Westport to Punakaiki and then to Hokitika

From Westport, we were told, it was an "easy 60 km" to Punakaiki. Because it was so easy, they suggested we take an alternate route that added 14 km and "a bit" of climbing, but took us on a quiet country road instead of busy route 6. We did, and we didn't regret it. Several young wekas crossed our path and we got a much better look at some pukekos (plus, I've gotten Camera+, an app that allows me to crop and enhance some of my overly zoomed photos).

But the ride to Punakaiki was not "easy." There were a couple of good stiff climbs, and I saw temps as high as 86 (F).  Finally, we had a lovely fast descent down to the ocean (now we're on the Tasman Sea, along the west coast). Then another, not as steep, ascent to a lookout with a good view of what we'd just climbed.

And we're really in rata country now. The hills have great patches of red blossoms.

Just short of the Punakaiki Resort, we came across this threatening looking cliff overhanging the road.

The resort was quite lovely, and we settled in for a nice shower and a nap. A short walk along the beach before dinner gave us our first look at the unusual pancake rock formations (more about those later).

The next day was a rest day, which had several advantages. First, it allowed the other two bike groups staying at the hotel (Backroads and Pacific Cycle Tours) to get ahead of us. Second, it was raining, and who wants to cycle in the rain? So we went for a walk in the rainforest instead. That was truly magical. Although it continued to rain on and off all day, the dense foliage pretty much protected us from getting very wet.

At every turn there was another marvel. This tree that had eaten a boulder.

And this one that had run into another tree (now just a stump) and just veered off in another direction.

Some very tall trees (not quite redwood height, but very tall).

And this one that supported an entire ecosystem along its tortuous length.

Finally, after about an hour and half of walking, which included a pretty good climb over the ridge, we were out of the Punakaiki River valley and into the Pororari River valley. Waterfalls abounded on the cliffs, due to the rain, and the river ran backwards near the coast because of the incoming tide.

After another hour of walking we were back to the road, only 1 or 2 km north of where we started. We'd timed it so that we would be at the Pancake Rocks just about at high tide. These rocks, made of successive layers of limestone, get their name from their appearance, although exactly how they got that appearance is apparently not so clear.

The big attraction, though, is that the many fissures and holes carved out by the water provide some spectacular entertainment as the wind and the tide push large waves through the holes, resulting in fountains of water and loud whooshes of sound.  I tried to get the next 4 pictures side by side, but Blogsy defeated me. At any rate, they're in the right order, a minor triumph.

After the walk and the Pancake Rocks, we were fairly tired and definitely damp, so we repaired to our room and recouped for a bit. But we were not yet done. We took our headlights and walked back to a roadside cave we'd spotted and did a little spelunking.

A bit hard to photograph inside, but with the help of two bike headlights and the flash (plus another very cool app, AutoStitch), we did get a few good photos.

All in all, a delightful day, despite the rain.

This morning, on the other hand, dawned much colder (in the 50's) and raining hard. Plus the wind was howling along, fortunately from the north. After breakfast and some consultation, we bundled up in everything waterproof we had with and headed off into the gale. It was quite a ride. We sailed along at 30 kph (about 18 mph) for a bit, but had a few hills to contend with and the traffic was awful. For some reason, the truckers gave us no quarter at all today, and with the wind from them and the weather, it got pretty tricky staying on the road at times. At one point, we rounded a gully (gushing waterfall to the left, steep drop to the right), crossed a one-lane bridge in a terrific crosswind, and then finished on an uphill with the wind howling in our faces. David and I both came to an abrupt stop, no longer able to make headway at all. Even off the bikes and pushing it was hard to go forward. Finally, we got up around the bend and pulled over just in time for the rain to come bucketing down. Oy. Needless to say, we took no pictures and just road as quickly as we could to Greymouth (coffee) and then on to Hokitika. We're holed up here now with the storm howling outside. Let's just hope it lets up a bit by tomorrow. 

Down the Buller Gorge

After the exertions of the ride into St. Arnaud, we were delighted to hear that the next two days were going to be essentially downhill along the Buller River, through the Buller Gorge. 

 

We started the day with a van trip down to Lake Rotoiti which is part of a national forest and has a number of bush walks with informational signs about endangered plants and animals in the area. The lake is quite large and, because it was windy, quite rough. We were happy that the bush walk was sheltered by vegetation.

Both on the north and south islands, we've been occasionally seeing what appear to be black swans. When we asked at the Mt. Bruce Bird Sanctuary, they denied knowing about any swans in New Zealand, but here's proof. Along with the swan (who was uncooperatively burying her beak in her back to stay out of the wind), there were two plovers, which we've also been seeing frequently. Our WhatBirdNZ app says spur winged plovers, but it is far from comprehensive, and that is the only plover choice, so don't count on it.

As we got out on the road, the clouds cleared up, the drizzle stopped, and it became a gloriously sunny day of cycling through alpine scenery. One of the interesting trees is this white blossomed one, called, I think, a kanuka. 

And there were several sightings of pukekos, with their funny flicking white-undersided tails. They have a raucous screechy call.

The gorge provided wonderful scenery, and of course, the downhill we were enjoying so much.

