I woke up in Greymouth and it was still raining so I decided to stay an extra day. I was reading a book in the afternoon when my Swiss friends showed up and decided to camp at the hostel with me. I spent most of the day reading and walking on the beach looking for jade. I didn’t find any but it was fun and surprisingly relaxing as well.
It was overcast the next morning but I decided to test my luck and see how far I could get before it rained. I didn’t make it too far, about 40km south to Hokitika. I didn’t want to ride in the rain again and thought that doing 40km was better than nothing so I stopped at a motor camp. Most of the time when I stop early in the day, the day tends to drag on, but it didn’t. I spent more time at the beach and finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Another uneventful yet relaxing day, moving on.
I was getting tired of not making much progress so I decided that even if it rained I would continue on. The west coast is known for having lots of rain so I would just have to endure it. It was a little chilly in the morning and looked like it might rain but held off for a while. I got about 50km down the coast when I ran into a bad storm. The sky went from fairly clear to pitch black and it was pouring down rain. I had my rain gear on and was keeping fairly warm so I just kept on going. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, it started to hail, bah! Reluctantly I pulled over and asked someone if I could stand in their garage until the hail stopped and they ended up inviting me in for coffee. They were nice, they didn’t speak English very well but we just watched their kids running into the walls and jumping off of things. Eventually the rain let up and it stopped hailing and I took off. My rain gear and gloves that were wet got really cold sitting around so it was a lot worse than before I stopped so I stopped at the next town of Hari Hari. There was a campground there that was also a hotel/pub/restaurant. I got my tent and everything set up and of course once I do all of that, the sky instantly cleared up and it was nice and sunny the rest of the day. Oh well, I got some laundry done and watched all of the townies stumble out of the pub at 6pm.
It rained on and off all night and did the same in the morning. I started taking down my tent when the rain stopped and as soon as I got my rain cover off it started pouring. It really sucks having the inside of my tent wet, especially when there’s no real chance to dry it out. It rained on and off throughout the day, nothing too bad. Staying warm is the hardest part, I can’t stop to rest or I get really cold so I just have to keep biking. I also realized that I had entered into the rainforest. I honestly didn’t know there was a rainforest there but it doesn’t surprise me with all the rain I saw the past few days. I rode 60km and stopped at the Franz Joseph Glacier. I wanted to see the glacier and would have to wait for the weather to clear up for a bit. I got my tent set up and later that night it did clear up and was able to go out and see the glacier. It is a long walk to get to the base of it but I was able to see it from afar. On my way out there were 3 kea (parrots) walking around and I thought that was cool until they started chasing me around which was not cool.
Sleeping next to a glacier in a soaking wet tent is no fun and it got very cold over night. Thankfully it was a nice day with clear skies. After I thawed out, I headed toward the Fox Glacier over three steep hills which were pretty brutal but had some amazing views. I got to the road that headed up to the lookout point for the glacier and thought it would be an easy few kilometers to see it and turn back. It was only about 4km but it was up another steep hill that wasn’t paved in the middle of the rainforest and the view wasn’t even that great, bah! Still, it was worth it. After that the terrain was fairly tame and the weather was nice enough so I tried to make the most of it. I ended up doing 100km and getting to a DoC site at Lake Paringa. It was a nice place but there were sandflies everywhere. Sandflies are like mosquitoes but smaller and more annoying, so I stayed in my tent.
The weather of course didn’t last, it was raining again in the morning. Thankfully this was one of the very few days that the wind was on my side. I didn’t get far when the rain started to pour. It was about 50 degrees without the wind chill and after 30km I had to stop at a picnic area and get under a shelter. I don’t know if that was a good idea or not because I took off my shoes and gloves to try and dry them out and they were freezing cold after putting them back on, making the rest of the day worse. It’s good that it rained early in the day though, I was planning on doing a fair distance that day and if I had gone past the next town I would have been screwed. So, 20km after I took a break I was in Haast, the only town for 100km. I was planning on going to a DoC site about 50km past that but I’m glad I didn’t. So, it was a short day but at least I was making progress, and had a place to dry my clothes. Later that day, around 6pm I saw some familiar faces, the Swiss couple. They were out in the rain and were going to stay at Lake Paringa but it was flooded so they hitched a ride to Haast.
