Cycling an Exceptional Route from the Alps to the Ocean

The 78km Twizel-Omarama section of the South Island’s Alps 2 Ocean cycle trail “is simply exceptional,” writes Andrew Bain for Australian Geographic Outdoor.

“Twizel isn’t Queenstown. It’s not Wanaka, and it’s not Nelson. This South Island town is the workaday filling between cutesy Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook Village, but it’s also now the starting point for what might well be one of New Zealand’s finest single-day bike rides.

“Billing itself as the Town of Trees, Twizel was constructed in the 1960s to house workers on the nearby hydroelectricity scheme. In 2013 it also became a stop on the new Alps 2 Ocean cycleway, one of 23 cycling trails being carved across New Zealand.

“[The Twizel-Omarama section] makes for the kind of day on which you might discover just how civilised cycling can be, with lunch at remote Lake Ohau Lodge in sight of Mt Cook, and hot springs in the evening.

“Omarama is at the edge of one of only two dark-sky reserves – areas named for their lack of light pollution and proximity to an observatory – in the southern hemisphere. There are few night skies like this one, and few cycling days to equal it.”

Original article by Andrew Bain, Australian Geographic Outdoor, February 26, 2015.

Photo by Andrew Bain.