Canal Ride

Canal Ride

Date: Wednesday 27 February 2013
Route: Tekapo to Omarama
Distance: 103km
Weather: clear and sunny, heat wave in afternoon
Accommodation: motel unit at Top 10 Holiday Park

Today was one of our best rides so far. We knew it would be hot,so we left early at about 8.45am. We made good progress – we had an hour stretch where we could almost maintain 30km per hour, as it was a gentle decline.

Unfortunately we couldn’t ride along the canal between Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki, due to construction/ restoration work being done on the canals. The whole day was through barren alpine scenery – with the Alps in the background.

Lake Pukaki is an unearthly turquoise colour with the Alps as a backdrop.
We found our way onto the canal road at the outlet of Lake Pukaki and kept to it until Lake Ruataniwha. The road was extremely quiet with some anglers along the canal and not too many cars. I highly recommend this route for cyclists.

We rejoined the main road at Twizel. Apart from a stop at a salmon farm, we had a straight run into Omarama. We arrived after 1pm, just as the heat was building up. It is almost unbearably hot outside this afternoon.

Omarama is a very small town, mainly a tourist stop over. I was surprised to meet Laurie again while doing the washing in the camp laundry. It was good to catch up again. I made a pasta dinner, Laurie brought along a bottle of red wine, so we had a good shared meal again.

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