Southern Alps

The first time we rode over the Southern Alps was over Arthur's Pass from the Rakaia Gorge to Greymouth. The second time was just a few days later as we headed back eastward from Reefton to Hamner Springs via the Lewis Pass. And now our third and final ride over the mountains took us from Haast Township to Wanaka (the hard way) over the Haast Pass. 

Each of these crossings have been tough 10-hour days on the saddle but everything about the experiences have made the effort infinitely rewarding and an absolute pleasure. It's hard to find the right descriptors to write up a summary of the ride so I'll let the photographs do the work for me and just try to fill in the blanks with words.

Threatening to do so all day long, the skies finally opened up and dumped massive amounts of rain and wind on us as soon as we rolled into Haast Township and pitched our tent. Thankfully the campsites in NZ (and this one in particular) are luxuriously equipped with indoor cooking spaces and lounges with couches and TV! So we didn't mind the bad weather, opting to eat our curried rice dinner straight out of the pan in the company of a hilariously awkward episode of Britain's "Come Dine With Me". Thanks to the long 120km ride that day, when it was finally time to crawl into our tent we slept like babies at a rock concert. 

We awoke early the next morning to a completely still sky, as if the night's temper tantrum hadn't ever happened. The only remains of the storm were a few low lingering clouds which looked eager to burn off. We set off on our long journey to Wanaka, 150km away.

A gradually uphill trending but not too terribly taxing 50 kilometers led us into Mount Aspiring National Park with views of huge snowy peaks and vast open river banks around us. After scarfing our sandwiches in less than 4.5 minute thanks to the swarms of biting sandflies at (not so) Pleasant Flat, we set off on the 10km climb to Haast Pass. 

The most grueling part of the climb came right at the start with the remaining climb easing off and quite frankly just feeling like a piece of cake after what the first 3km were like! And thank goodness for that because my legs felt like jelly and I'm pretty sure I sweat more in those 3 kilometers than in an entire 90-minute bikram yoga class. 

We ascended 450 vertical meters in 1.45km.

Pushing down on each pedal one-by-one cranking 1st gear as hard as we could go, we inched up the winding road. My eyes stung from the sweat dripping (or should I say pouring!) down, my hands hurt from pulling on the handle bars so hard for leverage, and my quads burned. Ryan was just a few meters ahead of me. I could hear him grunting and breathing heavily. I imagined that I was attached to his bike, trying to harness a bit of virtual pull while also digging deep and visualizing myself pushing him up. Once the grade leveled off a bit, we pulled over, guzzled our water bottles and shook out our muscles. The sun was beating down and we still had 7km to climb before we could enjoy a cooling breeze on the (much shorter and gentle) descent.

From bottom to top it took us about an hour which is pretty good going and much less time than I was expecting. We got a few cheers from some tourists driving by and stopped to chat with a German cyclist heading down the pass. Even though the northwest route over the pass is the "easier" direction, I didn't envy him. I would have probably ended up in one of those runaway truck ramps if I had to cycle down what we had just come up! I would gladly not re-experience the shear terror I felt coming down Arthur's Pass to Otira on the 2km stretch of 16% grade descent. Give me a quad-busting uphill any day over a nerve-rattling downhill. 

Anyways, after the pass we emerged into the gorgeous Makarora Valley:

Then we cycled the next 50km along the edge of Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. And now I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking for me:

Tomorrow we set off on the final stretch of our cycle journey. We will take the Crown Range Road to Queenstown via Cardrona. It's the highest paved road in all of New Zealand - guess that means we'll be finishing off with a bang!! While we still have nearly 2 weeks to go once we get to Queenstown we hope to lace up our trail running shoes and cover a few miles on foot instead of on bike.