Walter Peak provides the perfect backdrop for a little cycling, Pauline Cartwright discovers.
If you're a keen cyclist, you may have ridden on most of the amazing selection of the lower South Island's bike trails. However, there's one ride you may not have discovered.
And if you love high-country views and prefer easy cycling to puffing your way up steep slopes, this is a ride for you. Scenically, it is truly spectacular.
Cast aside all other Queenstown inducements and entertainments, clutch your ticket and climb aboard TSS Earnslaw with your bike.
Enjoy the cruise across Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak High Country Farm. As you wheel your bike off at the cargo end of the ship, a tourist-tsunami will pour off via the other gangplank. Leave them behind to explore and enjoy the beautiful garden, the farm happenings, a range of cute animals from sheep to Highland cattle, the generous morning tea and the hospitality of the high-country guides.
Pedal straight ahead into the flat base of farmland that lies behind the group of buildings in the bay. It's a farm road so you need to remember that other vehicles could be using it, too. When my friend and I recently rode there, just one small vehicle passed us. The farmer at the wheel was one of only two people we saw on the easy undulating gravel road.
Occasionally a gate across the roadway had to be opened and closed and at the second gate this action was gallantly performed for us by a man with a large pack on his back. Keith was his name, he told us, and he came from Yorkshire. While he often cycled, this time he had forsaken wheels to take this trip on foot.
''This is me!'' he explained spreading his arms in an effort to encompass the spectacular silence and beauty surrounding us. He wanted us to understand how enthusiastic he was about this place. When we queried his plans, we discovered he was walking to Invercargill.
Awestruck, we said farewell and pedalled on. Invercargill! That was kilometres and kilometres away and made the few kilometres we intended doing seem no more than a ride round a city block.
The views were nothing like those of a city block. The flat paddocks were spread with lush, green springtime grass. Sheep and lambs looked up and watched us nervously as we passed. Some scuttled off into the security of low scrubby growth and blossom-clotted hawthorns.
To our left, beyond the distant fences, great slopes reared high so that we had to lift our heads to see the crests. These crests were often crowned by grey schist slabs with, here and there, a shingle fan splaying down and outwards into the green of the farmed fields. To our right more stupendous mountains reared, summits still patched with snow.
Shimmering blue arms of Lake Wakatipu filled distant inlets I had never known were there. The sky above was clear and high, the sunshine warm. Lumbering bulls scratched their broad backs against the trunks of tall trees and made us glad that the fences seemed secure. Cattle made low disparaging moo-murmurs as we passed. The air was clean, so clean. This wasn't just any old bike trail. This was part of paradise!
It was perfectly clear that there was only one road to travel on. However our information pamphlet - the original inspiration to make the trip - did not offer a detailed map, just a simple drawing giving some indication of distance reached by numbering points along the way. We would have liked the map numbers to have been on small roadside posts so that we had some idea of where we were.
''Maybe Keith has a proper map and will catch us up,'' my friend suggested. And catch us up he did as we sat on a roadside bank munching lunchtime sandwiches. But his was a ''follow-the-road trip'', and he carried no detailed map either. These are, of course, available and we simply hadn't thought to buy one or to print one off the internet. We shared our sandwiches, talked of walks and rides and when Keith-from-Yorkshire walked on, we turned our bikes and pedalled back the way we had come, to Walter Peak.
Some people see distance and speed as their aim when they get on a bike. We hadn't travelled more than a very leisurely 20km.
In such a picturesque part of the country we preferred the privilege of travel that, although slow and short, allowed us to fully absorb the sights and scents and sounds. We wanted to be part of such a glorious place.
Not long after reaching the bay, we watched Earnslaw pull out and head back to Queenstown. Why hurry on board? We tarried instead over a drink and a nibble sitting under the umbrellas outside the Colonel's Homestead Restaurant.
Earnslaw, we knew, was coming back later on its last run for the day and we would climb on board then.
IF YOU GO
There are several ways of doing this ride:
• You can go as independent cyclists, with your own cycles, as we did, and ride just a short distance. Costs are $72 per person for the trip over and back on TSS Earnslaw. (A voucher allowed us coffee and muffins on board and both were delicious!) Be sure to find out how far ahead you need to make a booking if you are doing your trip this way.
• You can hire cycles. You can go on a guided trip. For example, because the road continues through to Mavora Lakes, you can be taken there by van and ride back to Walter Peak on hired bikes. If that ride is too long for you (about 50km), the van will take you some of the way. On such trips as that one, there is provision for lunch and informative stops at points of interest.
• Another possibility is taking a boat into Mt Nicholas Sheep Station. You can ride back to Walter Peak High Country Farm from there (about 20km). Or if you are a fit and serious cyclist wanting a long ride, you should investigate the Around the Mountains trail that will enable you to spend several days and nights in unique surroundings that include parts of Northern Southland.
