Day 42 - 52

I spent two nights in Nelson. I don’t know why I spent the extra night, I was in a nice hostel and didn’t want to go back outside I guess. I picked up a sweater and some warmer gloves, so hopefully I can survive the cold weather that I’m headed into. My second night in Nelson I made some friends and for some reason decided that it was a good idea to start a game of monopoly at 11pm and drink boxed wine, what a horrible idea on both fronts.

I got to bed rather late and woke up with a boxed wine hangover, the worst kind of hangover. It was a nice day at least, sunny and warm. I headed along the coast to Mouteka which was a nice town. I went for a bike ride along a bike path by the beach which apparently was a mountain bike path. I got stuck in sand and cringed as I rode across the path which was filled with large stones with my steel framed bike. Other than that, it was nice and rather relaxing.

I was planning on going to Kaiteriteri beach the day before but the people at the information center convinced me to stay in Mouteka because it was supposed to be a long and hard ride. It was only about 12 kilometers away and it took less than an hour, but oh well. It is supposed to be one of the best beaches in New Zealand so I wanted to stay there for the night. It was a good thing I did because it started to rain pretty early in the day and I already had my tent set up so I was happy. It stopped for a little bit at night and I hung out at the beach by myself because everyone else had left because of the rain. The next morning I woke up and it was still raining so I decided to stay an extra day. Someone gave me a ride back to Mouteka to go to the grocery store because there was nothing in Kaiteriteri. By the time I got back all of the roads were flooded and my tent looked like it was about to be swept up. The owner came by and let me stay in a cabin for the night which was awesome, because I don’t like sleeping in a pool of water. So I took the day off, finished the second Lord of the Rings book and started the third. I painted a few pictures, then painted my ukulele because you can’t be a hippie unless you own an instrument that you painted yourself, it’s a law or something.

The next day was clear and the roads were no longer flooded. I later found out that most everywhere else on the south island it snowed, but since I was at the northern part on the coast, it just rained. I was headed inland, which meant a long slow climb up into the mountains. I had some strong and cold headwinds which is never fun on a constant climb. I got 60km and stopped at a nice little town in the mountains. All day there were amazing views of the snow tipped mountains and I camped out within view of them.

I was excited to get going because I was headed for Nelson Lakes, which I saw on the map but didn’t know anything about, but at the campsite last night I saw a picture of it and it looked awesome. Of course, since I wanted to get somewhere, the day went extremely slow. I got a flat tire shortly after leaving, which I just stuck a patch on, which makes two patches on my rear tube and one on my front. I put all of my crap back on the bike and took off and shortly after my bike came to a halt. One of the bungee cords snapped and got tangled up in my rear gears. I finally got all of that untangled and luckily I had a spare bungee cord. I put that on and about an hour later I went to put my jacket under the cords and that one broke too, ugh. So, the rest of the day my rear bag was just barely holding on with one cord. I was getting higher into the mountains so the hills were getting steeper and there was still a lot of cold headwinds. I finally made it to Nelson Lakes and it was the most amazing view all trip. It’s a big lake with snow tipped mountains that look like they’re coming out of the lake. It’s pretty cool and it makes me all the more excited to get down to the Milford Sound.

Next day I headed to Murchison, nothing too exciting. I was headed in a different direction but the winds hate me and changed directions accordingly so I couldn’t enjoy coming down from the mountains. It was a gradually descending ride but I had to pedal because of the strong headwinds.

Shortly after leaving Murchison, I stopped to take a break and some people came up to me and told me I had to hurry if I wanted to catch up with my friends. I was confused and they said that there were two more cyclists a few miles ahead of me. So, I took off and tried to catch up with them. About an hour later I ran into them while they were taking a break. It’s fun running into other cyclists but awkward sometimes. So few people do cycle touring so I feel excited to see other tourists, but then I realize we don’t have much to talk about. We kind of just look at each other’s bikes and say how long we’ve been out then leave. It’s also awkward because I can either follow them, or just randomly bump into them for the next couple of days. I chose the latter. They were a couple from Switzerland and as a rule foreign couples piss me off. They just whisper between each other whenever you’re around and you feel like you’re in the way by being there. Anyways, I ended up riding 100km to Westport and camped at a hostel. It is a small town famous for coal, complete with a museum dedicated to coal. I decided to pass on that.

I woke up and it was overcast. I spent a few hours deciding what to do, stay or head south along the coast and hope for the best. I eventually decided to leave because I’ve had plenty of days where I decide to stay somewhere and it clears up in the afternoon. On this occasion I made the wrong choice. Ten minutes after heading out it started raining. But I’m stubborn so I kept going. It kept raining harder and harder and I rode for an hour and a half before I found somewhere to stop. By that time I was soaked and just got a cabin for the night so I could dry out all of my stuff. A few hours later the couple from Switzerland showed up and they set up their tent. We didn’t really say much, I felt stupid for being in a cabin when they set up their tent, I don’t know why.

The weather changes quickly so it was a really nice out in the morning. There were a few big hills after Charleston, where I stayed for the night. After all of those climbs, there was a hill going down to the coast. There were a lot of really nice views, it reminded me of Big Sur in California. I stopped at the Pancake flats and met up with the Swiss couple and went on a walk around there, it was pretty cool, check out pictures on Facebook. The rest of the day I spent riding along the coast and ended up in Greymouth camped outside of a hostel. I went to get groceries and there were the Swiss couple again but I don’t think I’ll see them again since they’re taking tomorrow off. It’s nice to be inside using the internet but there’s this two French girls, one of which only talks in shouts and it makes me jump every time she says anything.

