Wahoo we are in the Lake District!

Expect lots of photos as I can’t help but take a load of them. We got moving and decided to miss the Blue Pools. We have been there before and although it is beautiful, it is Sunday on a long weekend. We reach Makarora West and continued on another 4km to the cafe.

The cafe was so cosy with a fire going. I really didn’t want to leave. We found our friend the fisherman from last night. Looks like he owns the place. How funny. I had a good amount of food not too much. Rowan had more and regretted it until we got to The Neck.

When we took off again we were racing the weather. A light bit of rain got us but not much. The uphill was easier than I thought it would be and I was happy to see Lake Hawea. Now to get to the township end.

Two blips in the map means two ups. I walked them both. My legs were burning by then. 65km day and I am pooped.

On Friday the weather wasn’t great and with a few hard days ahead it made sense to have a rest day. We got a lot of stuff sorted. I spent a good hour on the bikes cleaning them. Then another hour fidling around and adjusting them. Rowan was sorting rocks he had found. I sent another two post bags of stuff to my dad (sorry dad, thank you). It has made our lives significantly lighter with these bikes. The gear we need to carry is much less and resupply options are more frequent. Rowan posted a box of rocks to our old neighbours as that is where all our rocks are. Thanks Liz & Rick for keeping them safe.

Here we go, let’s take on the Haast! Our plan is to stay at Pleasant flat 45km in. This will give us a fresh day to tackle the worst part of the Haast. We took off making good time. I really enjoyed this ride. It was up and down but nothing too hard. It was a rewarding ride with beautiful views. We had a quick bite at Roaring Billy before taking off again. When we arrived at Pleasant flat for the second part of lunch it was 1pm. I was getting tired but it seemed silly to stop here. We carried on and regretted it once we got to Thunder Creek.

Just past there we started pushing our bikes. The sweat and the unhappiness was pouring out of us. We nearly made it to the top when I joked that an SUV with a speedboat could have picked us up. We got up some more and we had that exact car pull in front of us. Extremely lovely couple. Pauline said, “Put your bikes in the boat, and we will take you to the top.” She told us how she felt bad for us and made John turn around to help us. We were very thankful and tired by then. At the top of the hill they dropped us off and we had a mostly downhill run from there. We got to a spot we could access the Makarora River around 4pm. We thought this is as good of a place as any.

This must have been the coldest swim we have endured so far on this trip. The snow melt made it pretty cold. I was brave, I am getting much better at these cold swims. 🥶

We made a friend with a cute puppy that came to do a little fishing. He said we could stay here, but I am not sure if we were really allowed to camp there.

Tuesday we had a rest day. The weather was pants and our bodies were needing it. It was also my Dad’s birthday. Happy birthday dad!

Wednesday is lovely, we have never travelled down to Jacksons Bay. The weather has always been bad. We decided to take the opportunity to spend the night down that way. There is a lovely bush track called Kokako Cycle/Walk track. 5.5km of scenic riding, the stones were large and made a bumpy ride. We made it to the ocean. We ended up there for an hour. The stones are incredible here.

We set off again, the journey is rather flat which makes for easy riding. I still got a good workout trying to keep up with Rowan. It was a really enjoyable ride the forests are beautiful.

We got to the Arawhata River by 3.30pm and planned to sleep there. We haven’t seen anywhere we are allowed to camp so stuff it we will stay here. We will leave no trace per usual and if someone asks us to move on we will ask them to take us somewhere to camp.

Today (Thursday), I woke to what sounded like rain. No that is not rain that in sandflies, hundreds of them. They swarmed us. Rowan opened the zip to get his clothes and let 20 in. It was a bit of a dance getting ready inside the safe tent. We packed up quickly and headed further down the road towards Lake Ellery.

We didn’t leave until 11am and started making our way back to Haast. The day was holding up but you can see the clouds coming from the south. The ride back was quite pleasant. About halfway, my legs started complaining. We got back to the beach and took a break before going on the forest track back to Haast.

We went straight to the pub for a pint and some food. Feeling better with a good meal in my tummy but now also tired. Back to the same campground and set up the tent. Feeling sleepy now, thinking I may have an early night.

