Makarora

26/1

I woke up to the sound of sliding van doors, passing cars and their headlamps. Taking a gamble that I wouldn’t get back to sleep, I proceeded to devour half a tub of yoghurt, 200g of chicken caesar salad and made myself a coffee. I found James at the camp plot shortly after 7 and we set off.

There was the option to get to Albert Town by a path, rather than road. The route is incomplete on Google Maps. It turned out to be more of a mountain bike trail with sand and lots of ups and downs! It was rather scenic though and followed the river.

There was some stunning scenery as we rode up along Lake Hawea. It’s not quite like anything I’ve seen before. There’s dry slopes to the side and a massive body of clear water. The temperature was better for me to ride in.

At the Lake Wanaka lookout there was some Asian family where the mother mentioned to me ( after retrieving her snack from under the car bonnet) that she doesn’t eat Western food. She nearly lost her food to the car!

Heading into the non-tourist Makarora saw the scenery become more lush and there were even trees covering the hillsides. We stopped at a cafe for a very late lunch. I also overhead a conversation about a motorhome 20km away that had been immobilised due to transmission problems. It's a pretty bad place to get stuck with no mobile phone reception.

An extra 4.5km took us to Makarora Tourist Centre. We got the lowest tier A-frame cabin which may have been a mistake. It’s still hot and the upper tiers with more facilities actually have better ventilation.

Dinner was a ridiculous chicken parma.

There’s all these quirks to the place to do with excessively precise timings.