| |
N e w Z e a l a n d - # 2
Click the little pictures to get bigger ones (then use your Back button)
9th Jan (Christchurch - Arthur's Pass) - Glad to still be alive, we left the motel and caught a train to Springfield to miss out 40 miles of flat riding over the Canterbury Plains.
We had been warned in Wellington that our route to Queenstown was very remote, so my bike and I were duly loaded with 6 days worth of food for the both of us.
This would turn out to be unnecessary, but we didn't know it at the time! We rode off towards the dark looming mountains of the Southern Alps,
on our first "proper" day of riding, and our only full day of rain of the trip.
A damp Porters Pass | 
A nice place to find out that the pizza slices
bought for lunch actually require cooking | 
Weaving through the Southern Alps | 
Suddenly, a rainforest appeared. Oh, and a beer. |
Sweeping barren mountain sides rose out of the valleys and disappeared through the jagged mists to unseen heights.
Before I'd even had time to moan about it (much), we reached the summit of Porter's Pass at 945m, but it was a full afternoons riding
through the mountains before we reached the village of Arthur's Pass. My legs had given up by then and, back up at an altitude of 800m, I
for one was overjoyed to see a shop, cafe, restaurant/bar, and - Praise the Lord! - a youth hostel.
Tired and wet through, I made Jonny book us a room. Now surrounded by steep rainforest-clad mountain sides with waterfalls in every direction, we paused for a moment to take in the scene, and promptly went to the bar.
|
10th Jan (Arthur's Pass - Ross) - It was only a short climb to Arthur's Pass summit at 920m, then it was all downhill and, as far as roads go, a bit bonkers. In the space of 5 minutes,
I'd recorded well above 50mph (with fully loaded panniers and a rucksac), overheated my brakes, exceeded the posted speed limit on almost every corner, overtaken a twin logging lorry and given the driver a wave,
and got to the bottom grinning like an idiot. Jonny arrived a few minutes later, similarly impressed.
Arthurs Pass - the way forward is down | 
Looking back up the road | 
Point if you can see the pub |
From there on, we cruised along in the sunshine, out of the mountains and towards the West coast. Rainforest was now all around us,
and a quick snack stop became very quick indeed when a few hundred mosquitos tried to make a quick snack out of us. The thunderstorm we'd watched develop hit us just as we found the coast, and after another hour we stopped for shelter at Hokitika, joining a Swiss cyclist called Pascal.
Nice chap, but a bit dull. Chips, sausage and beans in Hokitika revived my legs and allowed the storm to pass, and our Anglo-Swiss posse then rode on to the gold mining town of Ross,
and a tent site in the garden of the bar. A real Wild West style bar too, complete with hairy motorbikers. It was here
that Jonny and I developed a taste for Speights beer (definitely not for hairy motorbikers).
|
11th Jan (Ross - Franz Josef Glacier) - Pascal told us to go on ahead as we were riding too fast for him (see - there's a first time for everything). But my
legs have never ridden this far without a rest day before, and he catches us in the afternoon, eating ice lollies at Whataroa (roughly 200 miles from Springfield). We said our goodbyes again, and went on to the town of Franz Josef Glacier,
where we found a tent spot in the lively Black Sheep campsite. My legs cannot ride any further, so we immediately spend an hour and a half walking instead - up the see the glacier and back.
Smile if you... | 
...like riding down the West coast | 
The glacier at Franz Josef |
Just back in time, in fact, to see Pascal arrive and pitch his tent next to us! Franz Josef Glacier has so many places to stay, this strikes us as quite a coincidence.
But all becomes clear when we walk into the campsite bar to find Canadian William (from Taupo), still wearing his nasty shirt, but thankfully
still with his group of lady-friends. This was no coincidence - this was just weird. I woke at 2am unable to bend my left leg at the knee.
|
12th Jan (Franz Josef Glacier - A beach near Knights Point) - The morning brings me a working left leg, and Jonny over 100 sandfly bites. We said our goodbyes to Pascal for the final time, and headed out for what would be a very long day.
The West coast scenery is much the same - swamps, pretty lakes, rainforest by the coast, and the magnificent snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps to the East.
Burgers at Bruce Bay.
It sure beats a day in the office. | 
Back into rainforest territory... | 
...and back out at Knights Point | 
Beach camp.
