We drive around Lake Aviemore and stop at the Aviemore Substation to have a look

They have these water stairs here so the fish (trout?) can swim upstream

What an awful lot of power, I’m talking about the Jimny of course

On the southern shore of Lake Aviemore we find this fantastic little bay, unfortunately the sun has pretty much disappeared by now

But that doesn’t stop us from having a swim

Our plan for today was to end up at Monument Hut, which requires some 4WD’ing, unfortunately because of the recent rain and especially the rain falling down at the time the track had become rather muddy and the poor Jimny got stuck in the mud, luckily a car coming in the opposite direction was able to pull the Jimny out of the mud, I was very glad I always bring the recovery gear, this was the second time ever I needed someone to help with a stuck Jimny

We decide not to take the risk of continuing the track to the hut and instead turned around, so that if we would get stuck again we’d still have the help of the white car available but it turned out not to be necessary

It was really just the very part that we couldn’t get through, too slippery. I need other tyres, once the current ones are worn down enough I’ll get some proper 4WD tyres with more grip

It’s not that we didn’t try!

We ended up at the Round Bush Campsite, another place we’d been before

What miserable weather ;-(

Sailors Cutting

A girl fishing

Fantastic views, awesome sky

Gentle uphill (and downhill) slopes

Lake Benmore with the Benmore Range on the other side

Power lines, coming from the power station the Benmore Dam is known for

The Benmore Dam

Lots of power being generated here

It’s 30km from Omarama to here

Loch Laird Camping ground on the other side

I’m on my way back to Omarama again

Oh, I forgot to mention, this track is part of the A2O (Alps to Ocean) cycle trail

I love how the track meanders through/with the landscape

Back at Sailors Cutting

Perfect day and temperature today for a cycling trip

With enough of a breeze to keep cool

I must have done 50km by now, I have a rest and look forward to getting to Omarama again

Back at Omarama, Dave Tillman has organised a wine tasting evening. Not my cup of tea as I only drink Diet Coke but people are enjoying it

A lot of the usual suspects here

What’s missing is a roaring fire

Carl, doing stuff on his laptop, likely he’s on some dating site

A map of today’s track, from Omarama to the Benmore Dam and back, 60.6 km

Mt Cook looking great today

The Pukaki High Dam

Where water flows out of the lake

and a little further downstream into the Pukaki River which in turn flows into Lake Benmore

And this is Lake Benmore and it’s hot and we’d like to cool off

And so we do, what a lovely refreshing swim that was

This is at the Falstone Campground

We continue our track further south, down Falstone Road, just to see what’s there

And it’s beautiful!

Lovely little beaches

Lots of ducks

These funny looking things

Time for a nap in the shade, the great thing about this car is that is has so much space, this is the first time we were able to fit those chairs in the car and they are soooo relaxing

The road ended at some farm and so we had to turn back, this is one of the little bays at Lake Benmore on the drive out again

The Ohau B Power Station