The next day was fairly nice which was good because I had to climb a very difficult pass that day. There is a rule I have followed since I got my first set of flat tires: If my tires aren’t flat, don’t touch them. Every time I check my tire pressure or pump them up or look at them funny something goes wrong. Since I was going over a difficult pass I wanted to have fully inflated tires, silly me. My rear tire had had a puncture in it for the last month. I noticed it had gotten a little bit bigger but not by much. However since the tire had fairly low pressure, it stayed small. The pass was 55km away and it was a fairly flat and scenic ride there, passing through the mountains and seeing lots of waterfalls. The first 3km of the pass climbs 300 meters which is pretty brutal. The next 10km I spent going down part of the mountain and back up at a steep grade. Along the way I noticed the rear tire was making a funny sound and eventually realized that the puncture was getting bigger and there was a bulge forming around it. I wasn’t concerned going up the mountain but at the top I was a little concerned about the tire exploding while going 50kmh. I tried to hitch a ride but there weren’t a whole lot of cars going by and I don’t like to hitch, especially when my bike was technically functional. So I just rode down the mountain. I made it safely to the bottom and 100 meters later there was a loud pop and my tire was done for. The tube poked through the puncture and popped. It wasn’t too late in the day and there was a campground nearby so I figured I’d try to hitch to the next town of Wanaka, about 80km away. I was fairly surprised to get picked up about 30 minutes later by a cool guy named Mike. It was lucky I got picked up, it was Thursday night and bike shops are closed Saturday and Sunday and that next Monday was a holiday so I would have had to wait until Tuesday to get a tire if I didn’t get to a bike shop the next day. I’m a little disappointed to have missed riding the way to Wanaka. The 80km there was just filled with amazing views of the mountains along side Lake Wanaka. I did get to see it though just didn’t get to take any pictures so I can’t be too upset. Mike was cool and dropped my off at a hostel, he was driving through on business so he didn’t mind taking his time and showing me around town first. I spent the night in the dorm which I hadn’t done in a while and I realized why I stay in a tent most of the time. I did get to see the movie “The Goonies” for the first time with a bunch of Germans.
I got a tire early the next morning. I realized I am running extremely low on money and hope that is the last repair I have to pay for on my bike. It was another clear day and I had to go over another mountain pass, the highest sealed road in New Zealand, the Crown Saddle. I didn’t expect to be climbing it the day after climbing the Haast pass, but I’m a badass so I just got it done. It was a steady climb ending with a few kilometers of steep grade but there was an amazing view at the top. I stayed in Arrowtown at the bottom of the pass and had a look around town. On the map of town there was a note that said “Lord of the Rings site” but didn’t say exactly where or what site it was. So I just kind of wandered around and tried to see if I recognized anything, which I didn’t. I had a look at my bank account and realized I’m real low on cash, so my budget went from $40NZ to $23NZ which isn’t a whole lot.
I was going to take a shortcut to Milford Sound, but the ferry was too expensive. I wasted a lot of time getting lost around Queenstown because I had to make new plans but ended up back on the right highway eventually. The views along side Lake Wakatipu made it worth changing the route. I stopped at the town of Kingston at the bottom of the lake which I kind of wish I hadn’t have done because it was a nice day and bad weather was coming.
The weather wasn’t too bad in the morning, overcast but I was getting tailwinds for the first part of the trip. I was going south but the wind changed to headwinds but after a few hours I was going to be going west. Of course, as I started going west, toward Fiordland, the winds changed and started blowing east and they were a lot stronger. I didn’t get rained on but I didn’t make it to Te Anau like I was hoping to, so I stopped in Mossburn, 60km east. There was a motor camp there that had peacocks and alpaca wandering around for some reason.
It was raining in the morning, but there was no wind and it wasn’t raining hard. It started out at 42 degrees and I figured it would either stop raining or get warmer as the day went on but of course it didn’t. It rained the whole way there and stayed at 42 degrees for the three and a half hour ride. I was in Te Anau though which was my last step before Milford Sound.
It was 120km to Milford Sound and it was a perfect day. The whole ride was amazing, I rode about 96km and got the bottom of the mountain pass going into Milford Sound and I was pretty exhausted and it was a pretty intense ride over the pass. I was advised by everyone I talked to not to bike any of the way to Milford. Before going up the pass there is a sign that says No Bikes and there is a tunnel that’s 1.2km long and barely two lanes. So, for all of those reasons I decided not to risk it and just hitch a ride over the pass. It took about an hour to get a ride and I’m surprised someone picked me up. A German girl named Lola picked me up. The ride through the pass was the best part of the ride to Milford so I decided I would at least ride out of Milford. It was pretty late when we got in and booked a cruise through the Sound.