Because it's been raining on and off (but usually while we're not riding!), the roadside waterfalls are full and beautiful. If it were hotter, they appear to provide a cooling respite.

At one point, as we were passing through a heavily forested area, the sound of the wetas, the New Zealand equivalent of a cicada, was practically deafening. Finally, one presented itself walking across the road. It's hard to provide a useful scale, but the road surface consists of a somewhat coarser gravel macadem than we are used to. This thing was probably about 3/4 as long as my thumb.

From time to time, there is a one-lane bridge with arrows indicating which traffic has the right of way. These aren't too scary because you can see the other side. But here, where the road had to be cut into the face of the cliff and the overhang continues around the corner, would have been a lot scarier if we hadn't had a car to follow. There were lights at either end, and I think in this case even a button for cyclists to push, but it was nice to have a car running interference for us.

We had been asked to make our coffee stop short and have a rolling regroup for lunch because they wanted to take us down to Cape Foulwind at the end of thw day to see the seals and wekas (flightless birds). There was only one place to stop for lunch, Berlins Cafe & Bar, and they would open a tab there for us to use, with the sweep (Alex was the sweep of the day) paying up at the end. Well, we knew we were in trouble when we saw Owen driving the van back along the route as we cycled between the coffee and lunch spots. Sure enough, when we got to Berlins, it was closed, permanently. Keith and Mary had talked to Owen, who had said to continue riding and he would arrange something.

So we did, and he did. A filling, if somewhat below their normal standards, picnic of meat (or vegetarian) pies, sandwiches, chips (what we call french fries), and desserts appeared at a very scenic spot marred only by an abundance of black flies.

The trip to Cape Foulwind was great. Wekas abound, and they're not too shy.  one walked up to my outstretched hand very cooperatively.

The seals were a bit far away and very well camouflaged on the rocks, but fun to watch. There were a number of quite young ones hopping from rock to rock (no good pictures of them).

The coastline is also pretty spectacular along there. Captain Cook named it Cape Foulwind for obvious reasons.

Dinner at The Town House, supposedly the best restaurant on the west coast. Excellent, but extremely s l o o o w. There was a second group there, all women from the same family, and there were no soft surfaces anywhere, so the noise was deafening.

Motueka to St. Arnaud in a Headwind

Today we were shuttled from Nelson (where we had been shuttled to after Okiwi Bay) to Motueka, the place where I had left my passport 3 days earlier -- did I mention that I did get it back?). This cut out the section of route 60 (and 6) that David and I had done already twice. We started immediately on a much quieter road and that pattern continued all day, barring about 2 km of route 6 that we hit in the middle of the day. It was quite idyllic cycling. Few cars, lots of interesting sights, beautiful scenery.

Strangest animal sighting of the day was a venison farm with several all-white deer.

One road, just after our coffee stop at a sort of local arts market, was beautifully tree-lined. A welcome sight, although it was by no means hot. It was, however, quite windy, pretty much always a headwind.

We were following a number of streams, so we were steadily climbing, but it was quite gentle and, despite the wind, hot terribly hard work for the first part of the day.

David was happy because we saw a number of llamas, although almost never in with the sheep as we so often see them at home. This one seemed to have a bit of a palsy, or something. He just stood in the stream and shook his head gently side to side.

We even saw some beer marinated lamb on the hoof....

And a bull (or actually half a bull) cleverly carved out of a stump.

Soon after this, the pictures became few and far between because the climbing started in earnest, and the wind got stronger. Despite the twistiness of the road, it seemed always to be a headwind, even when at one point we rounded a bend and turned right, almost perfectly doubling back on ourselves. STILL a headwind. That's just not fair.  Even the downhills became a bit of a chore with so much wind. 

Owen was waiting at the top of the first real climb, which was shorter and to a lower elevation then the subsequent one, but much steeper. It was sorely tempting to climb into the van, but how could we forego the descent we had worked so hard to achieve? As we descended, it began to spit rain, and the wind picked up even more.  Then it was back up, much more gently but still definitely a workout. And the wind just kept getting stronger. At last, when we thought we just couldn't stand any more, we got to the turn towards St. Arnaud, our destination and the promise of a quick 5 km descent into town.

Strange non-animal sighting of the day was a series of rocks with a curious  red covering. It had a slightly velvety feel (but very low pile), so it might have been lichen or something similar.

Total for the day: 101.4 km and 1103 m of climbing.  The good news: it's about 60 km and pretty much all downhill tomorrow.

Picton to Okiwi Bay

Speed blogging. Very limited Internet connection, and our van is about to shuttle us to Motueka to start the riding for the day.  Yesterday, we rode from Pecton to Okiwi Bay.

Thrill of the day: a cormorant rookery in a tree. At least a dozen or more totally unconcerned about the gaggle of humans staring at them. The Kiwis call them shags. And, yes, we saw a couple of shags shagging (no, I didn't photograph it).

Mystery of the day: what were a bunch of starfish doing smashed all over the road at 314 m elevation?

Scenery of the day: gorgeous coastline along Queen Charlotte Sound.

End of the day: Okiwi Bay. A long hard climb, followed by a lovely descent marred only by numerous potholes and road slips. And a sudden steep hill right at the end. This is a view of the bay from just past the summit on the main hill.

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.