Queenstown-Lake Hawea: 3 Jan

We started to ride early, up the valley to Arrowtown, sun shining, birds singing, traffic mercifully light. After an hour or so of riding my ankle was still intact (to my great relief) so I took 2 ibuprofen and we proceeded to the Crown Range Road. Followed around 20 km of climbing , watching the snowy peaks slowly emerge all around us as we got higher and higher, trying to ride in a straight line and keep our wheels on the ground during the final near-vertical kilometre. On the top there was a tortured tree and a little plaque naming the pass as the highest (paved) road in NZ, and a road sign warning traffic that the next 40 km would be downhill (!!!!!!).

And so it was. Initially a steep drop through a lot of switchbacks, crossing the Cardrona River 12 times in its infant stages. Then down down down, all the way to the lakeside at Wanaka. Another spectacular blue wind-whipped lake, surrounded by more steep young mountains. We weren't tired yet so continued on to Lake Hawea where we spent the night listening to the (head) wind blowing through the trees around the tent and hoping for a meteorological miracle to bring us a southerly in the morning.