The next few days are spent enjoying the area. With our hired car we head to Braemar Station to pick our ute up. Our first stop is Ōmarama to swap bike wheels. Then we stop at the Salmon shop and grab some breakfast in Twizel. I end up driving up and Rowan gets me to practice driving the ute south. I can drive a manual but I get really anxious of other drivers on the road. If all of you could please not drive the days I want to drive a manual that would be greatly appreciated lol.

The weather is pretty icky which doesn’t worry us now we are in a car. the waves are big on Lake Pukaki

The only other thing I really want to do is the Māori rock art that we missed a few days ago. It is not as impressive as the Aboriginal art because it is not as well preserved and it is not as old. However I still really enjoy having a look.

Over the next few days we just chill around the area. Rowan and I take a look at our section in Herbert which we are planning to do something with, watch this space.

I woke up before Rowan and Joanne. Pete & Bev we’re already awake. I had a cuppa while they had breakfast before church. They asked if I would like to join, but I don’t think I can be converted. So I spend the morning walking around the estate. It is quite large, I am interested to know how many kilometres I walked today. I found a lot of the places Pete was talking about last night. An old lake used to be here and the occupants from the late 1800s had small wooden boats they would take out on it.

I must have walked around for a good hour or more and when I returned it was about 10am and the others were finally getting up. When they got back from church Pete took us for another wee tour of the estate and I retraced my steps from earlier. We did walk further down the cycle trail than I went. All the way to an old bridge that Pete fought to keep when they did the trail. He won and they put the new bridge on top preserving the original one underneath. We then carried on to the stables and the men’s quarters which he is renovating. He wants to make accommodation for cyclists and such. He wants to find someone to manage the farm and the accommodation in return they get free rent upstairs which is a three bedroom place. I think he may need to pay them as well as you would need to be fairly skilled, but hopefully he finds the person he is looking for.

Bev makes almost everything from scratch, she is a great cook and I enjoyed her meals. They only buy in what they can’t realistically grow, things like grain and milk. But she does mill her own grain to make her own flour to bake her own bread. She pickles and preserves. It makes me want to live the homestead life!

Pete kindly drops us off to the car hire place. We don’t cycle the last day, which looked to be rather boring to be honest. Plus you know us, we don’t have to do everything recommended. We take our car back to the accomodation in Kakanui. We leave our bikes at Elderslie, but I forgot the rear wheel. We must pick it up in the morning so I can return it to the lovely Amy at Ōmarama.

A fantastic celebratory dinner at Del Mar. This is a restaurant we have wanted to come to for a while. Run by a local couple and she is from Argentina. The flavours are done incredibly well and the make their own gelato which is incredible too. Definitely a pricey meal but a must if you are a foodie!

A bit of distance to get today with a total of 55km. It is 12km to Duntroon which is our first real stop of the day. We pass the Takiroa Māori Rock Art, and decide to come do it on our way to pick up the car. This is the worst weather day we have had. It is cold and a constant drizzle. When we reach Duntroon we have a spot of breakfast and then go and vote at the school.

From Duntroon we head to the Elephant Rocks. If you have been to Castle Hill this won’t impress you but it was a nice ride through part of it. There is a spot to see a whale fossil and that is also an area from a scene in Narnia.

The climb today felt hard, I just think my muscles were sore because in reality it really wasn’t that bad. We meet two guys from Perth who were getting their gear taken from place to place which meant they were travelling light. I was happy to see they had push bikes not e-bikes. There was a fun down hill and another uphill to go.

Once we conquered the last hill we felt on top of the world. The views are spectacular.

From here it is going to be mostly downhill all the was to Elderslie. We have a cool old rail tunnel to go through. We have definitely left the really scenic part behind now and have a lot of farms ahead!

Pete and Bev have the trail go right through their property. The old original manor has long gone but the stables and such are left behind. Pete gave us a tour around some of the area. Chatting about the history. Tonight we are staying here in the old stable house. Rowan and I are up where the stable boys would sleep.

Just before we leave the house we realise we can’t find the keys. An hour and a half later we still can’t find the house keys. We looked high we looked low, there was movement of furniture and retracing steps to town and back. I left my number at 3 different places. We unpacked and packed again. Well do you think we could find them? No, what a mystery! We finally gave up and started our day. We had a gruelling (sarcasm) 5km to River-T winery.