Yes, you may be shocked to see we are in Haast. How we did it? A good tail wind! In all seriousness, we aimed for Fox Glacier today. We woke early and as soon as I got out of the tent, three cheeky Keas surrounded me. It took a bit of chasing in order to be able to go to the loo. Rowan kept an eye on them. They got onto the campervans and did what they love the most. They would distract us and try to sneak up behind us. Very clever parrots. I didn’t get great photos as it was still quite dark, my phone had trouble capturing them. We ate our meseli and packed up as fast as we could. Making sure we wouldn’t be the only target. My sandals did get a chomp and our underwear did go missing. I found in two different spots in the carpark.

We arrived in Franz Joseph around 9.30am. My legs are definitely struggling today, but we don’t have many kilometres to do. There are just 3 big saddles between here and Fox. We will be walking them, haha.

Let’s fuel up! At The Landing Cafe, cooked breakfast and coffee. Yummy, we let it settle a bit before jumping on our bikes. A fairly easy ride up to the saddles. I think today is as much riding as walking.

Pushing our bikes, sweating profusely. Cold in the shade hot in the sun, no wind whatsoever. Near the top, I was going around a steep corner and had to get off my bike to push the rest of the corner. A ute came past and stopped above me closer to Rowan. I thought she was just checking on us. Next thing I can see, she pulls out a bike rack. Lisa said to Rowan, “it looks like your partner is going to leave you. Put your bike in the tray and hers on the rack.” Rowan thanked her and started loading in his bike. I was surprised, she told me to get into the car and that she would take us to Fox.

Lisa is on her way from Ross to pick up her husband, who is cycling stranded and tired in Haast. “He is having a mid-life crisis and trying to prove his body can still work.” They have done quite a few bike packing tours pre children in many countries. Even gone from Alaska to Argentina. We get chatting and she offers to drop us in Haast. “It will make this journey less wasteful if I get to rescue 3 people instead of just my silly husband.” We had planned to take two days to Haast. Also planned an off day at Fox Glacier because of weather. It is an offer we couldn’t refuse. “It’s not exactly a pretty part to cycle anyway.” Lisa keeps telling me.

Not a tailwind, I am afraid. A vehicle got us a two day advantage. We arrived in Haast after an amazing tour. Lisa makes quite the tour guide and knows a lot of people around here. We get dropped off and meet her husband, he can do 250-300km a day

We left Lake Ianthe and the day started hard. No real warm up of the legs straight into up. The 18km ride to Harihari was quite difficult. I just couldn’t get my head off the pain and it was all just too much effort. We stopped at the cafe in Harihari and had a sausage roll. There are these natural hot springs near by but no time to stop and use them 😞. Well we really want to make the most of the weather as we have bad weather on the way.

Off we go, it is rather flat but we are coming up to a saddle soon, which will be the worst up of the day. We get near the top and take a break. We are not long there before we get a car pull in near us. It takes me a minute to realise it is my Aunty Sue and Uncle Paul! How cool, I thought we may cross paths but I wasn’t really sure. We had a roadside hug and chat. It was nice having a quick hello with some friendly faces. Once we set off again I realised I lost my earbud so we turned around to look for it. Then it was a last slog up the hill. We must have looked buggered because a lovely lady stopped to check on us and offered us water.

We got a fun down hill and then slogged the rest of the way to Whataroa. We made it there just after 2pm and thankfully got some food before they shut. A quick break there and now only 18km to go. Much like getting to Harihari this morning it is a constant up most of the way going up river until you finally get over a bridge and then it is mostly down hill. Relieved to be at the campsite after 70km of slog, I was quite happy to be off my bike.

A guy came up to us and strated chatting as we were attempting to pitch. It was nice chatting to him but I was also thinking would you just go away. It has been a long day, it is late and I have a hundred things to do before I can relax. We got our very wet tent out and our sleeping bags on a table to dry out. Rowan’s was worse than mine. The dew hit us hard last night and we slept with the doors open. We won’t do that again. We had a quick naked dip in the lake. There was an angler far away enough he shouldn’t see any details and we wouldn’t scare his fish. Lasts nights lake was too exposed to get in naked. Tonight’s lake was nice and private. We convinced a foreigner to hop into the lake. He didn’t last long but he did get in! There are a bunch of juvenile Keas here. They haven’t come down to camp but we will see in the morning.

