Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail

Welcome! We leave Christchurch, the South Island’s largest city and drive to the iconic Mackenzie Country, a rugged mountain valley basin, which includes two turquoise alpine lakes: Tekapo and Pukaki. You’ll start your cycling along the Tekapo Canal to Lake Pukaki. You are on the edge of the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, with close-up views of New Zealand’s highest mountain.

You follow the Lake Pukaki shoreline on a new purpose-built track, to the Lake Pukaki Information Centre. From the Information Centre we’ll cycle a further 10 km on a flat trail to the former hydroelectric town of Twizel, now a water sports and winter sports mecca. En route: amazing views over the Mackenzie basin and the dramatic Benmore Range. 

It’s flat and mostly downhill, through tussock grasslands with beautiful lake and mountain views.

This morning we’ll cycle to the beautiful, glacial Lake Ohau. From Lake Ohau we ride an undulating path, with some short, steep sections. We’ll follow a newly built off road trail traversing the lower slopes of the Ruataniwha Conservation Park, enjoying the views back over the Benmore Range. From here you climb to the high point on the trail, then it’s a steady downhill through the Quailburn, a historic sheep-farming area where early musterers lived a harsh life with many hardships. We finish riding today at the famous Quailburn Woolshed

Tonight we stay at the Ohau Lodge. Be sure to head outside after dinner for some of the most spectacular star gazing on earth. The Mackenzie Basin has recently been named an international dark sky reserve, as its night skies are amongst the world’s cleanest, driest and darkest.

Today we start riding from the Quailburn Woolshed along a shingle road to the Clay Cliffs where we take a small side trip to see these wonderful natural structures.

Next, we’ll follow State Highway 8 passing through Omarama township, at the southern end of the Mackenzie Basin , for the final stretch to the village of Otematata, set between two hydro dam lakes. 

With today’s cycling completed, it’s on board your coach for a short journey back to Omarama and your night’s accommodation.

We’ll leave tiny Otematata behind with a short, steep climb and follow the Benmore Dam, past the power station. We’ll skirt the shores of Lake Aviemore and follow the Waitaki River to Kurow in the Waitaki Valley.

After lunch, it’s off to Duntroon, another quiet inland country town that harbours big surprises: geological formations that interest researchers worldwide, and fossils of sea creatures which lived here millions of years ago, including two extinct penguin species.

Nearby are fossilised whale bones, and Maori rock drawings, hundreds of years old. There may be time to visit the Vanished World Museum.   

Today, it’s into the home stretch through the North Otago countryside to historic Oamaru.

We pass the unusual limestone plateaux or ‘tables’, including the unusual Elephant Rocks, well-known as one of the locations used in filming the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia”. Our route takes us through the Awamoko Valley to Ngapara (Maori for ‘the tables’) and tiny Enfield.

Our journey ends in Oamaru, the largest town in the district. We’ll cycle right up to the heart of Oamaru: the picturesque harbour in the middle of its remarkably preserved Victorian precinct, featuring beautiful 19th century buildings carved in the local white Oamaru stone.

We’ve made it… we’ve cycled almost 300 km from the Alps to the Ocean!  After a celebration, we’ll drive you back to Christchurch, or you may wish to continue your adventures from Oamaru.