Into the mountains (NZ)

I had arrived in Queenstown a few days before to a wintry blast straight from Antarctica, and had spent a couple of days getting the cold weather gear that I would need to be able to camp safely in the mountains.  It was now time to get on with cycling South Island, New Zealand.

That morning I had caught the 11am boat tour across Lake Wakatipu to the sheep station which was located at the foot of Mount Nicholas.  After a 45 minute tour of the lake the boat dropped me at the sheep station and I was the only person to get off.

The rest of the passengers would continue their tour of the lake whilst I headed off on a track into the valley behind the sheep station.

It had snowed a few days before and the tops of the mountains that I was heading into were still covered with snow.  Thankfully, the snow line was at about 1500m and I would not quite be climbing that high today.  My destination that day was Mavora Lakes which lay about 50 km through the mountain valleys, and are at about 700m elevation so camping that night would be cold once the sun went down.

I had picked the perfect day to head out on my New Zealand adventures though as the sun was out and the wind was coming from the North West (from Australia) rather than the South West (from Antarctica).  This meant that I was able to cycle in the same gear that I had worn cycling through Asia; the cold weather gear could for now stay in my panniers.

The climb out of the sheep station was fairly steep as I climbed over the terminal moraine from when the glacier that had carved out the valley that I was cycling up had melted at the end of the last ice age.  Once over the hump the track that I was cycling on was a gravel track which was used by the farmers who raised livestock on this side of the lake.

As the boat that I had caught was only for foot passengers then I would pass no traffic on the road all day.  The track climbed gently for the first couple of hours and my only company were the hundreds of rabbits that seemed to be living along the sides of the valley walls.

As the track wound its way through the valley it followed the Von River which at this time of year was shallow and meandering.

The boat captain had told me that the river was full of trout and that in the summer months many fishermen would catch the boat across to spend the day fishing the river.  October is not the main tourist season in New Zealand so I still had the valley to myself.

Around 2pm I had reached the point where the track started to climb over the mountain in front of me and down into the next valley.  As I did not know how far the climb was I decided to stop next to a set of rapids on the Von River and have lunch.

As there are so many people who camp or travel in camper vans in New Zealand my food options had changed dramatically since arriving in New Zealand.  I still carried with me a supply of pot and instant noodles but also a supply of freeze dried gourmet food.

They are fairly expensive at 11 NZD each but weigh nothing and pack down very flat.  This is important as I was now carrying with me a weeks supply of food as I was going to be camping during my time in New Zealand and for the first couple of weeks in Fjordland and Southland, the name of the areas that I would be cycling through, I would need to be pretty much self sufficient.

After a late lunch I couldn’t seem to get the motivation to tear myself away from the river and head up over the mountain in front of me so instead decided to enjoy the afternoon sun and have a snooze by the side of the river.

When I woke I thought about going into the water for a quick dip but after testing the temperature with my foot I decided that as the water was draining from the snow line above me it was just too cold and decided to give it a miss.  Once packed up it was time to get back to the track which I could see snaking its way up and over the mountain.

At first the gradient of the track wasn’t too steep as it climbed hugging the contours of the valley and the views behind me were pretty awesome

This was the first time that I had tried climbing uphill in New Zealand and the winter gear, extra clothes and 3kg of supplies certainly added to the effort of grinding my way up and over the mountain in front of me.

I was determined not to get off and push the bike, although at times I knew that this would have been faster than the pace that I was grinding up the mountain.  I had been climbing for about 30 minutes when the clouds started to roll over in front of me and I felt the first drops of rain.

 I decided to push on up the hill and when I rounded the next bend I could now see the end of the valley that I had been climbing out of in front of me which was a beautiful site.

I was now at the top of the climb and on the saddle of the mountain.

The saddle on a mountain pass is the highest point between two valleys but the lowest point along a ridge between two mountains peaks.  This means that you don’t need to cross the actual peak of the mountain which was a relief  as that would mean heading through the snow and was a more gentle introduction to the mountains of New Zealand.

