From Hokitika to Christmas 🎄

#newzealand #travel #adventure #mountainbike

Since I last wrote a post, Christmas holidays have been and gone, so I’ll start by wishing you all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

So, what have we been up to, let’s see….. Well, we left Hokitika and drove south East for a few hours, on some pretty smooth and mainly flat roads, which is somewhat unusual for over here, and arrived at Lake Tekapo late afternoon. We got thoroughly distracted on the way by the sheer amount of Lupins along the roadside. On further investigation, it turns out they are an invasive species in New Zealand and considered a bit of a pest, but they are so incredibly beautiful and I’ve never seen them on mass like this before and in such a variety of colours (apparently, seeds are pulled along the road by the draft from cars :Bloke).

Lake Tekapo, apart from being well known for its Lupins, is also famous for the incredible blue of the water.

The area is also within the UNESCO Dark Sky Reserve, making it a perfect spot for stargazing. Sadly the weather was not on our side, both day and night. Too much cloud cover meant the lake was not it’s usual bright blue by day, and by night, there was too much cloud to see the stars. It was also pretty chilly, so we tucked up warm, checked the forecast for the next few days and made the decision to move on the following morning, thinking we would perhaps come back at a later date.

The next morning we headed onwards to Mount Cook, and drove through an absolutely stunning basin to get as close to the Tasman Glacier as possible. Again the weather was not great, with storms coming in all around us, so rather than do a long walk, as planned, we decided to take the quick option and do a 30min walk up to the viewpoint. It was a decision well made, we got there and back before the rain hit, long enough to get to the top and enjoy the view for a while – And what a view it was! (The view point is about 6km from the brown Tasman Glacier, the face of the Glacier was HUGE! :Bloke) There were a few icebergs floating about in this enormous expanse of blue glacial water. If you zoom in, you may even see a couple of tiny black dots, they are jet boats, doing tours! It was clearly visible in the rock formations, as to where the Glacier used to reach to, very sad to see how much has been lost. Again, zooming in, you’ll be able to see the Glacier peaking out between the two peaks at the far end of the Lake. I imagine it looks fantastic on a sunny day, with no cloud, to be able to see all the peaks clearly, but even on a grey day, it was stunning and very moody.

So because of the weather, we didn’t hang around in Mount Cook either, we still wouldn’t have seen any stars, the weather had really closed in and we could see lightning storms all around us on our journey on to Wanaka.

Wanaka….what can I say? We struck lucky here! We phoned ahead to a campsite in the middle of the local riding spot and right by the lake side, and got the last pitch (my idea to call ahead 😉, :bloke). We managed to convince them to squeeze us in for a week, so that was us sorted for Christmas. Result! We spent “holiday season” with fantastic weather, sunny and warm (much of New Zealand didn’t share this weather with us) and spent everyday cycling and/or on the lake with the SUP. It was roughly 6km to Wanaka town from the campsite by bike, so we were able to ride in to town a few times for supplies and/or a beer and a meal. It was really nice to park up and not drive anywhere for a while. I also was able to try out a couple of rides without my knee brace and that seemed to be successful, so all in all, a really great week here. Infact, we were a bit sad to leave, it would have been very easy to stay here for weeks, the trails are really fun and the lake is just beautiful. The photo of bloke above, was taken on a great cross country (xc) ride he located on the Trailforks app (a “must have” for all travelling mtbers, it maps most recognised specific MTB trails and grades the difficulty :bloke). The trail took us out of the camp, up to the top of the hill, on part of the Hikuwai trail and then we peeled off on to the Outlet Track, which ran alongside the river, then picked up the Cluther River track, eventually crossing to the other side and meeting up with another great bit of trail called Deans Bank. We were out for several hours and finished up in town for a few beers and a steady ride back along the lake. A perfect way to spend Christmas Eve. The next few days were much of the same. We spent one whole day riding in the local hot-spot, at the back of the campsite, called Sticky Forest. We visited there very briefly on our last visit, and I remembered there being a few jumps and drops I thought I may like to tackle. It’s been almost three months since my wheels left the ground, so it felt brilliant to put my full face crash helmet on and some knee pads and give them a go. My knee held up well and I managed to get a little bit of air, so left there feeling pretty pleased. I’d just like to say that I don’t do big jumps, nothing remotely spectacular, but the sensation you get from hitting even the smallest of jumps or drops is amazing and really gets the adrenaline going. That’s what we do it for!