Once we got moving for the day, we jumped onto the wilderness trail. It took up through some beautiful bush. As you can see I took heaps of photos!

The trail was very fun, I really enjoyed it. The best thing about it was we cycled right near Lake Mahinapua and we never got see it. We got to see the awesome blue mushrooms! An old sawmills area. We went on a skinny boardwalk that wouldn’t be fun if you fell off into the water. Howeve, once out of the bus, we had a road section. Then a really boring straight 10km road with a slight incline because it was an old railway. We finally got to this cool bridge from 1909. We went down and under to take a good look. There were these signs saying only ….km to go with a picture of all these happy cyclists in a picture frame. Well I don’t get to do that, do I. I get to carry on and skip Ross.

We have a few kilometres on highway 6 before we turn off onto a dirt road. It looks like we will get to the beach but it doesn’t reach. We rejoin the road again and cross a small bridge and then an up to highway 6 again. At the top we can see a long one way bridge that we go down to and a straight up on the otherside. We catch our breath and wait for traffic. We don’t get far up the hill and we push our bikes. We have done about 40km now so the ups are much harder as they day wears on. It is a slog all the way until the last 3km to our campsite.

We did it 59km for the day! Lake Ianthe is lovely, we have been here before and DOC has just put in new bathrooms. We had our usual swim while the foreigners looked at us like we are crazy.

The day began with no rain! What a change. We headed off from our sanctuary and jumped straight onto the wilderness trail. We followed along for a few kilometres and Rowan lost a pedal. He didn’t lose it as such, but we couldn’t get it to stay on. He tries to bike with it not attached and he said it it doable but not great. When we find a good spot to stop, we call the bike shop in Hokitika and make sure they are open and they can replace it. Now that we know they can, we make a quick decision to change our route. Plans had changed, and we wanted to do the full wilderness trail, but it would be impossible with a broken pedal. We don’t want to turn back. When we reach Kumara Junction, we hop on the road and stop following the trail. The new aim is to get to Hokitika.

The downhill near Serpentine Beach is really fun. It feels so close to Hokitika, but that is the problem when you are used to driving it. When we reach the Arahua River, it is time for a break. Rowan can’t help but fossick even though he can’t take any rocks out of the river. I sit and read my book. I end up with some good company

Not far to go now. We head straight to the bike shop. He repairs the pedals and also does the main pedal bearing. We leave our bikes with him and pick up Rowan’s pills. Luckily they were ready. Then we just mooched around, looked at the galleries and had a real fruit yoghurt cone. We picked up the bikes and some butt cream to stop the chub rub. A quick shop at the supermarket before heading out of town to Links Campground. We follow the wilderness trail again and end up having to backtrack 1km to the campground. My maps said 43km done today, but I think it is a bit more.

Welcome to the wet coast! We planned a day off. Our hope was to stay in Hokitika, but Greymouth will have to do. We just didn’t plan 4 days off. The weather has been rather chaotic. Heaps of lightening, thunder and of course rain.

On Monday, we headed back into the town centre, hoping to have a small window of no rain. We went to the warehouse to see what they had for wet weather gear. Apparently, girls don’t get wet, just boys. I guess I will shop in the boys’ area. I found a potential high vis rain coat which would work. On our way to the supermarket the rain began. Rowan put his rain coat on and I put my poncho on. Well by the time I got to the supermarket I was soaked through. The poncho does nothing. I guess that answers that question. We get back to the campground and I put all our clothes in the wash. There is nowhere to hang it out that is undercover so I hang it on chairs and tables. One of the staff tell me to hang it out in the TV room with the heater. Perfect! Luckily it is not busy in there. We end up laying on the couches and reading books. I have just started reading Robin Hobb and I am quite enjoying her book.

