From Tekapo to a camp spot near freehold creek
Biking/Hiking time: 09:30a.m.-07:00p.m.
Daily/Total distance: 90km (84 biked) /779.5km (230.5 hitched/skipped, 84 biked)
Steps: 8866
Weather: cloudy in the morning then clear

This morning I got up super early at 5:45am. With the bike drop-off and the bag pick up at 7:15am, I need to be ready and going at 7am. As I discovered yesterday, that the camping kitchen has no utensils whatsoever, I also had to cook my breakfast of eggs, bacon and chilli beans with my camping pot which needed to be packed before 7am.

I grabbed all my things and went to the lounge to get sorted. I draped my tent out in the laundry room to dry as the fly was soaking wet from condensation. Then I went about cooking my breakfast.

The bacon didn’t cook well on my pot at all. So I had to shift to the BBQ outside to cook the bacon. While this was happening, I cooked scrambled eggs in my pot which went just well enough, although there was quite a bit stuck on the pot. All this took quite some time and I then had to gulp down my food. Cleaning the pot though took forever, as the egg was quite well stuck onto the pot. By the time I had everything finished and I was out of the door it was 7:05am. Now I had to halfrun to get to the meeting place which according to Google maps takes 13min to get to.

I got there about 3 min late. The bus was already there with my bike unloaded. The driver packed my bag into the trailer and I had to sign some papers. Then I went about putting all my snacks, additional water and my thermals and rain jacket into the tiny pack on the back of the bike. The pack expands though, so I was able to fit everything inside.

As the supermarket was not yet open and I needed a second water bottle, I went back to the holiday park to ait in the lounge, charge my phone and have access to toilet facilities. On the way towards the holiday park, the bus that had just licked up my bag came towards me from the park. If I had known that they also pass by the holiday park at 7:30am I could have saved myself the hassle of running to the meeting point by the supermarket…

By 8:30am I was at the supermarket to buy more water. As i still had a voucher for a hot drink from the day before I waited until the cafe opened at 9am before heading off. I got my hot chocolate and then set off at about 9:30am, following the alternative track from alps2ocean.

At first I rode 3km through some parts of Tekapo before following the Tekapo Canal further towards Lake Pukaki. Along the Canal there was a very slight uphill gradient. The road was mostly paved although there were sections of gravel that was harder to bike on.

After 24km I came upon a Salmon farm. Just as I got level with it I saw a massive salmon jump out of the water, next to the farm. This explains the amount of people fishing around here. A further 6km down the road and I finally reached Lake Pukaki.

Along Lake Pukaki the track now followed the lakeside, going up and down and up and down. Now I also had a nice view of Mt Cook. On this stretch I met the couple from Vermont in America again. They had started walking at 3am in the dark along the Canal. They saw the sunrise and are further continuing on until Twizel. This is an option that a few choose, but I wasn’t looking forward on walking 54km though the night, even if the night sky might be beautiful. We talked for about 30min before I headed off.

Now the track soon followed a gravel path along the side of the lake instead of the road. While the gravel wasn’t to nice to rise on, it was better than going along the busy road. Then the track turned off from the lake and into a very flat 10km stretch through massive fields towards Twizel.

I arrived in Twizel at around 1:30pm. I went to the pharmacy for some Tiger Balm before getting some food for lunch and more snacks from the supermarket. Luckily the pockets of the pack expand as I now had a bag of crisps to fit in there. For lunch I got a pie and a lamington as a dessert. Then I was off again at 2:20pm.

After that break in Twizel, getting on the bike was quite a tortur. My bumm was so sore from the previous section riding and I now didn’t want to sit on the bike seat anymore and still had 38km to finish by 5pm.

For the first 6km I had to ride out of town. Then I followed along the Pukaki Canal, before turning onto the Ohau Canal. By the end of it I finally reached Lake Ohau after 20km. Now there was “only” 18km left to cycle around the lake. The first 11 were on a gravel track next to the lake, before continuing onto the road. By this point I was getting quite tired of cycling and the heat from the sun was also slowing me down. Nevertheless, I was smashing the kms faster than I anticipated.

The last 5km from the Ohau village towards the Lake Ohau Lodge dragged on. Especially the driveway into the Lodge nearly gave me the rest. I was pushing going up the last few metres uphill to the Lodge in the lowest gear possible. I was so glad to finally reach the Lodge at 4:30pm.

Once inside, I grabbed my pack and sat about packing away the things I had with me during the day. I made a last trip to the loo and then set off back towards the village for the DOC campground at 5pm. 5km of road walk to go back. After two km along the road, I reached the trail head for the next section. Now I was contemplating going further back along the road to the DOC campground, only to repeat the road walk again the next morning, or do I go and find a wild camping spot in the bush?

I decided to continue on the trail and see what I could find. From someone else’s blog I knew that there would be a nice picnic table about 4km into the track. So I marched on, uphill and away from the road.

After an hour I came upon Sawyer swingbridge. I stopped and then filled up my 4L water bag as I do not know when I will find a campspot and I don’t want to backtrack to get water. 1km further I found the picnic table. There were already 5 people here eating dinner when I got there at 7pm. I nevertheless found a very nice spot in the trees.

After pitching my tent I set about getting dinner finished while talking with the other people here. There was a couple from the netherlands, an American girl and 2 German girls, one of them I had actually met at the beginning on the first 2 nights on the QCT. After dinner I made my way further into the woods to find a good place to dig a cathole. The downside of wild camping, having to take care of burying any human waste.

After business finished, I went back to the picnic table to see a bit of the sunset before getting to my tent. Today was the last time I wore my put at pair of socks on trail as the hole in them has gotten to big to continue hiking. I cannot wait to reach wanaka /o exchange them for a new pair.

Then I went to sleep at about 11pm.