An overview of the road covered during our sixth segment (week 7/8) of cycling (2,279 kms to-date)

2017.12.11 – [NZ] Franz Josef Glacier ==> Hari Hari (62 kms | Total: 1821 kms) – We awoke to a partially sunny sky and dry ground. After cooking our breakfast in our kitchen cabin, we loaded the tandem and trailer and headed further north on the west coast. The road was inland and relatively flat except for a good climb around Mount Hercules towards the end of our cycling day. Jenny was mildly disappointed by the small size of town that Hari Hari was actually compared to some of the pictures she had seen on the internet. We had not been able to make an on-line reservation at the Hari Hari Hotel but it was certainly not a problem. We initially requested a backpacker room, which usually worked out fine for us, but when the hotel attendant offered the room for $25 it should have raised a red flag in our mind. Only a few minutes after having brought our panniers into the room, Jenny was fairly disappointed with the room. She could not phantom waking up in such a room the next day – on her birthday. We easily upgraded to a motel room – at a bargain price similar to our typical cabin accommodation. We went to the local café for a light lunch. We were pleasantly surprised by our evening meal at the hotel’s restaurant. Needless to say that Hari Hari was not one of the liveliest town.

2017.12.12 – [NZ] Hari Hari ==> Hokitika (75 kms | Total: 1896 kms) – Before leaving Hari Hari for our 70+ kms cycling day, we had a breakfast across the road at yesterday’s café. The road was not as flat as yesterday but the partially clouded sky made the cycling enjoyable. Mid-route, both Maps.me and Google maps, had suggested to take Beach Rd along the coast – allowing us to by-pass some hilly terrain. Unfortunately, after one km on a sealed road it turned to gravel. We turned around as we much preferred the hills to the gravel road. We cycled some long stretches of strait road on which the previous day a car crash had occurred and had closed the road (alert on the NZ transport website). We did not notice any remnants of this accident when we cycled by. We were a bit excited when we rolled into Hokitika as it appeared quite lively – compared to Hari Hari. We checked into a nice room at a central backpacker accommodation. After our shower and some rest, we went for our evening meal at a Chinese restaurant. I made sure that Jenny had a plate of long noddle on her birthday. The backpacker attendant suggested that we caught the sunset at … Sunset Point in the evening and then later visit the famous Glow worms dell some 30 mins walk from our accommodation. The sunset was not great as it was too cloudy and windy. On the other hand, the free visit of the Glow worms dell was worthwhile even though we did not stay very long as there was not much to do after snapping a few pictures.

2017.12.13 – [NZ] Hokitika ==> Greymouth (38 kms | Total: 1934 kms) – As we expected a short cycling day to Greymouth, we leisurely enjoyed a breakfast at the café on the ground floor of our backpacker accommodation. The road was not challenging except for the noticeable increase in vehicle traffic. Closer to Greymouth, the road shoulder greatly improved in width. We checked into another kitchen cabin at a Top 10 Holiday park around lunch time. As rain was forecast in the early afternoon, we cycled into town with the trailer for some groceries as we had made our reservation for two nights in Greymouth – being the last town on west coast that we would stay at. As we cycled back from the grocery store and arrived at the holiday park, the rain came down without warning. We spent the reminder of the afternoon planning our route and accommodations for the remainder of our stay on the south island – as well as firming up where we would be breaking for the Christmas holiday.

2017.12.14 – [NZ] Greymouth ==> Greymouth (0 kms | Total: 1934 kms) – After our breakfast, we cycled the 3 kms into town and stopped at a McCafé for some lattes. We explored the start of the West Coast Wilderness cycling trail over a few kms. We showed up at the Monteith craft brewery for their 3:00pm tour and accompanying tasting! We spent a few hours relaxing, drinking and snacking at the brewery. In the evening, we walked the 300m to the beach from our holiday park to view the sunset scheduled for 9:06 pm. We had somewhat a better success at capturing the scenery this time.

2017.12.15 – [NZ] Greymouth ==> Ikamatua (55 kms | Total: 1989 kms) – We cooked our breakfast in our kitchen cabin before taking the road again which would lead us away from the west coast towards the north eastern part of New Zealand’s south island. We criss crossed a few times some rail road tracks that had been running pretty much parallel to the road since Hokitika. The very popular TranzAlpine train ran from the Greymouth on the west coast to Christchurch on the east coast. We checked into a cabin at the Ikamatua Hotel. We had pretty the entire holiday park to ourselves. We skipped the hotel’s expensive wifi access and opted to rely on our phone data access. The connectivity was very intermittent. This particular situation made me realize, using the same mobility provider, Jenny’s iPhone 7 Plus had much better connectivity than my $200 Huawei Android phone. We learned earlier in the day that the backpacker’s accommodation where we were hoping to stay tomorrow was full until mid January. We did not quite understand the reason for which so many folks would be staying in the tiny village of Inangahua. The backpacker accommodation provided us with a few accommodation alternatives. We had resigned ourselves to the camping option. After several attempts to communicate with the owner of the camping lot/facility we were reassured that a toilet and a shower were available. We had our evening meal at the hotel restaurant.

