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.