The ‘saddle’ on the track that I was following was fairly long and I had in front of me around 10km of gently rolling terrain before I headed down into the next valley. The scenery around me was pretty spectacular as I headed further into the mountains.

 

Cycling up to the saddle had been a climb of around 700 metres and now that I was on the top you could feel the difference in air temperature.  The winds were being cooled as they came over the icy peaks all around me and the rain that had started as I crested onto the saddle was now a steady drizzle.

Always look on the bright side though – at least it wasn’t snowing !!!

I had now put on all of my layers trying to stay warm – my long sleeved top, my fluorescent body warmer (definitely for warmth rather than to warn the cows that I was coming), my long pants and wet weather gear.

Thankfully the track that I was following never climbed as far as the snowline and after about 3km of rollers the track flattened out into a slight downhill gradient which meant that I could roll along.

This part of the landscape seemed to be cattle country rather than used for sheep grazing.

Apparently in New Zealand there has been a huge shift in livestock production away from sheep farming, which has now reduced to there lowest levels since 1943.  At the same time cattle farming has been ‘mooooooooving’ forward with a rapid increase in farms changing to dairy production.  The main reason for this change seems to be the huge demand for fresh and powdered milk in Asia as a whole, and especially within China.  Where there used to be 22 sheep for every person living in New Zealand there is now only 6 !!!

Not sure what it is with animals but the cows seemed to think that I was the pied piper as they started to follow me down the valley.  The valley was sectioned off by fences every couple of kilometers and I would lose my herd of followers as I crossed over a cattle grid only to gather a new herd on the other side.

As the track headed down into the valley on the other side there were a couple of rivers that I had to traverse.  They were not that deep but the bottom was gravel which meant that I couldn’t cycle across them without the wheels bogging down.

To save my shoes from getting wet it was time to take them off and roll up my trouser legs.  The water as I pushed the bike across was icy cold and in the short time that it took me to cross I swear they turned blue.

After around another 2 km of riding over the saddle the road was once again rolling as I followed the second river which I had just crossed into the valley on the other side.

The track took me around the side of a woodland area.  At this point the track widened as I reached a sign that indicated Mavora Lakes, the place that I planned to set up camp for the night, was away to my right.

Cars and camper vans can access the lakes from the main road which lay about 30km south of this point and this would be the road that I followed when leaving the next day.  The track that I was now following up to the lakes headed through the woodland area that I had just skirted around and led me onto the shoreline of the lake.  This was when I saw my first vehicle of the day setting up their own camp for the night.

The  lakes are located on Department of Conservation land (click here for more information) and throughout New Zealand they have designated certain spots as camping areas (click here for location map).  Mavora Lakes is one of these and for all of you Lord of the Rings fans they were the location of Nen Hithoel.

There are two main lakes and I cycled past the first and onto the second as the views across the lake and up the valley from there were even more spectacular.

I found a lovely spot right on the shore of the lake to sleep.

After a long day on the bike the first thing I do when I arrive somewhere is pitch the tent and to have a wash. The first one was easy but the second slightly more problematic.  At every D.O.C site that you can camp in a tent you will find a port-a-loo somewhere within the area but no showers.  It was definitely too cold to have a wash in the lake and so instead I fired up the camping stove to heat a pan of water.  Once it was boiled I mixed it with a second pan of cold water and as nobody else was there it was time to strip to my birthday suit and have a wash.

The one thing that everybody had warned me about since arriving in New Zealand were sand flies.  They tend to live next to bodies of water and now that I was camping next to the lake they flew over to say hello and have a munch.  They are not like the sand flies that you get on beaches in Asia, but more like Scottish midges on steroids.  They land on you and burrow their heads into any uncovered skin to drink your blood.  I had bought a bottle of repellent called ‘off’’ that all New Zealanders seem to recommend using but I didn’t put any on as I wanted to see if I reacted to their bites.  If not, I could put up with them to save cycling bottles of the stuff around with me.

