Saturday Jan 30, 2010 – Off to Te Anau

Our wonderful week in Wanaka has come to an end. The weather all week had been superb. Jennifer and Charles really tanned up. I heard Jennifer leave with her bike at 6:30am. Charles and I leisurely got up, pack up and were ready to go by 9am. It had started to rain while Charles was packing the car.

We only got about 5 km down the road when we were stopped by a policeman who said the road was closed. There had been an accident on the hill coming out of Queenstown. We would have to take the long way.

"Was there a bicyclist involved?" we asked. "Why would you ask that sir?" answered the policeman.

We then explained about Jennifer riding a bike down to Queenstown. He then told us that bicycling would be allowed but she would not be allowed down the hill. We were not able to ask any more questions as he told us to move along. The accident happened at 6am. A tanker had run off the road. We did not know when the barricade went up so had no idea if Jennifer was stopped, or asked to turn around. We went back to Wanaka and at the info centre we asked about the police station. They called but found that no one was there. Back we went to the resort. They said they could call her cell if we liked. I had packed her number in my suitcase which is at the bottom of the pile. We tried to find it on g-mail but kept losing the free internet.

Back we go to the barricade again. We ask "Can we go along the road to see if we could find out daughter?"

The policeman said "It would be okay but we would not be able to go to the bottom of the hill."

Off we went. We figured it would take us ½ hour to get to the lookout. We could double back then and take the long way around to Queenstown if necessary. There was a sign in the middle of the road at Cordrona saying the road was closed. On we went. We thought that if Jen had been turned back we would have seen her by now. We kept going to the first lookout. We decided Jen must have made it through so we turned back. Suddenly, there were a number of cars coming down the road from Wanaka. We turned around to follow them. At the lookout we asked if they had come from Wanaka and was the road still closed. They had no idea what we were talking about. They had heard nothing about the accident and saw no policeman. We followed the vehicles down. Just above the last hairpin turn we were stopped. Still no sign of Jen. The people we had talked to at the lookout realised that we were right about the accident. We waited about 15 min before we were allowed through. No vehicles were allowed up the hill as of yet. However, we did see some bikers coming up.

We were so happy when we found Jennifer's hotel and found out she had registered. We were ecstatic that we didn't have to return to Wanaka and take the longer route to Queenstown

Jennifer's story went sort of like this. At the 20km mark she was ready to turn back. However she talked herself out of that. If she went forward the 20ks instead of back, she would only have 20ks more to do. With no idea of what lay ahead she pedaled on. There were no signs along the road about the accident. There had been a light drizzle along the way that was quite refreshing. She gave out a loud cheer when she reached the first lookout. It was downhill from there to the bottom. Rounding the corner to the right after the lookout, met with driving rain and winds. Jen said her speed dropped considerably. She was stopped for 45 min at the accident. A helicopter came in and took the tank part away. They also foamed the road while she was there. Too bad she did not have a camera. Other than getting very cold she was alright. They were pulling up the cab of the truck while we were there.

Everyone was so happy to meet again. Jen had time to get a nice warm shower before we arrived. Jen was so excited and proud that she had made it all the way. We were also very proud of her. She went 64km in 3 hours. We had all her other stuff so she had no dry cloths to change into. What a day so far and it wasn't even noon yet.

After dropping Jen downtown we left for Te Anau. We stopped at a beautiful picnic area just south of the Queenstown area. It over looked the lake. The sun was shining and very warm on the back. Queenstown could be seen in the distance. This was the only area to picnic for about 24km. By then it was very windy, overcast and cold.

The rest of the day went by without a hitch. We saw lots of green grassy area full of sheep. The road through most of the trip after the lake was quite straight. The car must have wondered what hit it. No hills! No twists and turns!! The weather got progressively nicer as we travelled. Off to watch the sun set with Charles.