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<\/a><\/p>\nAbout an hour later, C\u00e9dric and I reached the top (564 m) and were rewarded with an amazing ride into an alpine valley. The night\u2019s sleep at the Cameron Flats campsite was worth the climb because of the jaw-dropping views. Right before we approached the campsite, I remember asking C\u00e9dric how we got so lucky to live on a planet like ours.<\/p>\n The next day, in full sun, we were rewarded once again as we cycled along Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. Unlike inland lakes I\u2019ve seen in the States, these were completely uninhabited and turquoise blue. Needless to say, C\u00e9dric and I stopped at nearly every roadside pull-off to take dozens of pictures. The scenic and serene ride ended abruptly once we rode past Lake Hawea Township and entered the tourism zoo surrounding the cities of Wanaka and Queenstown in Otago. Once again, trucks and cars zoomed past us on the highway as we entered the city of Wanaka. The week before on the West Coast, there was a fair amount of traffic, but as these were mostly rentals, people gave us a generous amount of space to pass. Entering Wanaka we felt overwhelmed from the amount of people, so we made a plan to leave the next morning as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n Friday, feeling fit from conquering the Haast Pass, C\u00e9dric and I decided to challenge ourselves and try the Cardrona Crown Range \u2013 an ascent of over 800 meters, reaching a height of 1070 meters. It was a morning of a gradual uphill ride and the last 300 meters almost pushed us (me particularly) over the edge, but we made it to the top and enjoyed an amazing view onto the valley below. Once finished our lunch at the top, we zipped down to Arrowtown for the night. In the evening, we explored the town and the neat main street that was built in the goldrush era.<\/p>\n The next morning, C\u00e9dric and I made plans to blow through Queenstown as quickly as possible. Although Queenstown is the largest tourist city in New Zealand, we found that it didn\u2019t have much to offer besides expensive day tours and obscenely expensive campsites. Our morning included a short ride to Frankton to purchase a GoPro (better and easier films \u2013 it\u2019s not super easy to hold a normal camera and steer the bike at the same time) and groceries for the next few days in the wilderness. \u00a0Queenstown just feels like a big \u201cnoisy-experiences\u201d location and tourist trap. Queenstown is relatively remote and unless you drive 100km, not many alternatives. Once there everything tells you to spend money on bungy-jumping, speed-boats, shark-submarine-jet-ski, or any possible invention charging hundreds of NZD for a couple of minutes. \u00a0The town has traffic-jams of RVs, motorbikes and buses: needless to say \u2013 our stay was very short! So once we got to Queenstown, we boarded a ferry to Walter Peak, a ranch-turned-bourgeois sheep farm on the other side of the lake. Only 500 meters away from the farm, C\u00e9dric and I were thankful to be alone on the road again. We were also welcomed with more amazing views of landscapes without buildings and vacation homes. That night, we were happy to be camping in wild and quiet.<\/p>\n Sunday morning, our few days of sunny weather came to an end with rain showers lasting nearly the whole day. That, combined with the gravel roads and uphill climbs, made for a tiring day. As we were finally approaching the downhill section of our ride, BAM, our rear tire explodes. When we checked it out, both the tube and tire were ruptured \u2013 we are on a gravel road 70km from a road, 100km from a town. I guess when it rains, it pours. After we changed our tire (we have spares for a reason), we ate a frigid lunch with our fingers numb from the rain. As we rode down the valley, the sun came out and we started to dry off.<\/p>\n The end of our day was spent looking for a nice spot of land to camp on before Te Anau. The usual campground fee in this region is usually a hefty 20+ NZD per person for the right to pitch our tent on a piece of grass in a noisy campground, and for that price you sometimes don\u2019t even get a shower\u2026 Plus you get your neighbors somehow slamming their car doors every few minutes, trying to start a discussion by comparing their motor-bikes with your pedal-bike at 9pm (often our bed time), talking how they drove non-stop from Auckland in 4 days, etc. We prefer the birds singing! There\u2019s probably going to be a few random posts soon about tourism in the south-island\u2026 compared with the north island, the South Island has definitely more nature and gorgeous landscapes \u2013 however the friendliness and stupidity of people around tourism (both tourists and people making money out of them) seem to follow an reverse and opposite scale.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n