I didn’t bother washing my clothes as they wouldn’t have dried overnight as the lakes are at about 700m elevation and once the sun went down a mist rolled in.  As I sat eating dinner, freeze dried Thai chicken curry, I could see my breadth in the air around me. The silver lining with the sudden drop in temperature was that the sand flies disappeared and I was left in peace to eat my dinner.

The air temperature around me was bloody freezing by the time I finished my dinner and so it was time to head to the tent, get into my thermals and dive into the sleeping bag.

This is the first time on the trip that I have had to use a sleeping bag and thankfully I had splurged out £168 GBP on a decent 3 season bag.  When I had bought it the summer before while on holiday in the USA I had tested a few out for size in the shop.

The shop assistant helping me had thought I was a little strange but I wanted to make sure that I bought one which fitted me properly.  I slept that night in my thermals, hat, gloves and two pairs of socks plus on the neck of the sleeping back there is a drawstring which you can tighten to completely cocoon yourself into the bag.

In the morning when I woke I was nice and toasty.  I thought that it was raining though as I could here what I thought was the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof of the tent.  When I unzipped the cocoon and peered out it wasn’t raindrops but sand flies trying to get at my blood; there was a blanket of them covering the outside of the tent inner, if that makes sense.

Given the number waiting for me to come out of the tent I decided that a quick squirt of ‘off’ was needed before I unzipped the tent to go out to get a cuppa and have breakfast.  A few of them still decided to have a nibble but the majority of them stayed away so it looked like carrying a bottle of ‘off’ may yet be worth while.

The view whilst I sat and waited for the water to boil was pretty spectacular

Breakfast was another first on this trip – steaming hot porridge to warm the bones in the chilled air and was very tasty.  As I carried only enough milk to colour my cups of tea I made the porridge with boiling water and added a small squirt of condensed milk from a tube that I had bought.  This gave the porridge a hint of sweetness which was nice.

The sun was now fully up and had cleared the tops of the mountains behind me and I could now really appreciate the spectacular setting where I had set up camp the night before.

After eating it was time to pack up camp and head out as I had to get to a place called Manapouri by nightfall to catch a boat out to Doubtful Sound the morning after.   By the time I had loaded everything onto my bike the fly of my tent had dried out from the soaking it got in the mist overnight.  There is nothing worse than packing away a wet tent and then having to sleep in it the following night.

As I cycled the 2km back down the track that skirted the lakes edge I could now see the forest that I had cycled through the previous evening.  They must get a lot of rain here as the forest floor, and even entire Beech trees, were covered in a type of moss.

As I joined the main track again I turned right which would take me further south.  Once on this gravel track it wasn’t far before I found the sheep that had eluded me the previous day

This side of the valley was definitely still sheep country as all along the valley floor were paddocks of ewes with their lambs.  I must have passed several thousand of them on my cycle back to the main road.

Most of the lambs had not yet had their tails ‘docked’, and when they were suckling, not sure if this is the correct word for what lambs do, on their mother’s milk their long tails would rapidly wag.  It cracked me up every time I saw it.

The gravel track followed the centre of the wide valley and for the next 15km I hardly had to peddle as the road gently descended. I also had a tail wind pushing me along so for most of this section I was rolling along at around 25kmph. It was fine on the straights as long as I stayed in the wheel tracks of cars but meant that taking even gentle bends was treacherous as once off the main line there were several inches of deeper gravel either side.  I nearly lost the front end a few times and had to concentrate on keeping an eye on the track in front instead of watching the spectacular scenery around me.

After 15km I came to a fork in the road and took the right fork as a quick check of the map showed me that this branch would bring me out to the main road nearer to Manapouri.  I was now back into rolling hills and decided to stop for lunch before I hit the main road.

I was back on the pot noodles for lunch as although the freeze dried options were much nicer they were over 5 times the price of a pot noodle.  I think that when I’m on the road here in New Zealand I will have a bowl of hot porridge in the morning, noodles for lunch and then a freeze dried meal in the evening.  This will be my staple diet but every now and then I will treat myself to a proper cooked meal and a pint in a pub.

