Saturday 5th March: Overcast, some sunshine, warm 18°C to 24°C
Queenstown to Tekapo: Bus Dep Queenstown 8.00am, arr Tekapo 12.00 pm
Lake Tekapo
Barren landscape around Tekapo
View from Church of Good Shepherd Tekapo
Scenic Lookout - 2metres high!!
Vertical Ventures delivers bikes
Big fat tyres - good for a bony bum
Excess liggage in Chinese laundry bag headed for Dunedin
A beautiful bus trip from Queenstown to Tekapo, that could easily have been an expensive scenic tour. Barren mountains and flat plains sprinkled with small towns reminiscent of the fifties - service stations, motels, a four square grocery store and a pub.
It's an early start at 6am when we hear several alarms going off simultaneously. A quick shower and downstairs to breakfast of tea, muesli and yoghurt. More packing and at 7.30am we meet downstairs and head off downtown to the Newman bus Terminal in teh centre of Queenstown. It's a surprisingly mild morning at 18°C as we walk lakeside and at 8.05am we're loaded onto the bus and off.
The first scheduled stop after an hour is at a fruit barn. We're sure it's been especially set up for bus stops. The second stop is a cafe selling exorbitantly priced New Zealand gifts, but the coffee is nice. The rolling scenery is spectacular with barren mountains and flat plains sprinkled with fifties style little towns. At 12.00pm, we arrive in Tekapo and carry our luggage about 100 metres to the Godley Hotel, but we're too early for our rooms. So some of us have a picnic lunch in rice crackers and cheese in the hotel foyer, while others mosey on up to the town to a local cafe. At 1.30pm, our rooms are ready and it's time to unpack and repack for when Vertical Ventures cycle tours arrives with our bikes and are scheduled to take away our excess hiking luggage.
The bikes are delayed, milton informs us so Ian and I go for a walk down to the Good Shephers church perched beside the lake with hundreds of tourists streaming in and out of the tiny church with a magnificent view across the lake to the barren mountains. No photography is allowed but that doesn't stop some tourists from "being naughty" as one old lady told me while she merrily snapped away.
Back at the motel to repack. We're quite generous in setting aside a few changes of clothes for the 8 day cycle trip and piling a minimum of hiking gear into a chinese laundry bag. But when the bikes arrive and we realise the panniers only hold a total of 24 litres, it's a mad scramble to pull out the extra clothing etc so it fits into the rear panniers.
The bikes are really good. A few of them are brand new and so are the Topeak panniers. The bike man makes sure everything fits and works before leaving with our excess luggage. Ian and I have washed out a few bits of clothing to hang on a plastic chair at the back door and in the dry wind everything is dry.
There's a group decision to eat at Mackenzies cafe bar and grill so when Graham, Jenny Ian and I walk up to the Four Square store, we make a booking for 11 at 6.30pm, any later and they were full. Just enough time to have a beer and Copper Kettle chips by the lake before dinner.
At 6.30pm, we all rock up to teh cafe and order a bottle of Hawke's Bay Farmland Shiraz which is pretty nice, then share a 400g rump for $29 with a side of kumaro chips. Jenny and Graham share a cheese cake and Ian and I an Angel ice cream with coffee and hazelnut liquer.
There's no WiFi reception in the room so after dinner, everyone heads to the reception lounge, where of course too many people have clogged the WiFi and it doesn't work anyway.