Twizel via the Canal Rd

1 Mar

During the stay at Lake Tekapo the weather changed significantly. It rained the first night and when I woke up in the morning the peaks across the lake were covered in snow. It was sunny during the day but there was a big drop in the temperature and strong, chilly wind. On the third day I decided to continue to Twizel, the next town south, despite the pain in the knee. It was only about 45 km and the day was sunny with strong but favourable northerly wind so I wanted to use the chance. I wanted to go along the flat Canal road and thought the wind would push me in the back so I wouldn’t have to paddle a lot. The guys decided to catch a bus to Mt Cook so we farewelled each other and agreed to catch up later on the way.

The road started not far from the town centre with a steep descent on loose gravel. Right at the bottom of the hill awaited first surprise – a locked gate. I really didn’t feel like going back up the hill so I had to take all the gear off, throw the bike and the bags over the fence and load everything back onto the bike. From then on it was a very nice flat road with hard compacted gravel and I enjoyed the tail wind. Several kilometers into the ride the road turned 90 degrees and headed west towards the mountains. The wind was now blowing from the side and it was so strong it was blowing me over. As if that wasn’t enough, the landscape opened and the wind started to blow from the front. I had to push really hard just to not fall off the bike and despite the great effort I was staying nearly on a spot. In the end I got off the bike and pushed it for several kilometers that seemed like forever. When I finally arrived at the intersection with the main Tekapo-Twizel road I was completely exhausted. Black clouds were coming from the mountains towards me and it was getting cold. I put on all my warm clothes but I was still shivering with cold. I didn’t feel like continuing on the canal road against the strong head wind and the main road with heavy traffic in the side wind didn’t feel very safe neither so I started to hitchhike. It took about 30 minutes before a nice guy gave me a lift in his mini truck all the way to Twizel. We met a few cyclists struggling against the elements on the way but I was very happy to be in the warmth of the truck.