As the others were going to take a 100-something kilometres bicycle route, with a pretty high ascent, I slept a bit longer in my tent and woke up just to say goodbye. It’s always so much fun camping with random people!

I continued, not aiming to do many kilometres. My plan was to arrive in Wanaka tomorrow, and I though that it would be too many kilometres, as there was a high pass on the way, and I was tired. An asian guy on what looked like a foldable bike passed  by, biking the other way, but he didn’t want to stay and chat.

Without stress, I filled my day with other stuff, instead. One of the things I wanted to do was to get a good bicycle selfie, as I don’t get too many pictures of myself. While biking, I looked for a decent spot, and started trying out. All this “setting the timer to 20 seconds, run to your bike and try to bike by really slow while the camera takes a series of pictures, oh, and remember to look nice still” can be hard sometimes. But, it’s something!

There were a good spot to take a look over the lake and see, what I suppose at least, Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. I asked some other people who answered “that’s what we will tell people anyway, they won’t know the difference”. The clouds made it hard to be sure, but the location and everything tells me that should be it!

I saw two girls wandering on the road, and hoped they would be people walking the Te Araroa. They weren’t, as they were hitchhiking, but still had a nice chat.

More selfies, and also some pictures to admire the bicycle! This is also what my front stuff looks like nowadays, as I added my red light from the night tour to it. Hopefully it recharges itself enough from the sun hanging there, and you never know when you need a quick light!

As the lake ended I decided to try a bike trail. I had biked parts of it during the morning, and they kind off sucked, but for some reason I always think a bike trail will get better. It didn’t.

Bad roads with sharp turns, ascending and descending. Sometimes the gravel was of the type that just makes everything much harder. At least I gave it a try! (But I never learn…)

Arriving in Twizel, I went and bought food, before finding a library with some free wifi to write my blog. They closed ten minutes before I was done, though, so I had to move ahead, and found a Spark box , when my computer died. I asked at a nearby cafe, and they let me use their power so that I could finish and upload the blog post. After this I had no real plan, but I found out about a free camping just 29 kilometres south of Twizel. That couldn’t be too much, I thought, even though it was already late afternoon. With some headwind it was kind of a push, but I arrived after another too hard trip.

Upon arriving, I choose a place kind off close to the bathroom, and away from other people, to keep it quiet. Just five minutes later two people biked into the camping, as Nils and Tom was done with their day trip! Nice coincidence.

I also started to plan for the next day, as I felt biking the last 110 kilometres shouldn’t be as tough as I thought earlier. The ascent was supposed to be within reasonable limits, and I could always give up and just hitchhike when I got tired or bored. As of Nils and Tom, they were going to visit the hot tubs in the morning, so we would split again!

Waking up, I was so damn tired… but I knew I had to get ready and check out, so pushed through the morning most of all wanting to check in for another day and just sleep. I didn’t feel like I had too much time according to schedule, and not too much to do in this city, so I decided to move on. I still managed to be a few minutes late checking out, but at least they didn’t mind!

The night before was amazing!

My mind was set on walking up Mt John, to get a daylight look as well. The reception let me store my stuff there, and I brought a little bit of food and started my small journey. It was a nice walk up there, and I took an alternative route close to the top to get another cool view on the way to the observatories.

After jumping a small fence I was back at the normal track, and the view was really nice! I could recognise where we had been during the night, and already missed the sky. I had a sandwich at the astro cafe, and took a lot of pictures. My lunch friend was a small bird who wanted pieces of my sandwich, but he didn’t get too much. Cute little fellow!

My panoramas are still a bit shaky when stitching them together, but I’m still evolving my photography!

I walked down again, got my stuff and went to do some shopping. I had found out about a bicycle trail, Alps 2 Ocean, which I would be able to follow. This would be a good choice!

I wasn’t sure, but this was the canal I would follow!

After some downhill, I was biking along a canal, with the strongest tailwind! I wouldn’t have this exact direction the whole day, but right now I was going 30+ km/h without too much effort.

I wished it could have been like this the whole day.

The road I was biking on soon ended, and a gravel trail started, with a “bicycle only” passage in the way. The passing sucked, as it would only almost let me pass with my bags still attached to the bicycle.

The gravel went slower, of course, and it was the bad sort of gravel, making it harder to keep balance. Still some beautiful views, and picnic places, but I cursed myself a bit for taking the bicycle trail. No cars, at least. Actually, there were no one else around at all, which was some nice freedom. The direction I now was traveling in made it be headwind, and the strong winds were no more something I liked.

There were one particular stretch, where there were warning signs for cars to take a side road in strong winds. I didn’t want to go down the valley, and then up again, but tried to put one bag in the front to see if it would help with the balancing issue. Didn’t make any difference at all, sadly.

Instead, I let som air out from the front tire, and it actually helped. It was still a pain in the ass to travel this road, but at least I didn’t have to walk.

When the asphalt road started, I got off to fill my front tire again. Suddenly, I saw two bicyclists approaching from the same road I had just biked. Their names were Nils and Tom, and they had also met along the way. We were all going the same direction, and continued together!

We came out near a salmon farm, still up high, with beautiful views. The clouds where playing with the sun, giving nice photo opportunities, and more than beautiful mountains.

After rolling down the hill in high speeds, we started looking for a place to stay at, where we would not be found. First, we looked close to the beach, but there were no hills or anything, and we ended up going up into the forest. Looking around, we found a good spot for all three tents, not visible from the road, nor the camp fire site where people seemed like they had a good time, with cans and t-shirts left behind.

Our camping area!

Not having too much water, I went down to the beach to wash my stuff. Of course I brought my camera to play around a bit…

…which was exactly the same thing I went to do when the others went to bed!

As we were still in a dark sky reserve, I tried to get some goods spots of the sky. Too many clouds, though, but still good enough to play around!

From a late night, and much wine, comes a late morning. A call home and some other stuff delayed my life as well, and I needed to get a good shot of this cool aquarium which was in the room I was sleeping in!

Started biking at 13.00, and wanted to get kind off far as I wanted to be in Tekapo the day after to meet the Americans again. It was a headwind in the start, and I wanted to hitchhike, but there were not too many cars on the road I was biking on, and I didn’t want to stop and hitchhike for real, in case of not getting picked up.

There was another back road I wanted to bike on, but i wasn’t sure if it was possible to bike it right now. It looked like there wouldn’t be a bridge over the river, and with the past days rain, I was unsure. After speaking with a local I decided to skip it, and get to the main road.

On the way there was a deer farm, and they mainly stood there and looked at me!

It went fairly well anyway, and despite starting late, biking in headwind and having to get up from the coast again, I managed 82 kilometres, and it wasn’t even dark yet. I saw a really nice spot for camping, though, and decided it wasn’t worth 10 kilometres to miss out on a nice spot, not knowing what would come ahead.

I also managed to get to bed kind off early to recover some sleep, still being really tired after last nights party!