2017.12.16 – [NZ] Ikamatua ==> Inangahua (63 kms | Total: 2052 kms) – We had some yogurt and oranges for breakfast with the hope that we could have a more substantive breakfast in Reefton some 27 kms further. The cycling to Reefton was enjoyable. As planned, we had a good breakfast in one of the town cafés. Before leaving town, we bought some groceries for our evening meal as we did not know whether we would find any other supplies on the road. Upon arriving in Inangahua, we stopped at the backpacker accommodation to see whether any rooms had become available. We learned that the owner was hosting a large group the next day for a celebration of some sort and hence she could not accept anyone because of her preparation. As we found the camping lot just across the local café/grocery store, we met our second cycling couple, on our trip, that were pulling a one-year old baby girl in a trailer. During our chat mostly in French, the France couple found my Quebec accent rather amusing. At the camping lot, we parked the tandem and opted to walk back to the general store/café before setting up our tent as the sun was still shining strongly. The café owner was nice enough to provide us with wifi access as our data access was no longer working in this area – unfortunately the café closed at 3:00pm. The owner of the camping lot came over to the café to collect their camping fee. The camping lot was actually part of a white water rafting business. Some locals were washing clothes in their washing machine that had been installed at the camping lot as their own home did not have any electricity! Back at the camping lot, we met a single lady from the Netherlands that had been hiking over the past few weeks and was stuck for the night in Inangahua waiting for a bus ride. We took turn using the single shower stall. We noticed that our camp mate lady took a very long shower but we learned that it was her first one in eight days. We chatted about our respective travel experiences in NZ and shared a meal with her on the lonely picnic table. It was the first time on our trip that we actually used our own cooking stove to prepare a meal. The sand flies were Jenny’s biggest concern – rightfully so. We walked to the café to see whether the wifi was still accessible as we had taken a picture of the password – unfortunately the receiver must have been turned off. We slipped into the tent before sunset as it was our sole refuge from NZ notorious sand flies.

2017.12.17 – [NZ] Inangahua ==> Murchison (60 kms | Total: 2112 kms) – Overall we had a good night sleep in our improvised camp site. Nonetheless, we were eager to leave the place. Hence, we started our earliest cycling day of the trip at 7:30am. The road snaked along the Bulle gorge with up and down hills. As we cycled, we were thankful for the shade from the forest and from the clouds. We stopped along the way for some oranges and yogurt. Upon arriving in the town of Murchison, we stopped at a very busy café/restaurant frequented by tour buses. We had a good lunch and rest there. We bought some groceries before continuing our road some 9 kms further to our holiday park that we had previously reserved. After settling into our cabin, we had to dry out the tent from early morning dew. After our usual shower and clothes washing, Jenny cooked some veggies to accompany our cooked roast chicken from the grocery store. We were happy to have once again access to wifi – even if we had to pay a few dollars for it.

2017.12.18 – [NZ] Murchison ==> Saint Arnaud (53 kms | Total: 2165 kms) – Only a week ago, the road from Murchison to Saint Arnaud would have been difficult to cycle because of the heavy vehicle traffic. This stretch of road had been designated as part of a long detour since an earthquake on 14 November 2016 had cause a couple of land slides along the direct road (Highway 1) from Picton to Christchurch. The corrective roadwork allowed for the re-opening of Highway 1 only starting Dec. 15th – for daytime use only. As we were not expecting any facilities on the road, we cooked some eggs for breakfast before leaving our holiday park. We still encountered quite a bit of traffic until mid-journey to the turn off for Nelson. As expected, our cycling day was fairly demanding as the road climbed steadily with an altitude gain over 300m. The heat from the sun made the long strait stretch of roads very boring – giving the impression that we were riding on flat terrain while we were still pedaling on some of our lowest gears. A few kms before arriving in St Arnaud, we were confronted to a heavy head wind. We had a light lunch at the town café/petrol station before checking into our nice and modern backpacker accommodation. As we headed for our evening meal at a nearby restaurant, the sky started to get covered with rain clouds. During our meal, the rain came down putting a damper to our idea of walking to the nearby beautiful lakes, part of the Nelson National park.

