For some silly reason riding the Crown Range between Wanaka and Queenstown was something I’d been looking forward too. This is the highest point on the ride at 1077m.
We left Hawea after coffee and breakfast at the food truck and followed the fast flowing river from Lake Hawea down to Alberttown. Bart was to join us to ride up to the Cardrona Pub and we picked him up along the way, we continued around Lake Wanaka and into town foolishly not stopping for a pie. The ride to Cardrona is 25kms but very quickly we were thrown a strong headwind, I did my best to tuck in behind Barts and let him shelter me, he would have a tail wind on the way home plus it was downhill. Shit it was tough I probably needed more fuel,we rode upwards and upwards our bike bags acting against us in the wind unfortunately it had taken much longer and Barts had to turn back round, but thanks for coming and setting us a good pace…
Chris and I enjoyed a good break, feed and coffee before we climbed the steep bit another afternoon of grinding away listening to the creaks and groans that need attention both on bike and body but there’s no time to stop onwards to the top.
We got there and could clearly see the distant target of Queenstown lined up with the airport landing strip. A quick refuel and then down, down, down as quick as possible of course the winds hampering any record timings. We turned off down a gravel road towards Arrowrown missing the steep switchbacks which finish the Crown Range road in the main highway.
The ride into Queenstown was all on gravel cycle ways pretty impressive there’s a lot of them but we were on a mission we needed to get out of the saddles and to Fergburger. So we powered our way in there and fortunately the burger was as good as I had hoped we finished them off with an ice cream, perfect finish and the end is definitely feeling closer now we are here!!!
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