Today is Tuesday 16th December, and I am now in a small lake side town called Lake Tekapo. There is not much here other than a few restaurants, souvenir shops, one grocery store, and a dark sky experience center. The lake is the main attraction and there are some hikes in the area, plus a few gravel trails which are not reserved for bikes. The gravel tends to be lumpy in places as large trucks and camper vans are traveling these backroads also.
This area is a dark sky “project” and even the street lights here are low to the ground to help prevent light pollution. There is an observatory near by called the Mount John Observatory, its run by the University of Canterbury. You can purchase tickets for 90 minute long sessions starting around 10pm and going on all through the night. Astronomers educate you on what you are seeing through the 16 inch telescope, but you have to book weeks in advance as even 3 days notice is not sufficient to get a ticket. There are places you can drive to in the area and do your own star gazing for free so I may try that if I can’t sleep tonight 🙂
Ok, so back to the ride. The plan was to head west to Lake Pukaki over the big hill, ride the lake shore then loop back over the hill and follow the canal back to Tekapo. I knew it was going to be cold when I set out but what I had not fully factored in was the wind! It was strong, cold, and gusty. You have to ride the main road out of town for the first few miles, and there is no cycle lane. Once you turn off on the gravel road that heads in a north westerly direction you are alone. Occasionally, a work truck or a tourist van would come by but mostly I had the road to myself. There were a lot of lupins (bluebonnets) everywhere on these backroads.
They gave me a good excuse to get off the bike and rest for a bit to take a photo, as only 5 miles into the ride I was beginning to have 2nd thoughts due to the cold wind. After ascending to the plateau the winds ripped across the land and were pushing me off the road – literally the bike was sliding sideways though the loose gravel due to the wind gusts.
As you can see the land was devoid of any natural wind barrier up here, so it was a battle just to keep the bike moving along the level ground. I think at one point I was having a hard time just rolling along at 5 mph, putting in over 200 watts continuous just to keep moving. The first 12 miles felt like 40! Garmin told me my average speed was 10 mph to this point but I’m sure it was lying to me – I thought it would be 6 mph or less.
As you can see from the route profile map, there is a pretty good descent down to the shore of Lake Pukaki which I had to pedal down all the way! At one point on the descent it felt like the wind was in a tug of war battle with gravity, and wind was winning! If I stopped pedaling, the bike would have stopped and I was on a -5% downhill gradient.
Eventually, the lake was insight but I still have some way to go.
Once at the lake shore I turned south, and FINALLY, the wind was at my back. This leg of the route went by fast as I could easily maintain 18-20 mph without really trying :- )
I also started to warm up a bit as I got too cold on the plateau and descent due to the wind chill. I had on 2 thermal layers, but even that wasn’t enough today. I did enjoy the lake shore part of the ride and I had some nice things to say about the wind on this leg too 🙂
All good things must eventually come to an end… I reached the Hydro Station B, went under the massive pipes that bring the water down from the hillside and immediately the Ride with GPS app was instructing me to turn left, and go up to the plateau again – Ugh!
At the top of the hill there was a man made lake feeding water to the power station at the lake’s edge. The hilltop lake in turn was fed by a man made canal that stretched all the way back to Lake Tekapo and another Hydro Station A. It turned out that the trail follows the canal all the way back to Tekapo, and it was windy all the way back with a strong northerly wind hitting me at 90 degrees. Once again the bike was hard to control and I was blown off the trail twice on the journey back to Tekapo.
Shortly after the big climb up to the plateau, I saw another cyclist in the distance. After a few minutes it was clear they were also having a really hard time with the wind. The cyclist was a medical professional in training who lived in NZ and had taken some time off to do some “tramping” (long self supported hikes) through the NZ countryside. Today of all days, she decided to rent a MTN bike in Twizel and ride to Tekapo, about 35 miles following the bike trail routing. We eventually made it all the way to Tekapo and I am sure she will be feeling the after effects of her biking adventure in the morning!.
After today’s ride, and with the weather forecast to be more of the same tomorrow, I am going to pack the bike ready for the flight home on Friday and go for a hike instead!