Your hosts, the very hungry sandflies. |
Aside from keeping a lone female cyclist company on the way to Fox Glacier town, we saw very few people this day. Lunch was a round of burgers at a mobile
cafe by the beautiful Bruce Bay, then it was back to inland forests with the hope of finding a campsite when we re-emerged on the coast at Knights Point. For some reason
it never struck us that Knights Point might be on top of a huge cliff...
And so it was, with no signs of any life for miles around, that we camped on a pretty beach, cooked using our remaining stream water, watched the sunset, then
locked ourselves inside the tent before we were eaten alive by the 3 trillion resident sandflies.
|
13th Jan (A beach - Makarora) - Like the sound of rain outside, the sandflies were still bouncing off the tent in huge numbers when we awoke.
We made our escape quickly, and stopped 12 miles down the road at Haast for sunday morning breakfast burgers that must have weighed a pound each. Our empty water
bottles and bags were refilled with cold water and topped up with ice (thanks Haast burger guys!), and it was back into the Southern Alps for us. We gave a friendly wave to a strange looking cyclist. At a lunch break in the sunshine, we chatted to a
coach driver called Henry, who told us that the East had been hit by floods, washing away power supplies, homes, rail bridges, and closing the Arthur's Pass road with landslides...
Jonny camps it up for the camera. | 
It's not much, but we called it home |
Considering its small size (563m), the Haast Pass is a killer to ride up, hitting you with much of the height all in one very steep go. Once on the other side, the rainforest turns back into regular forest,
the sandflies all but disappear (as promised by Henry), and we camped at the excellent Makarora site. After finishing our own dinner and another groups leftovers (which sadly didn't include their beer),
we bump into strange looking cyclist. He turns out to be both strange and German, and with no bar to be found, it suddenly becomes bedtime.
|
14th Jan (Makarora - Cardrona) - It was not long before we reached the fantastic scenery of Lakes Wanaka and Hawea, carved out by successive glaciers
so that they are nearly 400m deep, with bottoms below sea level. After a few gratuitous picture taking stops, it was swiftly on to a lunchtime appointment with the town of Wanaka, which strange looking German guy had recommended.
Admittedly we didn't give Wanaka much of a chance, but what we did find was quite dull and very overpriced. So on to our target of Cardrona.
Lake Wanaka | 
Lake Hawea | 
Somewhere in there is a tent and 2 bikes |
Cardrona (or Cordraw as Jonny would say it) is home to one of New Zealand's oldest hotels, still remaining from a mining boom in the 1860's. And that's about it!
Passing up the offer of a very reasonably priced room, we opted instead for the old "drink four pints
of Speights and go and camp in a bunch of trees further up the valley by the Cardrona River" routine.
|
15th Jan (Cardrona - Queenstown) - Our first hour saw us fill up our bottles with stream water, and push hard up to the summit of the highest
surfaced road in NZ at 1121m. My legs were now on form, and I like to think (if only to myself) that I rode up that hill like a crazy fool. An effort that was rewarded by
great views towards Queenstown (with scenery change to orange grassy mountains), and hairpin bends on the way down.
Looking over towards Queenstown
(visible in the far distance) | 
This road was as fun as it looks | 
Not a bad view for £5 a night
(The Remarkables) |
Getting to Queenstown was Jonny's main aim of the whole trip, and he was happy as a pig in err, mud. 1 map and 2 hours of random riding around later and we'd secured 3 nights in cheap hostel
run by some incompetant Chinese people (so incompetant we had to change rooms twice). Then it was just a case of booking 2 days worth of activities, eating burgers, and drinking Speights until
everything became a blur.
|
16th Jan (Queenstown : Milford Sound Coach Trip) - Warned against riding such a dangerous road (endless coaches and a narrow unlit tunnel), we were up at 6am for an all-day coach and boat trip to see the famous fjord. Our driver, John, was both very friendly, and a great narrator througout the journey.
Imagine Des Lynam describing his favourite fishing holes and you're pretty much there.
Milford Sound | 
The boat gives some idea of scale |
Milford Sound itself is well worth the trip. You're lucky to get a clear day though - it rains so much here that there is a near-permanent layer of fresh water floating over the sea water! Basically, it's
all about near-vertical sheer walls of granite that rise up out of the sea (or the next to the roads to get there!), and climb so high it makes you really dizzy to look up. Throw in some seals, waterfalls, Kea's (the worlds only alpine parrot),
and there's no shortage of things to look at.
|
|
|
