Enjoying the trip and the photos so far.
If you get a chance the ride from Methvem up the road to the Mt Hutt snow fields is a good ride with great views for miles over The Southern Alps and The Canterbury Plains. Have fun guys . The south island is awesome.

Something like this.

 

good stuff!! looks like a blast

 

Sorry about the interrupted transmission. Issues with internet provider.

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The next target was for Wanaka, cutting inland to the Southern Alps, a trip of about 450kms. By this stage the oil leak on the KLX had gotten to the level where I was starting to get concerned about oil loss, so I got a spare litre of oil from Superior Motorcycles before leaving Christchurch. This turned out to be possibly the best decision I made on the entire trip (aside from the idea of the trip itself). After a small amount of initial confusion with getting out of Christchurch we bit the bullet and went halves in a map book of the South Island. We quickly managed to get out of the city and onto the plains. I have to say, as exciting as farm machinery is, this was one of the few bits of the trip that I severely wished I had slightly more that 250cc of power under me, especially when a headwind started up, cutting our average speed down even further.



Once out of the plains we made good time, stopping in Fairlie for some lunch, then the lakes started. Despite this not being the first time seeing them, I was still blown away with how blue they appear. We took the next bit leisurely, even getting a bit of dirtbiking in to get to the top of a small rise for a spot of photography.





We got into Wanaka at quite an early 1600, after we decided not to do the side trip up to Mt Cook Village (low clouds would mean Mt Cook wouldn't be seen anyway). After cruising the streets of Wanaka, we settled on Purple Cow Backpackers. By now we had formed a bit of a routine when getting to a backpackers, where we pick up a doz beer, then walk in to the room/dorm offering a drink. This time we were greeted by 4 females, 2 german and 2 brits. Not one turned down a drink, and a few doz turned into 2 doz, a bottle of port, and tequila. Demons played thier game, and morning saw us still drinking, watching the sunrise over the town. It was decided that we would have a Day Off.

 

Great ride, 3L! Keep 'em coming.

 

I'd like to say we had a day off because we'd ridden hard, that we had to maintain our bikes, or that the weather forced us to stop.

But ultimately we had a day off because we were severely hung over and didn't sleep, as our new friends were far too entertaining.

After a morning nap, we got up and accompanied our new german friends on a small hike up Iron Hill, highly recommended for the awesome vistas from the summit.
Coming down, we ended up at Puzzling World, a cool little theme park with all sorts of illusions/puzzles and a huge 2 floor maze.

However we quickly realised our mistake when we walked into the 'tilting room', the floor of which is on a 15 degree angle. This would normally be fine, however it was almost the breaking point for those of us still inflicted with a severe hangover, especially when a large wall instructed us to look at it and wait to see the colours merge and the wall 'magically' begins to swim.

Walking back to Wanaka township, we vowed that we would have a quiet one that night.

That vow lasted until we got back to the dorm, when Danger asked 'Anyone for a cheeky dozen?'

Alas. Another big night ensued.

 

Originally we had the notion that we'd go to Bluff from Wanaka, and stay there the night. However one of the German girls we'd befriended was having her birthday in Wanaka, so it would have been rude not to make it. Thus, hungover and reasonably sleep deprived, we dumped our cargo and decided to do the 540 km wanaka to bluff to wanaka.

Topping the KLX up with oil, and making sure the GN's chain was still healthy, we set off about 0900. The Crown Range is an excellent piece of road, every bit of it so well laid out for any motorbike, however I must admit that first hour of biking was hell. With Danger coping with a pounding head and me with eyes that threatened to pop out of thier weary sockets, we survived the ride, and beelined to Queenstown to refresh with breaky and coffee.

Feeling more human we set out again, taking SH 6 to Bluff in torrential rain. I'd like to mention a remarkable happening on this leg, but that would be lying. The rain and wind forced us to be sensible road users, and we put our heads down and gritted out teeth, willing Invercargill closer. Due to the stinky weather, we got to Bluff by lunchtime, taking both of us off guard, as this was the first and only time we had beaten our time estimate.

It was at Bluff that I realised the greatest lie New Zealand has ever been told. Cape Reinga claimed that Bluff was 1452 kms distant. Bluff however insisted on it's black and yellow sign that Cape Reinga was only 1401kms away. Which one is it! Have we gained 51 kms or lost it?

Returning to Wanaka, this time with clear skies, we got back about 1730.

We arranged a cake and candles for the German girl's b'day, got dressed decently, and hit the town. Staggering down the street a few hours later, I spyed a Red Camouflage biker with neons on his bike coming into town. Remembering this biker when he stopped to help my mate when he came off at Cape Reinga several weeks ago (see 'A Very Long Weekend'), I proceeded to chase him down the street on foot. He stopped at a Give Way sign, and I approached him, shouting "IT'S YOU!" I was on the verge of hugging him, when he saw me, U-turned, and rode off quickly.

