Harmony of bikes and lakes

JEFF KAVANAGH

"I there's one word I'd use to describe this place, it's 'remote'," muses Maiva Gibson, in between bites of her chicken sandwich.

We're sitting together with our English guide, Dave Stamper, at a picnic table outside a pair of musterers' huts in the Von Valley on a superbly sunny, early summer's day, while her husband, Russell Ramsden, explores the corrugated-iron buildings and their survival essentials of large woodburner stoves, cans of baked beans and tomato soup, and dog-eared copies of Rod and Rifle.

Surrounded by sun-kissed foothills and jagged, snowcapped mountains, the cheery, 60-something secretary from Christchurch could have chosen any number of words to describe where we are - serene, stunning, magical - but remote is also apt.

And despite being only a 45-minute boat trip and a short cycle from Queenstown, it's not hard to imagine that we're the only people left on Earth.

A few hours earlier, our day's adventure had begun amid a throng of people. Having picked up our touring bikes from Outdoor Sports in Queenstown for a guided ride from Walter Peak Station to Mavora Lakes and back again, we wander the short distance from the firm's base in Shotover St to the Steamer Wharf and the waiting Earnslaw.

The previous day's dark clouds have lifted with the rising sun, covering the front deck of the grand old steamer in sunshine, with smiling tourists snapping shots of themselves, Lake Wakatipu and even the boat's chimney stack as it exhales duck- grey puffs of smoke into the air.

As the Earnslaw cuts across the lake, we lean against the wooden railing of the soon-to-be 100-year-old boat, Maiva and Russell clutching cups of coffee from the onboard canteen, their eyes closed and faces turned to the sun. Seeing their contentment, Dave, a friendly 26-year-old from Coventry, smiles, gestures his head towards them and says, "Not a bad way to start the day, is it?"

Soon we arrive at Walter Peak Station and, once disembarked with our bikes, separate from the mainly middle-aged German and English tourists who've come over for the station's show of dog mustering and sheep shearing.

Our riding for the day, as Dave explains, involves cycling the gentle, scenic sections of a 48-kilometre stretch of unsealed public road between the station and lakes and being picked up in a van for the tougher, hilly parts.

Our ride, offered by Outdoor Sports as part of a joint venture with Real Journeys (a local tour company), makes up the first or last leg - depending on which end you're coming from - of a new four to six-day cycle trail. Called Around the Mountains, it will pass through Mossburn, Lumsden, Five Rivers, Athol and Garston, linking Walter Peak Station to Kingston. Destined to rival Central Otago's rail trail, its tours with accommodation aren't scheduled to start until the end of this year.

Although riders can pedal all the way to the lakes from the station independently, presumably, unless planning to stay overnight in a DOC hut or its rudimentary camping ground, they'll also have to ride the occasionally steep, and frequently windy, route back the same day.

With nothing so arduous to contemplate, the two Cantabrians and I happily mount our bikes and head off. Within minutes we're alone, riding through a heartbreakingly beautiful landscape of vast glacial valleys and looming peaks. As our wheels crunch pleasingly along the gravel road, Lake Wakatipu glitters beside us in the sunlight, the mighty Alps framing its shores.

Finding it difficult to resist the desire to stop and get my camera out every hundred metres, I spend as much time on my feet taking photos as I do in the saddle cycling the first section of the ride.

Worried that I might be slowing down the group, I up the pace a couple of times, but quickly find that Maiva and Russell are never too far ahead, cruising along at the former's relaxed tempo even though I sense the latter, a fit and wiry 66-year-old mechanic, is champing at the bit to burn ahead.

Forty minutes after we set off, we meet up with Dave, who is waiting for us at the start of a short climb. Sticking the bikes on the van's trailer, we drive over the hill for another easy trundle and lunch at the musterers' huts.

Sitting in the sun with Maiva and Dave, and having ridden for less than an hour in total, the packed lunch seems unearned. But it's after noon, and we are happy nonetheless to munch on sandwiches, apples and muffins, and drink juices and cups of steaming tea.

Fed and watered, we jump back in the van for another lift towards the lakes and our next dropoff point. This time I ride a bit longer, with fewer photo stops, and after about half an hour of steady pedalling we're joined by Dave, who's ridden back to meet and accompany us through the native beech forest that borders the two lakes.

The landscape is again lonely and astonishingly picturesque, and it's no surprise to learn that the creaking, whispering forest featured, like many other local spots, in The Lord of the Rings.

At the Mavora Lakes we run into three Aussie fly fishermen in waders trying to lure a couple of fat brown trout, visible just below the surface of a shallow tributary, on to the end of their rods.

We stop on a low-suspension bridge to admire the mountains reflected on the water's surface and to chat about the ones that are still getting away. But we are quickly engulfed by sandflies, so beat a retreat to the van.

Dave tells us there are a couple of sections we can ride on the way back, but if we're too puffed we can just hang out in the van.

Maiva's happy enough with the second option, but Russell and I are both keen to do a bit more riding.

Dropped off at the top of a high, winding hill 10 minutes' drive from the lakes, there's little legwork required as Russell and I fly down and out along the valley floor.

A vigorous tail-wind increases our momentum.

It's incredibly exhilarating after the easy cruising before lunch, and there are a couple of hairy moments when stray stock bound out and across the road.

The weather turns for the worse, the tail-wind bringing with it dark clouds that stain the blue sky grey, and Russell and I get back in the van to drive the last 10 or so kilometres back to Walter Peak Station's homestead.

Sitting there in the comfort of a wide bay window overlooking the lake, Maiva pronounces our day "a nine out of 10", as we treat ourselves to pikelets with jam and cream, and wait for the Earnslaw to ferry us gently back to civilisation.

- © Fairfax NZ News