The wine was lovely indeed. We had a little snack to go with it and we’re there for a good few hours enjoying the experience. Claire the lady serving us turns out to be our last nights accommodation owner. She is really lovely and not at all worried about us losing the keys. She has a spare set and said it is the first time in four years she has had this happen. After the tasting we got back on our bikes. The wind was incredibly gusty, it was a hard ride back in the wrong direction before we could turn off to get back on track. There is only something small like 7km to go to our accommodation. We follow down by the river and for the most part it is quite boring. There are a few pot holes and soft spots to look out for. Look how cute this church is we are staying in. Not exactly a hard day!

It is very well set up inside. There are lots of personal touches like eggs from her place and homemade muesli. I have a chance to relax and read. There are so many books and magazines that I spend a good 3 hours in and out of the house enjoying the peace with a great view through the wisteria. We have a really early dinner rather more a very late lunch. But we all don’t eat another meal before bed. The bed is super comfy.

Or as I like to call it Te Kohurau, much better than the white version.

We went to the local bakery/dairy for lunch supplies before taking on the hill. Before we can get to the shop we have to wait for a lot of traffic.

I must have been extremely tired yesterday because it didn’t take nearly as long as I had feared. Once at the top the day was really smooth sailing. There were some minor blips but nothing I couldn’t make up. All along the lake are hundreds of caravans parked up. It is a cheap holiday home for $450 a season for about 6 months you can come and go as much as you like! Maybe a good spot for us in the future.

Before we know it we hit a lovely spot called Deep Creek. We stop there for lunch. While there we have Rod stop and say hello. We met him at the Ōmarama holiday park. He is off to do some trout fishing.

Not far from our lunch spot is the dam. We then had a bit of an up just after. We came across a fisherman on the river who was fly fishing. He ended up giving us a trout he just caught for our dinner. Yum, I think it was a rainbow trout. There was one more zig zag up to avoid the road and get the last few kilometres to Kurow. By the time we got to our house we were tired. The property in a large old homestead that could do with some love. But is more than enough for just the three of us. It was built by Sir Arnold Henry Nordmeyer who gave NZ it’s first social security to the workers of the Waitaki Dam.

We head to the 4square for some supplies. Tomorrow night we are no where near any shops. We come back and I get the fire going then have a shower. I am pooped, not much movement happened after that haha. We ended up staying up later than usual. It was a delicious trout, Rowan cooked it to perfection. Tomorrow is a very short day so there is no need to get moving before 10am.

My mother always said if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all…

Okay I better say something about it. The day was delayed by my bearings in the rear hub of my bike. I had my peddles working intermittently. Luckily for us the extremely kind Aimee and Vaughan at Trail Adventures in town helped us out. Vaughan tried to help us fix it and ended up giving me a spare wheel and said to swap back on our way back through. He only charged us $20, extremely cheap! Finally on the move at 10.30am. From there it was pretty smooth to sailors cutting. We then turned away from the main road to follow the lake. The track got a bit hairy from there. I felt quite comfortable on it but I can see how others wouldn’t. There were spots where the rocks were so big, you just had to take it easy. The worst part about the day is we hadn’t mentally prepared ourselves for it. We thought it was going to be a groomed track around the lake. Well we were very wrong. The hills were pretty killer and the last incline was the worse. Not because it was so steep but it just kept going and it had a lot of false summits. The downhill was hard as you couldn’t go fast because of the track. It was also really windy which slowed us down further. Then when we got to the dam it was a steep down for 6km.

We made it to the pub around 5pm exhausted and ready for a beer! The day was only 35km but man it felt like more. Beer never tasted so good. I couldn’t help but have a sinking feeling with the knowledge of going back up that bloody hill to the dam for tomorrows journey. We ended up checking into our little place and enjoying some relaxing time after our showers then heading back to the pub for dinner. They had a good range of options and it was run by Indians. You can tell as all the food was well balanced and done extremely well. Joanne had a lot of vegetarian options and didn’t need to eat her cheese and crackers for dinner haha. Rowan was happy to have the $1 wings special and a burger. I had a roast lamb with vegetables it was great.

The day started with a cooked breakfast. We waited around a good 30min to help digest it, but really needed longer. The sunrise was lovely to watch on the mountains. 11km this morning and it is up. Joanne and I walk the 5km to the top while Rowan rides the whole thing.

The views are fantastic. The track is quite rocky in places and a grade 3 so not so good if you are not confident on a bike. We spoke to a few people who said they walked parts of it. 100m off from the very top we sat and had our packed lunch.

