I woke up this morning to a sunny sky with some clouds. As soon as I turned my bike onto the road it became clear that the weather was not going to stay this nice. Dark skies hovered over the mountains on the horizon, and clearly perceivable vails of rain fell to the mountain slopes. I hoped these vails would move away from me, but they didn’t, so at some point I took preventive measures and took out the rain gear again.
I climbed a thousand meter pass. 40k of very gradual uphill, a grueling headwind, rain drizzling from the sky and at some point little breath clouds leaving my nose and mouth. I thought it was summer in this country! The thing is that in this kind of weather the uphill bit is not a problem. Because with all the peddling you’ll just keep yourself warm. It’s the downhill that’s really miserabel. Cold and windy and brakes that don’t brake to well because it’s wet.
Temperatures rose as I got down the mountain though. And the rain disappeared and the uniformly grey cloudy sky showed more and more patches of blue. And before I knew it I had made it to the first town after I left, 82k down the road and only 32 left. I had pancakes for lunch :-) and tea to warm up :-)
Today’s scenery was quite stunning though. Mountains are becoming higher and higher and rougher and rougher. So I had a good time today. 115k and some 1300 meters of climbing...
Oh oh :-(
The weather matches the color of the bike though...
Wet :-(
But pretty :-)
Reaching for the clouds! While clouds were coming out of my mouth as well...
...
Going down! Very cold!
The water was coming down as well...
But hey! After rain, the sun comes out!
The ride into Wanaka was Beautiful!
I like the blue!
And another Lake! Lake Wanaka! Snow capped mountains on the other side of the lake...
I like lakes :-)