The next day was raining and foggy so it was kind of hard to see but when it’s raining there are a lot more waterfalls. There were waterfalls everywhere but it was hard to see. We saw dolphins and seals during the cruise so it was worth it. It stopped raining enough that I could ride up the mountain pass and get a view of the pass while it was raining and there were hundreds more waterfalls. At dusk the fog started to clear and I got a good view of Mitre Peak and the rest of the sound. I took hundreds of pictures and it was by far the best part of my trip.
The next day was clear again and rode back up the mountain pass. The snow falls really low there and there was snow along the road. I didn’t want to ride through the tunnel so when I got to the top I tried to hitch but the only place where people could pull over is by a sign that says “Do not stop: Avalanche area” so no one would stop for some reason. While waiting there was a small avalanche close by, so I decided to hurry through the tunnel. The tunnel goes up at a 10% grade and it’s pitch black inside. I walked up holding a flashlight and it was pretty scary, it’s a very narrow tunnel and it was 1.2km long so it took a while. I don’t know exactly how cold it was inside but there were icicles everywhere so I assume it was below freezing. After getting out, I rode back down the pass to the place I hitched a few days before. I had already seen everything from Te Anau up to that point and it was cold and looked like rain and it was already 2pm. By that point I was kind of in a hurry to see as much as I could before heading back to Auckland to catch my plane to Australia so I hitched again back to Te Anau. I got picked up by a couple from Sweden who were at the same motor camp as me back in Charleston.
The next day was a brutal 90km south with strong southerly headwinds. It was very scenic though. The winds were really cold and I was feeling sick, probably from going through that tunnel. I stayed in a free campground at Clifden and went to sleep at 6pm.
I only did 15km to the next town so I could rest up, I didn’t feel well and I climbed the same steep mountain pass two days in a row so I was tired.
The winds were still strong southerlies but I got to the southern coast and started going east so it didn’t effect me as much. It took me a while to realize that I had made it from the top of the north island to the south of the south island. I bought a bus ticket from Invercargill to Christchurch two days from then so I stopped halfway in Riverton.
The ride to Invercargill was easy and stayed there overnight to wait for the bus. Nothing too interesting happened, another easy day.
After Christchurch, it’s 350km to Picton, then I’ll take the ferry to Wellington and take a bus from Wellington to Auckland. I got to Christchurch that night at 8pm. I made some friends at Nelson Lakes and I was going to stay with them. I looked up directions briefly on mapquest and thought I knew the way, but by the time I got there it was getting dark and started to rain just enough to make my glasses wet. Christchurch is a fairly large city and the second biggest in New Zealand. I wandered around for over a half hour in the dark trying to find their house. I had called but the line was busy. I finally got a hold of them and I was only a few blocks away, it’s a pain in the ass finding my way around the city on a bike with no lights.
I left going north and had strong headwinds all day. The winds were supposed to switch to southerlies later that day but never did. At least it was warm, I’m on the east coast now and further north. It is finally starting to feel like spring. This has been the coldest winter in New Zealand for the last 65 years so I’m glad to get some warm weather. Four days of cycling and 290km left to go and that’s the last part of my bike trip.
Since I had four days left and the weather was nice, I wanted to do as far as I could. However, after going 60km I stopped at a store to get food and found out that there was no place to camp for the next 70km. There was one place along the way that I was headed to but it closed down and I didn’t want to do a 130km day so I had to stop. Since I had most of the day left, I went to the beach which was 8km away and hoped to camp there. The beach, Gore Bay, was rather disappointing and there was only one campground there that wanted to charge $20 so I just went back to Cheviot, oh well. I got a cheap campsite in town and there was no one else there which was kind of nice.
I have had some bad experiences with roosters all throughout my trip and this morning was probably the worst. There was one right next to my tent that was crowing at 5am until I left at 10am. Every time I would chase it away it would come back a couple minutes later. I really wanted to kill that little bastard. Before leaving town I ran into someone who told me that there would be southerlies today and I would have an easy day of riding. I also want to kill that little bastard. I was going NNE along the coast and guess where the wind came from all day? That’s right, exactly NNE. I swear, if tomorrow I have headwinds I’m going to lose my shit. At least the scenery is great, I am currently in Kaikoura on the beach and am looking forward to getting to Picton. Two days of cycling left!
Peace!