Returning to the backpackers, me and the bday girl decided a late night swim in the lake was in order, so we disappeared, returning a few hours later to, for the first time, a quiet dorm.

 

Awesome!...Awesome!!...And Awesome!!!

 

We had planned originally to get on the road by 0900, so we had plenty of sightseeing time for the vista pinnacle of the trip, Milford Sounds.

However, by 1000, it was clear that Danger had indeed lost his wallet during the night, so after a town wide search was conducted, and a police report submitted, we were on the road for Te Anau by 1200.

While I was waiting for Danger to get back from the police station, I took the Bday girl on her promised motorbike ride, this time enjoying the Crown Range for what it was, a superb bit of road engineering, clearly designed and built by bikers, with an conveniently romantic lookout at the top.

After returning from the outing, just as Danger got back, we bid our farewells and departed Wanaka. Doing the Crown Range for the 5th time in 2 days, I could say I was warming into the route, possibly enjoying it a bit tooooo much for the likes of some of the car drivers. We arrived in Te Anau around 1700. After some discussion, we decided to do the Milford Sounds trip that evening.

We picked up two 5L gas cans to compliment our rather short fuel tanks, and set out.

When I said this would be the vista pinnicle of the trip, I may have slightly lied. This was the vista pinnicle of life in general. If you ever have the option, do the Milford Sounds in the evening. The light and shadows makes you realise how vast and how tall the stone walls are, and how deep the canyons go.

If I was to say I was exhilarated by the end to the point of hyperventilation would be an understatement. If there was a New Zealand ride to end all New Zealand rides, the Milford Sounds is definitely it.

We got back to Te Anau in dark, and the lack of bottle shops and supermarkets forced us to walk into our dorm room and ask 'Anyone going to the pub?'. Fortunately for our bodies, only one tenant was keen, unfortunately for us, it was a Scots man.

 

You did the right thing, by going to the birthday party, you probably realized that as you were swimming with a cute German girl in the middle of the night. lol Very nice adventure you won't ever forget.
I really like this one, nice image!!

 

Yes... the wisdom of returning to Wanaka struck home about when we got back to it. Also made a lot of sense when we both got to the lake and realised we had no togs...

Turns out its hard to find a decent coffee in Te Anau. Ether that or the cafes that we found were the exactly wrong ones to go to. Not wanting that sour taste to ruin a day, we were out of the town by a reasonable 8am. Taking the same route back to Wanaka was a drag, the stretch of flats and straights gets mighty old mighty quick, especially when you are fighting to keep 100kph anyway.

Not bothering to brave the packed Queenstown streets again, we had lunch in Frankton, just out of Queenstown, and completed the Crown range in a record time of 42 minutes. We were pretty stoked with our effort, and even when we got the news Danger's wallet was still not found we were still on a roll. After managing to miss the turn off for the West Coast, forcing us to backtrack several kms, we struck out along SH6, pootling around several large, beautiful lakes, so desperately wanting a swim, but not wanting the bother of the effort required.

The scenery rapidly changed at the Haast Pass. Suddenly the stretching tussock clothed vistas closed up to dense, close jungle, often forming a continuous roof over the road. After several days in the open, it was enough to make us feel slightly claustrophobic.

The Haast Pass itself is intense. Possibly made more intense to me because by this stage the oil leak had become so severe it was splattering onto my rear wheel, so any slight lean meant I could feel the back spin around.
It's also intense because of the geography. Not only are the corners wicked, but the steep inclines and declines add in a third dimension, which made the riding experience very rich indeed.

Of course, with all this up and down, it took us quite by surprise by how many cyclists we saw in this area, you know, the hard ones, the ones without motors...
So it was that we adopted a habit, where upon spying a cyclist, we'd drop our feet off the pegs and make cycling actions with them as we sped past.

I think they saw the humour in it too...

We made one stop on the way through, at the Blue Pools, thinking it would be a refreshing swim. It was definitely refreshing, pity the swim lasted about 20 seconds before we realised it was far too cold.

Can't say we took many photos on this leg, jungle starts to look the same quite quickly. So it was a twistie-weary biking duo that rolled into Haast that evening, searching for a feed, a coffee, and desperately hoping there wasn't any tourists wanting to drink with true blooded kiwis.

Thankfully there were none, just a group of V-strom riders from Nelson. To celebrate the first time in several days that we weren't socially obligated to drink, we went out and got a dozen.