Back to Nelson

No time to blog yesterday; we got in quite late after an eventful day. We started with the plan of taking the 12:15 bus shuttle back to the top of Takaka hill (the earlier shuttle left at 6:45, don't even think about it). So we rode away from Takaka to take our first look at the beach beyond our hotel. Well, we needn't have ridden all the way to Collingwood to see the Golden Bay; it was right out our back door.

And a penguin nesting zone only a km away as well. Had we only known, we might have dragged our sorry behinds out after dark to see if we could spot any. The ones that nest here are blue penguins, the smallest penguin species, and apparently sightings are quite rare. Every year, a number of them are killed by cars as they cross the road to nest in the limestone cliffs.

Only another couple of km farther, and there was the Pohara harbor. It's a working harbor, with mussel boats coming in and out constantly. An interesting side attraction was an espresso bar set up in one of Jacques Cousteau's old boats. We went down to look at it, but not to have coffee (still full from breakfast) and chatted with the owner for a bit. When we told him we planned to take the bus shuttle up to the top of Takaka hill he said, "You know, you can also go around the hill by taking the Sea Shuttle. But the first one's just left." Now I know what the cleaning woman from our hotel was talking about when I told her we were going to cheat by taking the shuttle. She asked if we were taking the early or late sea shuttle, and I thought she just meant the shuttle. Anyway, that would have been the ideal shuttle to take, as it would have gotten us around Takaka hill early enough for a leisurely ride back to Nelson. 

Instead, we rode into Takaka as planned to be well early for the bus shuttle (to make sure the bikes would get on), and when we talked to the iSite lady and asked specifically about the sea shuttle, she gave us the information (she hadn't mentioned it the day before when we were getting information about the bus shuttle). It was quite a lot more expensive, but David would not have to fold his bike, and we would get to see the coastline. An easy choice. So, we headed back again past our hotel to the Pohara harbor and beyond (the sea shuttle didn't leave until 1:15, getting to Kaiteriteri at 4:45). We visited the Abel Tasman memorial and got a great view of that part of the bay and also of the first of a reported 60 landslides that had closed the road to Abel Tasman National Park the week before. We really missed quite a scorcher of a rainstorm, it seems. In fact, our hotel, like all properties in Pohara, catches all of its drinking and washing water from the roof in three 30,000 liter barrels. They had filled up and overflowed in the rainstorm. They said they'd had 60 cm of rain within a day or so! Someone else told us that a dam had broken and this had contributed tremendously to the damage. In any case, it's anyone's guess when they'll be able to open the road again. It could take years. A number of vehicles were trapped in the park by the slides, and the people who run the usual sea shuttle were pressed into service to help ferry them out. The first of two boats we took was the new route, from Pohara to Totaranui, and they've been quite busy ferrying people and vehicles (on a barge towed behind on some runs) around the slides. 

One other interesting sighting was this boat, which the sea shuttle said was called something like a "walking boat." It is a New Zealand invention, or so he says, and is designed to drive right up on land. the wheels swing up out of the water while it's being a boat, then lower down and they use the outboard until the motor can gain enough traction.

The regular sea shuttle goes from Totaranui to Kaiteriteri (and yet another on to Nelson, but the iSite lady didn't tell us that either). Because the coastline is so rugged along there, with isolated little beaches all along that are accessible only by boat, they have a regular business of taking day-trippers or people wanting to camp longer on these beaches on and off the beaches and back to civilization.

The company owns, builds, and runs its own boats, and they are local so they really know the requirements. Although we got on at a regular dock in the Pohara harbor, most stops simply involve dropping a drag anchor, running up onto the beach, and extending a long articulated ramp onto the sand. People book in advance and know when to expect their return, so they just gather on the beach and walk up the gangplank when it is extended. Then they winch in the archor, effectively pulling themselves off the beach, and we're on the way.

At Totaranui, they carried the bikes off one boat and onto the other, while we walked across the sand and reboarded.