And that’s the last few days, I don’t get much time on the internet so I just type really fast, sorry if some things don’t make sense.

Day 30 - 41

I stayed in National Park Village from Tuesday to Friday and left Saturday morning. The weather was horrible all week. I tried to go out Friday morning to do some walks around the mountains but it was just too cold. It went from 20 Celsius to 10 and raining a half hour after I left the hostel. So, when the weather was nice on Saturday I just decided to leave and get out of the mountains.

A few hours after I left the weather was quickly changing for the worst so I stopped in Okahune. It was a nice ski resort type town with a lot of people walking around in their full skiing attire while holding their skis and talking about skiing. It was a nice town right by the mountains so of course it was best known for its giant carrot statue outside of town, obviously.

The next day was a bit nicer and there were nice views of the mountains all day. I headed for Taihape which is the only town on the way to Bulls that has a grocery store and a decent hostel. The hostel was up on the side of a steep hill so it was a bit of a rough climb getting my bike up there but it had a nice view and it was nice to be sleeping inside after sleeping in my tent the last week in the cold rain.

I headed to Bulls which was about 80 km away. Not a long way off, but the longest I'd ridden in a while, I've been slacking as far as distance goes lately. It was mostly downhill since I was halfway to the coast from the mountains. I was hoping it would be a nice relaxing day of riding. The weather was fairly nice in the morning, it was a little overcast, but still fairly warm. There was little wind and there were not many hills to climb. Then about 15km north of Bulls it just started pouring rain and the wind picked up and was hitting me head on. I was still out in the country and there was nothing to hide behind so I just figured I'd ride it out until I got to Bulls. The rain didn't let up and at one point it started to hail a little. It was pretty horrible and I was completely soaked. Luckily I got a cheap cabin with a heater in it and spent the rest of the day drying out my clothes.

From Bulls to Wellington is pretty much flat so I didn't have any troubles there, but the weather is still pretty bad. I was hoping to do 90 km but ended up doing 60 and ended up in Levin because it started raining AGAIN. I didn't want to have to dry out all of my clothes again so I just stopped for the day. I was able to trade in the books I had on me for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Gulliver's Travels so I can keep myself entertained despite the rain.

Because of the heavy traffic and lack of shoulder around Wellington, I decided to take a train into town. The train leaves from Paraparaumu which is 50km away from Levin. I was just outside of Paraparaumu when my bike started acting up again. My gears are getting worn down and the chain has been doing some funny things, like shifting randomly. This happens a lot and I just fix it by pedaling backwards until the chain moves back into place. This particular time, however, the chain didn't go back into place and when I looked down to see why, it was because the rear derailleur had completely disintegrated. I stopped and went back to look for pieces that might have fallen off (there were many) and see if I could fix it. It soon became clear that I did not know anything about derailleurs or how to fix them and I just had a handful of pieces and didn't know if that was all of them or not. I was going to try and hitch a ride to town but I was in a construction zone and there was no place that someone could pull over (I was riding behind the orange cones in the gravel). So I just kind of stood there thinking of what to do when a construction worker came up and asked if I needed a ride. So we shoved the busted up bike into the back of his truck and headed to town. I have a pretty good sense of direction when I am on my bike and pay attention. However, he dropped me off at the mall parking lot and I realized I wasn't paying attention to where I was and it was like being blindfolded and spun around. The sun was behind the clouds and I didn't know which direction I was going in. So I just started pushing my bike around town looking for a place to camp or a bike shop. After several hours and many wrong directions from random people, I ended up at a motor camp and decided what to do.

I was contemplating if I should just scrap the bike and start taking the bus but I don't think I could afford that. I took it to the bike shop the next day to see if they could just fix the part or find a used part or something. The rear derailleur is a pretty expensive piece and had the potential to throw me way off budget for the rest of my trip. I brought in the broken down, rusted up bike and a handful of pieces and asked if it could be fixed. I ended up getting the bike back that day with a new derailleur and they gave me a good price after I told them I've been on the road for the last three and a half months. I was relieved and even more relieved that nothing else on the bike was broken. When the derailleur went out, the chain went into the spokes and made a horrible noise and thought it might have broken a few spokes or something.

Ahh, anyways, with all of that fixed, I took the train the next day into Wellington. It is at the very bottom of the north island and I needed to get a ferry to the south island. I had no idea how long it would take to get a ticket for the ferry or even where the ferry was. I thought I would have to spend the next few nights in Wellington and book a ticket for the ferry. However, I got off of the train and there was the dock for the ferry right there. I got off the train at noon and had a ticket for the one o'clock ferry a few minutes later. The ferry ride was pretty awesome. It rode right through the Malborough Sounds. However, it was fairly cloudy and extremely windy up on deck. I got into Picton that night and wandered around, enjoying the scenery.

The next day was beautiful. It was sunny and warm and clear skies so I could see the Sounds a lot better. I was planning on going south along the east coast but started biking along the coast of the Sounds going northwest and ended up at a campground on the beach. I spent the rest of the day reading and enjoying the nice weather.

The weather was supposed to be nice again, but when I woke up it was cold and cloudy. So right now I'm in Havelock, deciding what to do. It's fairly cold here on the south island and it probably won't be warm for a while. I'm probably going to try and make it to Nelson in the next day or so and pick up some warmer clothes. After that, I don't know yet, I am running low on money which limits my options. I'm thinking of cutting my trip short by a few weeks, but I'm going to wait and see if the weather changes. It's been cold and wet for the last few weeks and it's starting to get a little old.