A Dangerous Business

Date: 9th February 2024

Start: Lake Tekapo (km 2419.3)

End: Lake Ohau (km 2506.1)

Distance Travelled: 93 km

Total Distance Completed: 2350 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Last Night In America by Paul Coleman

Hills Standing in My Way: none

Another day, another frantically eaten breakfast because I’m slow. To be fair, the cafe we went to only opened at 7:30 and we were collecting our bikes at 8. It’s a good thing Tekapo is only a small village and the bike hire place was basically next door. Coffee and pie (yes, I had a pie for breakfast) downed, I made my way over via a snack stop in the Four Square and collected my bike.

It is worth noting this wasn’t my original plan, having initially intended to split the section from Tekapo to Ohau over two days. The big issue with the first half to Twizel is that it’s roughly 50 km and there’s nowhere (legally) to camp along its entire length. So either you have a massive day of walking, camp illegally, or hire a bike. If you do the latter, you might as well then do the entire thing in a day because of how flat it is.

So that’s what we’re going to do, cycle 90+ km in a day, setting off from Tekapo at 8:45. We wouldn’t be following the TA exactly today, instead going down the Alps 2 Ocean cycleway that runs from Aoraki/Mount Cook (in the Alps) to Oamaru (on the ocean). Lake Tekapo marks an alternative starting point, connecting up with the main trail at Twizel. The TA overlaps with the A2O for most of the way to Lake Ohau, but there are a couple of sections where they diverge (we were adamantly told by the hire company that unless we enjoyed riding through thorns and thistles we should stick to the A2O out of Twizel).

After a short road section out of town, we turned down onto the Tekapo Canal, following a road running the length of its true left bank. The canal connects Lake Tekapo with Lake Pukaki and I can’t work out what it’s purpose is. Certainly not for any boat traffic as we didn’t see any, the only users of the water itself being a handful of anglers.

The road itself isn’t a public thoroughfare, with the only vehicular traffic allowed being those of the energy company running the canal- oh, that’s what it’s for! Energy! How did I never click onto that?

Revelations aside, the road is a mixture of paved and gravel sections. Along the latter there was always a worn path to follow so as to keep away from the thicker gravel sections that seemed to enjoy gobbling up our wheels, ruining our momentum and occasionally threatening to tip us over. It was still much faster than our pace on the Timber Trail and even though we had a long way to travel, we knew there was plenty of time to stop every now and then to get a pic of the alps to our right.

The end of the canal ends abruptly at a large salmon farm, still a decent height above Lake Pukaki. The answer to how the water from the canal reaches the lake was shortly answered as the flat road suddenly dropped down to said lake. Large red pipes connected the two bodies of water but I didn’t see any power stations at the bottom that I would expect to see. Granted I wasn’t really focusing on that, most of my concentration was on not falling off my bike. Once at the bottom, it was time to follow the lake around to the town of Twizel, the first bit on a quiet country road.

Before reaching SH8, the A2O turns onto a gravel pathway that skirts along the lakefront past a lookout covered with tourists. After there it was more nice cycling, although it was a bit slower as the path did meander a bit. A bit later we crossed over the highway and entered the Pukaki Flats, an area that can best be described as, well, dead. It was a desolate place and not the good kind of desolation as you’d find at Tongariro. Oh well, the path was still nice and flat. Honestly the only interesting bit of this section was passing through a rabbit-proof fence. For those not familiar with Queensland’s history with rabbits, I’ll give a brief summary: we don’t like them. We don’t like them so much we built a massive fence to keep them out.

It was a quick jaunt from the flats to Twizel, a small town that made for an excellent lunch stop. It brought back memories of when I used to go cycling with my dad back in Brisbane. On Saturday mornings, we’d meet up at some local park with a few of his mates and we’d all go for a ride to a coffee shop somewhere in the north of Brisbane. I’m tempted to start going on these rides again once I get back home just to help maintain the fitness I’ve gained doing all this walking.

Lunch was excellent, but we still had another 38 km to go. Before leaving, I stopped by the Four Square for lunch tomorrow and the pharmacy to get some cream for my feet. It was getting to be pretty hot and the roads around here aren’t exactly known for being shady. This is also where we leave the TA, which heads south along a pathway that sounds like a quintessential TA path: narrow and overgrown with thorny bushes. The A2O, on the other hand, heads north towards the Pukaki and Ohau canals for another stint of flat road cycling.

Upon reaching the shores of Lake Ohau, we were back to more meandering off-road gravel pathways which passed by an old hut sitting right by the lakeside.

I promise I’m not skipping over anything, the path was nice but there wasn’t anything of interest barring the hut and the surrounding mountains. We were soon back on the road with only 6 km to go until we reached Lake Ohau Lodge. It was by no means the cheapest place to stay, but as the four of us were taking a rest day tomorrow, we figured we’d splurge a bit. We learnt later that this last section is prone to strong headwinds coming over the alps which weren’t present today. I can imagine how hard it would be to cycle through that and I was very glad I didn’t actually have to find out how hard it was.

Pulling up the driveway to the lodge, we road past several disc golf baskets (excellent) and stopped right outside reception, our packs waiting for us by the front door. All things considered it was an excellent ride and much more comfortable than the Timber Trail. Us three boys would share a bunkroom, Melly chose to camp. After showering we were called to dinner in the lodge itself and presented with a wonderful three course meal. Again, a bit pricey but very much earned. Remember how I mentioned a few days ago about how I like to properly relax when I arrive at a night’s accommodation? Well, I did here. There was no stressing about starting early tomorrow, I could just stop and rest. A nice but sadly rare feeling on the trail, one that I will not be taking for granted.