The downhill from there was really fun, we had to go slow in some hairy places. When we reached the gravel road it was smooth sailing from there. We did the last kilometres of the day much faster. It was exhilarating going downhill all the way to Ōmarama. We got swooped at by some magpies. Rowan the worst as one hit his helmet and glasses a few times. Nesting season so of course they are protective. we arrived at the top 10 around 5pm, our latest day so far. But of course the hardest day for the whole trip. Here is our cute hobbit hut.

Anakarang (Eddy) did a community initiative and they planted 1000 coral fragments. Which is pretty amazing!

We had dinner at the local pub, which had a surprisingly varied menu. We all enjoyed our meals.

Rest day, it is also a day I must toast to my grandpa. Happy Birthday Grandpa! He would have been a big 94! The day is really relaxing. We go out for some breakfast. At lunchtime we have a beer and a toast to g/pa. The day disappears fast and we head off to the hot tubs for a 1.5hr dip. They are really quite well done. You have lots of privacy. There are showers, you can order wine and food. Not a cheap thing to do but a worthwhile experience. With our wine in the tub we have another toast.

We woke up to no power. There was a power cut at 4am. That was not a good incentive to get up in the cold. I bit the bullet and finally did get up. We headed off just after 8am. Fresh dusting of snow on a lot of the mountains. The track was slightly uphill until we reached the first canal which is the Pukaki canal. It was one of those annoying ups that you can’t see but you very much can feel.

The Pukaki canal was down stream but when we reached the Ōhau canal is slightly uphill. I didn’t notice that incline. We reached the overflow from Lake Ōhau and had a sandwich.

From there we went on the Ōhau Weir track for 7km along the lake front. Absolutely stunning. We were making good time so we stopped quite a lot along the way.

At the end of the track we hop onto the road and cycle to the Ōhau Lodge. Before we reach it we have a bit of lunch by the lake. Joanne and I both get spiked by Matagouri.

39km brings us to Lake Ōhau Lodge at 2.30pm. I love this lodge so much it has so much retro in it. It has just gone under contract and I hope the new owners don’t refurbish it too far and take away all it’s character. We get into the tubs and have a soak with an incredible view!

We get out of the tubs and have an extremely large nachos to share. We all hop back in the tubs waiting for dinner time. Dinner is three courses, breakfast is also on for the morning and they provide a packed lunch. I shower before dinner with no plans to get back in for a soak.

Dinner was fantastic, we were very full and I didn’t last long until I was fast asleep.

A fairly easy 42km today. We left the beautiful views of Braemar Station to get even more scenic views. There is a definite bite in the wind today and forecast for snow down to 800m burrr. It is a fairly flat ride with some small ups and downs.

We take our time as there is no rush. It is harder work on the gravel road. Only a few cars come past us.

It is a bit windy and the wind doesn’t work in our favour but it also is coming mostly sideways. We reach the area where you go off the road onto a cycle track along the rest of the lake. We cycle to the Salmon Shop and get a few goodies before heading off to Twizel. This is actually part of the Te Araroa track.

The part to Twizel is quite desolate and at one point we get some slushy snow on us. Not enough to settle but man it is cold. That makes us want to get there even faster. We settle into our little chalet, eat our lovely salmon and look at options for dinner. There is a good looking place called Poppies that we decide on. We aim for an early dinner so we don’t have a late night.

After our night of camping we got up and packed up. Today we are going up river a bit, we decided it wasn’t worth $750 each to catch a helicopter to the start. We took the ute down as far as we could go and then cycled up a few kilometres. We didn’t go all the way to the start. Joanne took a lot of bird photos and on our way back we cycled all the way to the car park where Rowan had to drive the ute back. Joanne wasn’t up for cycling with all the trucks on the road and I don’t blame her, I wasn’t enthused either. The good thing about this trip I don’t need to excuse myself. If I don’t want to do it I don’t have to.

I call the Braemar Station to see when we can check in, not for another hour or so but she will let me know. So we have a picky plate of all sorts down by the lake as we wait. It doesn’t take long and we are okay to check in.

The cottage has a lovely view. We unpack the car, do a few loads of washing. Joanne washes the bikes down and we start to get organised. From here we have no car we just have us and our bikes. Joanne has booked two nights here so we have plenty of time to relax. The evening sunset is really good. We start the fire even though it really isn’t cold enough.

The next day is chill, we don’t do much at all. Today would have been Peter (Rowans grandpa) birthday. I spend a lot of time catching up on the blogs! I have gotten far behind. The internet is awful so I can’t upload any photos. So these will all have a further delay.

We make sure the bicycles are all ready to go. the weather is pretty rough and we head down to the lake for a beer as the storm comes in. A cheers to Peter for his birthday.