Makarora to Lake Hawea

It looked pretty dismal this morning with the rain falling down heavily but by the time we were ready to go, the sky cleared up. The first 17 km were easy, with a strong tailwind helping us along the beautiful lake Wanaka. A fairly long climb called “the Neck”, took us to lake Hawea. The scenery has now changed completely. The rainforest and alpine mountains are behind us and we have entered a different New Zealand, which at times looks like Scotland. We stopped for lunch and noticed that Ella was not her normal self. She had a fever. We hurried back on the road to get to Hawea as soon as possible but the last 20 km were a lot tougher than we expected. There are several very steep hills along the lake and it hurt big time to get across. When we had only 9 km left to our end destination, Ella started to complain and we could not leave her in the buggy. We hitchhiked for a while and a Californian couple took Vanessa and Ella to town. We left Vanessa´s bike by the side of the road while I cycled my way into Hawea.

The Californian couple then took me back to Vanessa´s bike which I rode to town. By the time I got to the motel, Vanessa had booked a very nice room with spectacular views over the lake. Ella got worse and spiked a 38.7 fever.