2017.12.19 – [NZ] Saint Arnaud ==> Wairau Valley (69 kms | Total: 2234 kms) – As we missed our visit to the lake-shore yesterday, we set out this morning, with the unloaded tandem, for a short visit. We snapped a number of nice pictures before we returned to yesterday’s café for our breakfast. We were quite pleased to discover that the wind had completely changed direction. Today’s cycling conditions were among the best we had encountered on the south island – cloud cover, continuous downhill road over 60kms and a hefty tail wind – one of the few times we got to enjoy it. We covered our cycling day’s distance in record time. We snapped a picture of the “one lane bridge” road sign which we estimated having crossed between 100 to 200 such bridges during our cycling on the south island. Along the way we met a couple from Australia (Michael and Ly) cycling in the opposite direction. We really felt empathic for them as they had to tackle both a strong head wind and a steady climb. We were not sure what to expect as we checked into our cabin accommodation at a Naturist (aka Nudist) campground. It appeared that the rather cool weather kept many folks mostly dressed. Jenny was not sure she liked the double showers – at least not the one without doors. We went for our evening meal at the nearby tavern where, exceptionally, the business did not accept any credit cards. As we were very low on NZ dollars, we had to use some of US funds to partially settle our food tab.

2017.12.20 – [NZ] Wairau Valley ==> Blenheim (45 kms | Total: 2279 kms) – The night was particularly cool in our cabin. We decided to avoid the communal kitchen to fill our water bottles as we normally did as part of our daily morning routine – instead we filled our bottles from our washroom sink tap. As our cycling was fairly short at 40kms, we set out on the road without eating anything. We again cycled pretty fast on the mainly flat road bordered on each side by wineries for which this Marlborough region was famous for. Along the way, we stopped at a café in Renwick for some lattes and breakfast snacks. We continued to see wineries until we arrived in Blenheim another 8 kms further. Before making our way to our holiday park, we stopped for some groceries. We still managed to arrive at the holiday park by noon. Unfortunately, we were told that our room would not be ready for another hour and half. We cycled back into town and had a light lunch at McDonald’s. The vehicle traffic in town was quite heavy over those few kms. After our successful check-in at 2:00pm, we showered and relaxed and watched the holiday park fill up with late afternoon arrivals. To our disappointment, we realized that many of the wineries open to the public were those that we had cycled alongside on the way to Blenheim. After our own cooked meal, we took a long walk into the town center.

2017.12.21 – [NZ] Blenheim ==> Picton (Waikawa Bay) (34 kms | Total: 2313 kms) – As we had planned a very short cycling day, we had a slow wake-up morning. We cooked breakfast and left our holiday park at 9:45am. We expected a heavy vehicle traffic this morning over the 27kms to Picton. The wide road shoulder did provide some relief. We were not cycling anywhere close to the speed we had been going over the past two days as we had a light headwind against us. Although we did not scream out our joy when we arrived in Picton, it was certainly a major milestone for us marking the end of our cycling on New Zealand’s south island. We stopped at café for some lattes. We bought some groceries for our evening meal. We also took the opportunity to visit the ferry terminal and inquiry about the check-in/boarding process that we would be going through tomorrow for our 10:45 am sailing to Wellington on the north island. We were quite glad that we had purchased some groceries before arriving at our holiday park some 4kms further as there were no restaurants, taverns or stores around the area.

2017.12.22 – [NZ] Picton (Waikawa Bay) ==> Wellington (10 kms | Total: 2323 kms) – We woke up to some hefty winds as if our cabin was about to be blown away. The sky quickly clouded up and it started to drizzle as if the south island was sad to see us leave! By 8am, the sky had cleared and the wind had died down considerably. We cycled the 4 kms back to Picton’s city center. We stopped for breakfast at a local café where we also enjoyed a good chat with two ladies from Auckland traveling to the west coast to meet family during the Christmas holiday. Shortly after 9am, we cycled to the nearby ferry terminal. We got our boarding passes and checked in our luggage without the hassle of any line-ups. We walked the tandem and trailer on board of the ferry ourselves once the four train segments had been taken out of the ship. The three and half hours crossing went by fairly quickly. Upon arriving in Wellington, Maps.me provided us with a safe cycling route to our downtown apartment/hotel accommodation where we will be staying at until Christmas day. We appreciated taking a good rest in Wellington. Jenny was really happy to be in a big city!

*** For those that have read this far… Jenny and I wish to take this opportunity to extend our warmest Happy Holidays and a magnificent New Year to all.

“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
— Earl Nightingale