Torrent Bay was a bit of an exception. Here, the water is so shallow that one can walk out to the nearby island at low tide, but the tide comes in at the rate of 1 cm a minute! That's 60 cm (about 24 inches) an hour! The captain says it's really rather hairy picking people up during flood tide. We were somewhere in between, and they simply put the ramp down into the shallow water and expected people to wade out to it. Some people looked a bit surprised at how wet they had to get to get out of there. I suppose they had been delivered onto dry sand when they came. But at least the "conductor" also waded into the water to greet them (he's the one on the far right). Now we understood why none of the crew wears shoes.

Finally, a little earlier than the 4:45 expected arrival time, we were delivered onto the beach at Kaiteriteri. By now, the tide was pretty well out, and it was a bit of a push up the beach with the panniers weighing down the bikes. One kind lady jumped up and helped me pull up to firmer ground. We didn't know much about the layout of the town, but figured we needed to go south (i.e., with the water on our left) to get back to Motueka, so we headed that way and found our way onto a series of short steep hills leading where we wanted to go. Only about 5 km or so farther, we were back in familiar territory, coming out on route 60 at a hops farm we recognized from our outbound ride. 

We had told ourselves that because of our very late start, we really couldn't stop again at the T.O.A.D. Hall Cafe (I got the name wrong in the previous blog). However, we both found that we had emptied one of our two water bottles just at that point, so we were forced, forced to stop, have a quick ice cream cone, and refill our bottles.

Back onto the bikes, with nearly 50 km to go and by now it was approaching 6 p.m.  Although there are a couple of goodish hills to go over and a headwind (sometimes a quartering crosswind, never a tailwind -- satisfied, Jack?) we were making pretty good time when I got a bit hungy. I groped around on my pockets looking for energy dots and had the horrible realization that my wallet and passport, which belonged in my middle pocket, were not there. I had a clear picture of them sitting on the counter while I waited for the cashier to take the money for the ice cream. No doubt they were still there, but the receipt (and our only hope of having their phone number) was also in my wallet. As was our list of hotels and their phone numbers. Fortunately, David had thought to photograph the latter with his iPhone, and so we were able to call James and Richard, our B&B hosts from a few days before and our destination for that day. James called the T.O.A.D Hall Cafe, arranged to have the baggie and its contents couriered to Nelson, and texted us that all was well. Since we're going back to Nelson on the first night of the Pedaltour (tomorrow), it will have time to reach us. Cost of the courier? $10 NZ. Amazing. So, yes, our B&B was a bit pricier than some chain motel, but it was so comforting to know we could call them and ask for help.

We tried to retrace our shortcut between Nelson and route 60 (basically cutting straight through Richmond and Stoke), but (you guessed it), the map was also in the baggie and the return was not as obvious as the way out. So we climbed a few extra hills, overshot our B&B and ended up in downtown Nelson, asked a cop for directions, and made it to our destination at about 8:30. We stopped at the Boat Shed Restaurant again to make a reservation, and they told us they couldn't take any more for the night. Unless we wanted to wait a couple of minutes for Shawn to return and ask him if he'd still let us in. We had an "in" with Shawn from the other night because he is American and recognized our accents (what accents?), so we waited, and sure enough, he told us to come back at 9:15 and he'd find us a table. One more grunt up the steep hill to our B&B (I ran out of gas about 30 m short of the driveway), a quick shower, and we were back on the dot of 9:15. Another great meal and so to bed.

This morning we rode into town, tried about 5 ATMs before we found one that would take our foreign ATM card, and took the shuttle back to Picton. Here we met our group, went for a short spin for those who had rented bikes to get used to them, and had dinner as a group. Nice to be into the phase where we've already paid for most things. Nice group, too. One Brit, 2 Scots (a very nice couple who have done loads of cycle tours, often with their two kids on two tandems), 2 Canadians (only one of the couple riding), 2 Americans from Colorado, one from Hawaii, and us. And our two guides, Alex and Owen. Both of them and all of us of "a certain age" and it seems quite compatible.