Queenstown

We left Invercargill behind us, this time accompanied by our new friend Zane from Colorado, who's also cycling through the country! We met him at the hostel over a "few" slabs of beer and our new favourite game, "Udda eller jämnt". It turned out he liked the brews just as much as we do! The first day of cycling however was neat! No crazy winds blowing us off the bikes, and no exhausting hills to climb! Just easy flat cycling, which resulted in us cycling 85km that day! Then we camped in a little village called Lumsden, we made our tents up in the middle of the park, not knowing that we were just meters away from the local police station. Fortunate for us though was that they didn't care the slightest! The day after, Zane was heading west towards Te Anau and we were going north towards Queenstown so, we took farewell and kept on pedalling.

The following day was pretty rough though, but the scenery totally made up for it! Biking uphill feels so much easier when you do it next to postcard landscapes! After those 65 kilometeres we finally made it to Queenstown, where we are staying right now! This means we have cycled a total of 830km so far!

Queenstown wharf

The road along lake Wakatipu

Queenstown is a very pretty little town, with a mere 8.500 inhabitants, but 1,8 million visitors each year, which means it's very busy. It's beautiful though, located just at the shore of lake wakatipu, surrounded by rugged mountains. (This is where they actually shot a lot of the scenes from the Lord of the rings trilogy). It seems to be a very new city where all the buildings seem to have popped up just over the last decade. Reminds me a lot of the Austrian ski-resorts. The next destination for our journey will be Wanaka which is a day or two from here, but, we have to pass a massive mountain! Gulp..

I heard a funny kiwi-australia joke today, Do you know the difference between Australia and yoghurt?
-Atleast yoghurt has got a little culture!