Day7: Lumsden

A day of 2 halves for us. We had an early start in very frosty but beautiful conditions out of Waikaia. Evidence of the recent floods was all around, with sections of tar seal stripped off the access road to Piano Flat. As we rode up the valley we entered beech forest and a glorious little gravel road, steadily climbing up through the tree line. Once we broke out of the trees we joined a rough 4wd track that pointed straight up the mountain. Fortunately dry it was awesome fun with steep rock slabs interspersed with rutted off camber track. We eventually topped out at 1600m and then traversed along the top of the old man range. Really interesting riding and topography. And of course, incredible views, especially as we started our descent on the east towards Alex. All our photos today are from this part of the ride. 

Sadly, after lunch we planned to do the Nevis valley road, only to find it was closed due to a slip after the floods. So an afternoon road ride it was, riding 160km around through the Kawerau gorge and then South past Kingston to our overnight stop if Lumsden, back in Southland. Actually it was quite fun. We were lucky to have a pretty good run through the gorge with the KTM reminding me that it is also an awesome road bike with incredibly sharp handling. Nice. 

And then we met the Queenstown traffic. 

We ended up in Lumsden sooner than expected so the single pair of undies and socks got another wash!

Tomorrow we start our convoluted path home, taking in the Mavora Lakes and Vonn Road on our way to Queenstown and Cromwell. If they haven’t been washed away of course..