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.

90 freaking kilometres!

We have doubled our best day and it was not easy! We set off at 9am and it took us 1.5hr to get 31km to a lookout. We did really good timing in the morning.

When we got to Lyell, it got a bit harder from there. But it was a push for me from Inagahua. I slowed right down for the last 26km, where we joined back on the highway.

From there I got slower and slower. I added music in one ear and skittles. It worked for 10km but the last 15km was horrid. I ended up in tears lying on the side of the road telling Rowan to carry me the rest of the way. From then on Rowan stayed close behind me and we made it into Reefton at 6.30pm exhausted.

Our bike lights last 5 hours, we charged them up again while on a less busy road. We also turned our headlights on. Once the sun went behind the mountains

In the dark we quickly pitched our tent, I did the inner part while Rowan cooked dinner. After spaghetti I had a hot shower. The first hot shower since Tapawera. I stretched my legs, washed up and went to bed. What a day!

Hopefully tomorrow I can still walk lol

Today is Rowan’s Birthday 37! We are not doing anything for it because we are getting somewhere nice and joining our birthdays together. We thought possibly Reefton but it is Easter Weekend, of course everything is booked out. We will aim for something when we hit Hokitika.

The weather is gross, wet foggy and miserable. We wait to see if it clears and when it doesn’t decide we need to stay. Our next part is on roads and we both prefer our safety over getting more miles done.

At 2pm it started to clear up. We headed in to the centre for some lunch and to post a package to ourselves. Our good deed for the day; I found a fork with someone’s phone number on it. I texted the number and got their address to post it. Unfortunately it couldn’t fit in a normal envelope so it ended up being in a bag that is 5x more valuable than the fork itself. But I am sure they will appreciate it.

After our packages we couldn’t make our minds up on food it had rained again since we came out. The food truck bakery was out of food so we headed to the tearooms. It was a very sad pie and we won’t eat there again. Bad choice.

When we got back, we were warm from cycling and the weather was clear again so we took the opportunity to skinny dip in the Buller.

While in town we got some ingredients for Rowan to make burgers. Yes, I still make him cook on his birthday, haha. The burgers were much better than lunch. We had an early dinner and night. Tomorrow we are seeing how far we can push ourselves, we need the energy.

Today we are taking a rest. My muscles are thanking me for it. I got quite a sore shoulder on my right side. I believe from extending it and pushing it up hill yesterday. I am making sure we stretch in the evening which really seems to help the tired muscles. A naughty Weka kept jumping up and pulling out my tassels for fun. One side looks a lot sadder than the other.

We headed into town for a little op shop and why not bike the kilometre or so in. I found a scarf that will work as a sarong. I have been jealous of Rowan’s. I am not worried about flashing people if they really want to look they should take a photo. But there has been a few times you feel like a bunch of seedy men are watching in anticipation. I am on the look out for a new merino long-sleeved top. My one is more holey than righteous as Nana would say.

I wanted to visit the museum. Which is well worth the time to visit. There is lots to see and I was happy to give a donation to help maintain the items and the buildings. We normally just pass through Murchison, so it was nice seeing the history. We headed back to the campground to have lunch and relax for the rest of the day.

Lake Rotoroa is beautiful. However I won’t miss the sandflies. I got up pre dawn and it wasn’t too cold. But then it got colder, I hate it when that happens. Rowan and I both had a crap sleep. I let him sleep a bit longer. We had so many stags calling in the night and all sorts of other wildlife keeping us up. Then the bloody German couple that arrived around 7pm decided at 12.15am to putch their tent. So annoying.

Today we have a 3.4km up and up it was. We walked 98% of it. Once we got to the top we knew it would be a fair day. After a quick snack we headed downhill.

We crossed a few ford’s and got wet feet. It was quite cold going down, we needed a stop in the sunshine to thaw out. Trending down for the next 20km. It was a rather fun day. The last 5km of the day was fairly flat along the main highway to Murchison.

Unfortunately my map doesn’t work so we’ll offline but it gives you the gist of it. We went past the campground and straight into town. I got an incecream and some fries! Then we shopped at the 4square for dinner. Before turning around and heading back to the Riverside campground. We set up and jumped into the river for a swim. I got properly wet and washed my hair. We ended up in the river for a good 10min. It was refreshingly cold.

Woke up and realised what I thought was light showers in the night is actually the tree above us covering everything in sap. It is every where and quite sticky. Today we talked about getting to Murchison but our bodies are not up for the task. To the lake we go. It wasn’t too bad on the main highway 6, I was happy to get off it. The day had a very gradual up and a few bigger ups. My legs did not work very well. It took us 3 hours to get to the lake.

It was only 18km but my legs sure felt every metre. We got there nice and early and we set up the tent. Rowan made lunch with his net on. The sandflies are bad here.

Rowan attached our tail lights onto our helmets for better visibility. My front brake was a little off centre so it was rubbing so he fixed that too. We gave the chains a clean and some new oil. After all that we went for a swim. It was cold but not too cold. Quite pleasant once your body adapts. There were Tuna (eels) coming out to say hi. Rowan found a fresh water mussel/pipi

As the day comes to a close the water on the lake is calming. Maybe I can get some good photos in the morning.

Maps are not accurate when I am out of signal. But it gives you a rough idea

Wow, what a day! Well we didn’t realise the clocks changed. We knew it was coming soon. The other two tour bikers were slow moving too. We said our goodbyes on the track and to Catherine & Marley. We did not see them again lol.

Today we went up, up and up. 33km of up. More up than I wanted. Please no more up until I get strong legs. It was a big push and it took us forever. I was so exhausted when we were 2km from the top I just couldn’t do it. I just walked. I cried. I was way past it. Rowan actually set me off, he laughed at me. He keeps telling me he wasn’t laughing at me but I think he lies. He said he is laughing about how miserable I look but how stubborn I am to keep going.

When we got to the downhill it wasnt all down. Which made me mad. On the plus side Rowan had to walk a fair chunk too, so I dont feel teribble. We got there in the end. There is a spot Rowan and I know along the highway that you can camp. So we want to get there. Turns out the spot we are thinking of is past the turn off to Lake Rotoroa so we make it to Kawitiri instead. 45.2km!

Properly worn out now. It is nearly 5pm. A quick pitch, dinner, cold river swim and straight into bed.