After my lunch stop it was a short ride out to the sealed main road that would take me the additional 20km to Manapouri.  The landscape that I was passing through was still farm paddocks but the sheep had now been replaced by something that I was not expecting to see – deer.

There were fields of deer as far as the eye could see.  I am not sure how many different breeds of deer there are but the farmers seemed to have covered all of the range as some were as huge as horses with antlers to match whilst others were what I would call ‘normal’ sized deer, with a few ‘pygmy’ deer thrown in too.  There were also a fair few Lamas dotted around.

Here is a video that I shot on the way:

This was my first experience of cycling on New Zealand roads as up until this point I had been on gravel tracks.  This particular road had a small cycle lane on either side and so the passing traffic was not a problem.  It seemed that most of the tourists were travelling to this part of the country to visit the Fjords of Milford Sound as every second vehicle seemed to be a camper van heading for the town of Te Anau which acts as the centre for tours out to the Fjords.

Manapouri where I was heading lies about 20km south of Te Anau but not many people stay there as it is further away from the Fjords of Milford Sound.  Plus, from here you can only access the fjords by taking a boat, a bus, and another boat and so can’t drive out to see them.  This is the reason why I decided to camp in Manapouri rather than Te Anau as it is much quieter.

Around 5 years ago you could camp pretty much anywhere in New Zealand as within the constitution there is the right to freedom camp.  Quite rightly the residents in more popular tourists spots got a bit fed up with people parking in their towns, a bit like the NIMBY crowd in the UK (it is okay to do it as long as it’s Not In My Back Yard so to speak).  The outcome was a change in the law in 2011 that has seen most town councils either ban freedom camping completely or to only allow it in certain designated spots.  Whether you can camp in these designated spots is further categorised into those travelling in ‘self contained’ vehicles, i.e. which have toilet facilities, and those who are using a tent to just camp. Most of the council designated sites will now only allow self contained vehicles to freedom camp within their area.

This means that for cyclists like myself in populated areas the only real sites left are the D.O.C. sites that are set up around the country.  Manapouri does not have any of these and on my way into town I passed a huge sign saying no camping within the town.  My only choice was to stop at one of the official campsites that have been set up in the area.

Within Manapouri there were three campsites to choose from and after cycling round all of them the cost was the same – 17 NZD per person (about 10 GBP).  As I was traveling solo this wouldn’t break the bank, and I chose the one which was the most ‘remote’ – Possom Lodge which is located at the mouth of the Waiau River as it feeds into Lake Manapouri.  (the image below is taken from their website – click here)

It turns one out that at campsites in New Zealand, you get a choice of accommodation options – you can camp in a vehicle, a tent or in cabins.  Not only that but it turns out that at most campsites I would get the use of a kitchen with full utensils, hot shower, free electricity, washing machine and drier and even better a heated lounge area with free wifi.

When I had looked into travelling through New Zealand I had thought that I would mainly camp at designated freedom camp spots but now that I was here campsites definitely looked the better option given the weather conditions, and as you paid on a per person basis the cost was also cheaper as I was travelling solo. The heated lounges also meant that there was always a comfy sofa that I could head to if my tent got too cold at night.

In the coming days I would find out that the D.O.C designated sites were jam packed while the camp sites were nearly empty as it can cost 50 or 60 NZD per night to park a vehicle with two people at a camp site.  This meant that for a tenner I pretty much had the campsites to myself, and so in a strange twist they were actually more peaceful.

Again, this is where it pays not to plan too far ahead as I would now be heading to the peace and tranquility of campsites most evenings rather than the jam packed freedom camp sites where there was normally a plethora of camper vans parked nose to tail.  I would reserve my time staying at D.O.C sites mainly for when I ventured down gravel tracks and into the mountains where not many camper vans seem to go.

The last few days had been a brilliant introduction to my cycling adventures in New Zealand and although the weather seemed to be able to change from brilliant sunshine to driving rain to freezing cold within an hour or so it just added to the adventure.  None of this would matter the following day though as I had booked an overnight cruise to Doubtful Sound, and so would be spending a night sleeping in luxury on a boat as it sailed down the Fjords.

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