovely town that has turned out to be.  Maybe I'll just let the photos speak for themselves.

Coming out of Wonderland.


Before the first lake.





First sighting of Lake Wanaka.  How quickly the vegetation has changed from the rain forest on the other side of Haast Pass to such a dry landscape which reminds me of the Kamloops area.


The road took us right beside the lake for the next 15 km or so.  At one of the lookouts I ran into 3 cyclists from Europe going the other way.  I won't complain about my "heavy" bike anymore.  They were "fully loaded" and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to pick up either end of any of the bikes, let alone pick up the whole thing or pedal it the least bit uphill.  Of course they were a few/many years younger.  





After about 15 km with Lake Wanaka on our right, we crossed "the neck" and had Lake Hawea on our left for about the next 25 km.  Beautiful!  I spent some time around this point in the day just reflecting on all the sensory pleasures of bike touring - seeing the land at just the right speed and being able to appreciate all the subtle changes, the feel of the wind and that love/hate relationship depending on which way it's blowing, the change in temperature as the sun rises and the warmth it immediately emits once it is over the horizon even before the temperature registers a rise, the sounds of birds (and they have been constant on this trip, even in today's sparse vegetation) - none of which sound familiar to me.  Etc., etc.














Wendy and Justin passed me on the hill to the lookout (nothing new there) and then got some pics of me coming in.




Downhill to lunch at the Hawea Dam.





Good-bye to the big lakes and hello to the river trails.

















I believe at this point we left the Hawea River and moved on to the Clutha River trail.  Equally as scenic, but a bit different water colour.  I think most of our folks had jumped in for a swim by the time I caught up with them.





And finally - approaching Wanaka.  I'm guessing real estate prices are pretty high here.




Being Valentine's Day, the 3 couples did their own thing for dinner.  The Single Six had a lovely meal at an Indian restaurant.  The view wasn't too shabby either...............



Stats for the day:

Distance:  73.9 km

Elevation (Garmin):  2224' up, 2423' down

Elevation (RWGPS):  3375' up, 3517' down

Weather:  7C - 33C.  Another blue bird day.  Good thing it's a dry heat.














Comments

  1. MervFebruary 15, 2023 at 4:12 PM

    What a great open-my-eyes to South Island, esp WCWT and south!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lynn CFebruary 18, 2023 at 6:34 AM

    The map really helps here -- could not really get a grip on the 2 lakes until I saw them on the map. Beautiful scenery indeed!! Did you swim at all?

    ReplyDelete

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