Cycle: 61km, all on gravel!

Before catching the SS Earnslaw to Walter Peak Station we had time to squeeze in a croissant and a bowl of latte at the awesome Patagonia Chocolates in Queenstown! Yum!

The SS Earnslaw trip was brilliant! It was a little cold so we got warm exploring the boat and watching the steam engines up close. You could walk around a galley just above the engines and really feel the heat from them. I love this kind of old engineering - it would have been great to be a Victorian engineer.

Upon arriving at Walter Peak station we began our shortcut to Te Anau. The road has no car access at this end (hence our ferry trip) and meant that it would be quiet for most of the 120km trip to Te Anau. The only problem was that the road was gravel! We're usually pretty averse to roads like this but we'd met several cyclists who'd been this way and had said it was the best part of their journey, so this swayed our opinion and we'd decided to have a go!

Our main concern was our tyres. Our bikes run 700mm wheels with only 28mm tyres so we were pretty worried about all this gravel and our bikes! The people we'd met who'd cycled this way had used mountain bike tyres so would have had an easier run.

Luckily, after the first kilometre or so the road quality was very good (not so lucky the second day, however!) The road was completely empty apart from three other cyclists we saw. The road meandered along the shore of Lake Wakitipu before heading inland and up a desolate valley. We climbed one significant hill (steep, loose gravel and about 300m of ascending) which led to great views back down the valley. After this we rolled along the top of a plateau with virtually no signs of human activity for 30 km! This was incredible and a real wilderness experience. There was very little vegetation and the mountains were wild.

The gravel was okay but the cattle grids on this section were not good at all. They were made from railway track sections about a foot apart which meant for some seriously big gaps! I got two punctures crossing these before realising that the road wasn't the cause. After this we walked across them all and continued trouble free!

Towards the end of the day we approached a more forrested area (used for Fangorn Forest in Lord of the Rings) and arrived at Mavora Lakes. These beautiful lakes were also used in Lord of the Rings for the river crossing by Sam and Frodo at the end of the first film. The water is a stunning colour and is surrounded by magnificent forrested mountains. The lakes aren't on a road to anywhere so (unless you're on a bike) you need to make a big detour to specifically come here. Consequently, there was hardly anyone else camping there!

We had an enjoyable evening building a fire which I finally got going after being given some decent wood by the fun, elderly sisters in their massive camper van (damp beech is no good!) We ate our dinner in the dark and watched the stars as a fisherman near us started playing his guitar. He continued playing and singing fantastically for about three hours, until we went to sleep! Free entertainment! Hurray!