An overview of the road covered during our third week of cycling.
2017.11.14 – [NZ] Dunedin ==> Lake Waihola (42 kms | Total: 720 kms) – After our last breakfast in our comfortable AirBnB accommodation, we loaded the tandem and trailer and walked up another steep street block to the start of the road that would hopefully lead us out of Dunedin. As we learned a few days ago, the main highway leading into and leaving town were off limit to bicycles as they turned into busy motorways. Hence, our challenge for the early part of the day was to ensure our phone/gps led us safely out of town and later rejoined the highway for the rest of our route to Waihola. We were quite pleased by our selected route as it slowly descended towards the city boundary limit unlike our grueling walk up to our AirBnB neighborhood. We stopped for coffee upon arriving at Waihola before checking into our holiday park. We have continued the habit of reserving a cabin the previous day to avoid any accommodation surprises. We had our evening meal at the local tavern and enjoyed a short walk along the Lake Waihola.
2017.11.15 – [NZ] Lake Waihola ==> Balclutha (43 kms | Total: 763 kms) – Although our cycling day was quite reasonable at 40+kms, the heavy truck traffic and the ups and downs in the later part of our journey required our ongoing concentration throughout the cycling time. We checked into our motor camp shortly after lunch. We bought some groceries for our evening meal. We BBQed some chicken skewers and Jenny cooked some veggies. Earlier in the afternoon, we took some time to review our itinerary for the Catlins, a beautiful and remote region, which we would be entering the next day. As we had started to plan for a long cycling day tomorrow to lead us to Mclean Falls, we discovered that no cabins were available for that day. We opted to split this journey into two. We booked an accommodation in Owaka and another one in Mclean Falls – each less than 40kms. Jenny chatted with the first cyclists we encountered on our trip, a young Chinese couple who were cycling the southern island within a month.
2017.11.16 – [NZ] Balclutha ==> Owaka (40 kms | Total: 803 kms) – We left our motor camp in the morning under a sunny sky but still cool. Before leaving town, we stopped at a café for some lattes and scones. The road was quite pleasant as we embarked on the scenic Catlins road. As we had some extra time on our hands, we took a slightly longer route via Kaka point. We coasted into Owaka after completing a fairly steep climb. Upon locating our accommodation in the small town of Owaka, we were surprised to be confronted to a sign indicating that the place we had booked on Booking.com was closed until Nov. 18th. Jenny rejoiced totally when she learned that the ground keeper had booked us into a motel room across the street for the same price. Since learning our planned accommodation had been a hospital, a long time ago, Jenny had a hard time accepting to stay at such a facility. Jenny was convinced that we were “decent people” (to make Jessica and Victoria laugh) and as such we were rewarded with a great motel room with a full kitchen facility. We bought groceries and cooked our evening meal in our room. We walked around the village twice and kept on noticing how quiet the place appeared. We could not imagine how creepy the hospital accommodation would have been.
2017.11.17 – [NZ] Owaka ==> Mclean Falls (40 kms | Total: 843 kms) – We cooked breakfast in our room before taking the road again. We encountered a few good climbs in the later part of our journey. We stopped for some lattes at the Lost Gipsy café in the village of Papatowai, our only stop along the way. We arrived, after a long steady climb, at the Catlins Whistling Frog resort located in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after our arrival, a light rainfall fell for an hour or so. We had our evening meal at the resort restaurant where our food, drink and dessert tab ended costing more than our accommodation – but it was all worth it!
2017.11.18 – [NZ] Mclean Falls ==> Curio Bay (34 kms | Total: 877 kms) – As our planned cycling day was less than 35kms, we opted to skip breakfast. The road was pleasant with no challenging climbs. To our surprise, some 12 kms before our destination, we came upon the pleasant Niagara Falls café where we stopped for some lattes and scones. At the very popular Curio Bay campground, we set up our tent for the night. The place reminded us a bit of Lake Tekapo in the sense that the facilities were not quite adequate for the number of campers. We bought some groceries at the camp store and concocted some evening meal composed of risotto rice, eggs and tomatoes. In the evening we spent more than an hour, with a dozen of other visitors, sitting on the rocks along the ocean waiting for Yellow-eyed penguins to show up. Unfortunately, we did not see any but we did appreciate some of the petrified forest remains.
2017.11.19 – [NZ] Curio Bay ==> Invercargill (95 kms | Total: 971 kms) – It was pleasant to pitch the tent yesterday under good weather and even more pleasant breaking camp under a sunny sky. Our initial destination for the day was a primitive campground some 30kms before Invercargill which offered no showers. We skipped breakfast in the morning to avoid the busy kitchen activity. The morning route started with a 15kms gravel road that was officially closed to traffic as some road maintenance were clearing a hillside slide. Being Sunday, there were no workers present and the road was in fact quite ridable. Although we were a bit apprehensive about the gravel road, the journey was good except for the last climb which was steep and forced us to walk. During our stop at a café in Fortrose, some 20 kms before our proposed final destination, Jenny and I discussed the possibility of pushing forward to Invercargill – our third segment resting town. As the sun was shining and the road was relatively flat from there to Invercargill, we cycled on under a light headwind. We arrived at our holiday park shortly before 5pm after some 87+ kms. After checking-in and unloading the tandem/trailer, we cycled to the closest grocery a few kms away. We discovered that beer and wine were not sold at grocery store in this town. We had to cycle another 1.5 km further to buy some well deserved beer and wine. We returned to our room with a trailer full of food/drink supplies. At the end of the day, we had cycled more than 94kms – our record to date!
2017.11.20 – [NZ] Invercargill ==> Invercargill (0 kms | Total: 971 kms) – We had a lazy early morning. After our breakfast, Jenny did some clothes washing and I did some tandem maintenance e.g. brake pad adjustment. I discovered that the tandem rear tire was showing serious signs of wear. We had been warned that the original tires would wear fast. After calling a few bicycle shops in town, we found one that carried some good Schwalbe tires. We cycled the 5kms into town and bought two tires. We stopped at McDonald for coffee and snacks. Back at the holiday park, both front and rear tires were replaced. We kept the old front tire as an extra spare – over and above the foldable spare tire we’ve been carrying. Jenny cooked another great evening meal made up of salmon and veggies.
2017.11.21 – [NZ] Invercargill ==> Invercargill (0 kms | Total: 971 kms) – We had another lazy early morning. After a big breakfast of eggs and sausages, Jenny did a little more clothes washing. After lunch, we cycled back into town through a series of parks and bicycle paths. This route was a lot more stress free than yesterday’s highway road into town. We managed to find a hardware store that sold some recommended silicone spray meant to silent the squeaking noise coming from our synch carbon belt. The noise had started five days ago and had started to be pretty annoying. After spraying the belt the noise simply disappeared. We will have to wait to see for how long! We stopped again for a coffee break at McCafé before making our way back to the holiday park. Along the way, we visited a rose garden included in the city’s large Queens park. It is amusing to see the holiday park fill-up late afternoon and empty up in the morning. Jenny prepared again a tasty evening meal of duck, fish and veggies.
Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.
— Susan Sontag
