Over the crown range and now in Queenstown

9;45 pm

Had the famous Queenstown fergburger for dinner and just showered. Another day on the tour and I was quite tired when I finished and just about feel asleep doing a text. To coin 🪙 A famous 1956 All Black Peter Jones after a famous win over Southern Africa/“I felt buggered” . Tired 😴

Need to do some bike maintenance as not so good sound coming from bike and then BED and sleep 💤. Have a 6;30 am start to get on barge to go to Walter peck station accross the lAke in morning. Steve is unsure if ferry ⛴ will turn up so he has a couple of other plans . Let’s see what happens . We are staying in a hostel tonight over looking the Queenstown wharf so really central. Bike are in the laundry 🧺.

Started at Lake Hawea today travelled thr lovely travel to Albert town and then more trails to Wanaka.. scenery was absolutely amazing 😻, it’s hard to have so much great scenery and it may seem like an overuse of the term. It was stunning and very busy with cyclists 🚴‍♀️ and people out walking. It’s a long weekend in Otago and they are making use of it. Money is obvious and growth is evident.

. kristy and Steve stayed last night with Rebecca Wardell, a friend of Kristies, so Rebecca lead us thru to a wonderful pastry cafe in Albert town where my eyes just said “feed me”.

Rebecca kindly bought us all a hot drink and she has lived a interesting life so was neat to hear her story. An Olympian at Bejing Olympics in Hepathlon and now works fo Olympic committee in Switzerland . Has biked 20000km in a tour with 40 kg of gear including bike, I think a surly similar to mine. . From Switzerland I think thru Asia . really nice friendly young woman and very modest and unaffected/.

I would love us as a family to play around at wanaka sometime,nice like, lovely trails and off course good food. Lots of lakes to play on , boat and Paddle.

We biked thru to Cardonna Hotel for a late lunch and more food. Steve gathering apples along the way , he can spot this stuff like he has a extra Sence from a mile off. Have to say the apples were jolly nice. We also caught up with Emma Holden, Toms daughter and Jane Williams niece. Steve shared with me how much she has been an inspiration having had a though a tough time health wise with Sickness but always having high spirits and a bubbly personality.. I need to pass on her love to Jane when I see her. She works with Steve. she and her partner are resturant owners in Queenstown. It’s hard operating in a pandemic with a place based around tourism.

cardonna hostel was fab. Lovely gardens at back. Wood fire burning in the garden( you know I like that heat), like an English pub in summer. Awesome. More food consumed.

Then to bike over Crown range. 1000 plus metres. Highest sealed road in NZ and last part pretty steep. i admit I walked the last 1.5 km as sun was very hot and didn’t want to cook myself. I m not good in sun. The others biked the whole way up a credit to them.

Although we could see Queenstown in distance from top , we had a further 45 Km to go and trails most the last 30 Km once down the hill. Trails with lots of ups and downs so looked forward to finishing and are now really tired. Trails were great but my mind was on the destination. Took a wrong turnoff near bottom of hill and lucky Steve rang me on “ what’s app”as It would have been a long climb back. As it was the 400 m climb back up was hard enough.

Made Queenstown in light I think about 7:30 ish and straight to burger place to get burgers and eat in the dark looking down on the waterfront from our hostel.

The summitt < Lee -Anne took this photo earlier in the day