Tuesday, rain. The rain was so bad in the morning that we waited till after lunch to head into town. My rear tyre keeps going down, so we will go to a bike shop and replace the inner tube. The whole easter weekend has really been annoying with shops closed. We have more non religious citizens than Christian. They are welcome to celebrate as long as it doesn’t affect people who don’t share your religion. As Rowan keeps saying, I hope your Friday was better than Jesus’s.

The bike shop happily fixed my tyre. We went op shopping while we waited. I ended up back at the warehouse to get that high vis jacket. Rowan also got a vest since his rain coat is black. They are incredibly bright yellow. The drivers in Greymouth actively try to run you off the road. I had one guy move halfway into the wrong lane just because he wanted to. Rowan had a guy look at him, then do a u-turn right in front of him, making him stop. There are cycle lanes here, but still, they don’t want cyclists on the road. On the way back to the bike shop it starts to bucket down. I have a rain coat yay, but Rowan doesn’t. My tyre is all fixed now. It’s time to head back to camp and dry off.

Wednesday, which we planned to cycle as it was only light rain turned out to be heavy rain. Today we didn’t go anywhere. We stayed in the TV room where it was warm. We had some paperwork to do and I really enjoyed reading. We have met a few people here but no other cyclists. I think most stay in Kumara. Denise and Murray saw us struggle in for the evening in Reefton. They recognised us straight away. Lovely couple from Nelson, they are just here on holiday. We got a fresh orange juice but some butthole decided they wanted it so we lost a whole litre of nice juice. It really annoyed Rowan. It is the first thing that has gone missing so we can’t really complain.

Thursday, today I was promised to be dry. But the weather had other plans. We needed to go to the supermarket as we didn’t have enough food for the day without eating into our dry food stocks. We waited out the rain for a hopeful dry patch and headed in. The wind was so strong, I felt like I was barely moving forward. Annoyingly once we got back the weather just kept getting better and better. The weather man said yuck till 5pm. We did think about hoping on our bikes but we are still waiting for Rowan to get a repeat prescription. We really want to get to Ross, which is a bit further than Hokitika. So either way we are waiting.

We headed off from Ikamatua around 9am. We have been debating whether to head to Hokitika or Greymouth. I don’t think my legs will get me all the way to Hokitika. The weather is set to get very wet so I guess we will see. We start off quite fresh there is a hill we both need to walk up. It is pretty smooth sailing most of the way.

When we get halfway, I feel like Greymouth is around the corner. Of course, in car terms it really is around the corner, but biking takes a lot longer than a car. Rowan gets a bit ahead of me and he is like a kid seeing his favourite train. By the time I catch up, he is already playing on it. The train was actually found here hidden by bust in the 70s. They took it apart, fixed it up and removed the rust. Found most of the parts or made new bits where they couldn’t find it and ended up restored back where they found it.

We got into Greymouth about 1pm. Ideally, I would have the energy to carry on, I really didn’t. We headed to the campground just as a small shower of rain came. When we arrived, there was a group of river kayakers that we met in Murchison. It was fairly busy at the campground being Easter Sunday. An easy dinner of pizza that a weka just wanted to eat.

Man it is cold this morning. My bladder nudges me out of the tent. We have a coffee and decide to go out for breakfast. We pack up quickly, my legs are sore from yesterday but not as bad as I thought they may be.

After breakfast, we went to the little market and window shopped in town. There is a trail through forests that is really designed for mountain bikers. We skip that and stick to the road. Ikamatua is only 26km away, a very easy day. There are a few hills but not so bad. I also leave a glove behind and have to turn around. We arrive at the pub/Hotel around 1pm.

We set up our tent, had a shower and hand washed some clothes. The weather is sunny and warm, and I am sure it will all dry pretty fast. We got a jug of beer, 2x cheeseburgers and our accommodation for $57! That is really cheap! Got to love small towns.

We read our books for the afternoon and enjoyed the weather. Then headed back knto the pub for dinner. Dinner wasn’t as good my fish was okay. Rowan had lamb shanks but they were roasted rather than braised properly. But we can’t complain it was a big meal with lots of vegetables.