Tour Aotearoa 2016 team Brayne/Snooks reunited at last. After 35 days cycling and 2500km for Mark and Jutta, and 25 days/2600km or so for the girls.
YAY! as the girls would say.
They made it, and we had a magical reunion moment yesterday, Friday, 51km out of Wanaka back along the road to the Haast Pass almost exactly where Daisy broke down last Sunday.
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Rory Peck
As we approach – amazingly – the end segment of our Tandem Tour of Aotearoa/New Zealand, with some 2400km behind us from Cape Reinga and only 400+ to go to Bluff in the south, some words on why Jutta and I are raising money for the Rory Peck Trust.
And with those words an encouragement to readers to dip into their pockets to sponsor us, if not already done, as we make the final push towards the 3000km mark (though we will end up a few km short of that figure) and its sister £3000 target (where we don’t at all want to end up short.) Continue reading
Friendly TA riders stopping to commiserate briefly before they barrel ahead towards Wanaka.
Again, the best-laid plans. We had hoped to cycle triumphantly into Wanaka today, scene of the fabulous Winter Wedding of Katie Brayne and Carmela Snooks in August 2014, but Daisy had other ideas.
Bruce Bay, NZ West Coast, on our way south towards Haast. One amazing beach.
As Katie Brayne and Carmela Snooks rapidly approach us from the North, Jutta and I now realise that once we reach Wanaka in just two days’ time (big and steep 1500-foot climb today looming over the Haast Pass), we’ll be just 300 km away from our final destination in Bluff.
Given how we’re now able to cover distances, we could do it in three days – so with well over 2000km already behind us from Cape Reinga over the month since we set out, we’re beginning to feel as if we’re nearly there.
HOWEVER, a plan, and public suggestion to the girls.
How’s about we hole up in Wanaka where yous two (LOVE the way the Kiwis say yous with an S when they mean you in the plural) can catch us up, and we all process the final stretch down to Bluff in a magnificent convoy?
In the meantime, we’ve had two wonderful days where the three of us (that’s Mark, Jutta and Daisy) have been spinning along from Fox Glacier to Franz Josef and on, on, on down the NZ West Coast here to Haast last night (123 km in one day) with gentle tail winds and mostly fabulously cycle-friendly weather.
As ever, pictures tell the story, with captions to add the detail. And to cycling friends who’ve been asking about Daisy’s configuration, a couple of images included which show how she functions in a bit more detail.
Incredible 206km cycling from Greymouth to Franz Josef Glacier in two days, and the clouds have just lifted.
Eighty km first on Tuesday along the most amazing bike trail (West Coast Wilderness Trail) we’ve ever encountered, even on a tandem, 
And then a stonking 136km yesterday from Hokitika to Franz Josef Glacier…
Yes, look closely at the clouds, as well as the rich blue glacial meltwaters, and they really do reveal NZ Southern Alps mountain tops.
…arriving in the dark to find that we’d booked the same-named Sir Cedrics backpacker hostel in Fox Glacier 25km further on.
Thanks to friendly manager, however, roused from his TV watching after reception shut at eight, and a late cancellation, we were found a room, and are now ready to sally forth across a few more passes (what’s a few hundred feet climb between partners?) to a re-arranged booking in Fox.
As ever, let the pix speak for themselves. Click on individual thumbnails below to see them in full glory…. WHAT a tour.
Our first attempt at holding up a Rory Peck Trust logo for our fundraising, now gone somewhat silent after a fabulous first rush of donations getting us just over £1500. Still almost as much to go, and when the sun comes out again, so will the logo.
Day one of Week Five of our tandem tour of New Zealand has brought us from Blackball right onto the West Coast, and the rain. Bearing in mind that this edge of NZ gets up to 18 METRES of rain a year in parts, it’s perhaps not surprising that we’ve finally had a soaking.
And now, the goats. Read here first, perhaps, then the caption to the picture below. Says it all.
Don’t trust what you read in the media. Says this former journalist. BBC and many others are reporting a herd of marauding wild goats terrorising the NZ West Coast settlement of Blackball. See stock picture above – NOT of the goats in question. Except that we spent two nights in Blackball, and not a sign of terrorising ruminants, except for one docile billygoat tethered on the plot opposite. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story – which this one would be if true.
With a further 80km under our belts, Monday’s ride from Blackball to Kumara was a fabulous day’s cycling. Jutta’s sore but now-nursed tendon held out brilliantly, thanks in part to much shorter gradients and a transition from hills to flatlish coastal cycle paths.
Daisy bagged up and ready to foray into the rain.
Into the rain.
Can’t be sure whether this tree alongside the trail is indigenous or a 19th century import. Either way, it ain’t giving up easily.
Today, after a rest and dry-out at the utterly fabulous Theatre Royal Hotel in Kumara, we’re beetling forward along the off-road Wilderness Trail to Hokitika on the coast, where an overnight awaits with a further Warmshowers cycling colleague.
Daisy at the end of the breakwater in Greymouth. The river is named after a 19th century British imperial administrator, not the weather. Though that would be just as apposite. Note the low-slung cloud.
The low-slung cloud came right in on us as we finally approached Kumara around eight in the evening, as the heavens opened on the path through swamp and jungle. Magnificent, and magnificently wet.
Cycling through the swap forest from Greymouth to Kumara, towards approaching deluge, on New Zealand’s best new cycle track, the Wilderness Trail. Magic.
Goretex is rubbish! At least for this one wet cyclist. Mark’s new £250 jacket from the Kathmandu sports outlet dramatically failed to keep out the rain, so have had to buy yet another new one, at same huge price, just to stay vaguely dry. Kathmandu are a lovely bunch, so am hopeful for a refund…
Going back to Palmerston North on North Island, where a new Goretex jacket seemed such a find and a relief. The delightful store manager Glenn, in picture, helped with the choice, and will be as gutted as I am that it didn’t do the business,
Resting the sore Hamstring tendon, with Rory Peck Trust posters ready for fund-raising action in the coming days.
Time again for Jutta’s view.
Four weeks into our tour and one week on New Zealand’s South Island, it’s a good misty day, with my right calf and tendon strained, to take a day’s rest, put my leg up and put some reflections down.
Luckily, my leg has timed this perfectly, keeping us for another night just short of Greymouth at the delightful Formerly The Hilton Hotel in Blackball (they had to add the “Formerly” to their name when Hilton International took offence), with exquisite cuisine.
Phil and Cynthia, our lovely Blackball Hilton hosts.
I am beginning to appreciate Mark’s enthusiasm for cycling – the sandflies don’t keep up! Nor do bumble bees who absolutely love our blue tops and blue barrel bag.
Of course, from my tandem back-view, New Zealand presents itself differently to Mark’s 180 degree full frontal panorama of endless roads stretching or winding along, up and downhill.
I look either left or right, and when I get tired of it, and especially puffing uphill, I just look down on eternal tarmac of varying quality. So, at times New Zealand feels like an open air gym with gloriously fresh air.
Occasionally, Mark ducks to share his dress circle view. Mostly, I trust blindly, trust being the most important quality for a tandem back rider. (With so many of our psychotherapy clients having trust and control issues, tandem back seat riding would make the perfect Cognitive Behavioural therapy intervention!)
Although we’re taking the easy options (but what’s easy in hilly NZ?), we have struggled up and down various gravelled off-road trails.
I do sometimes wonder why on earth we let ourselves be tempted into it, especially when the hilltop is crowned by an electricity pylon rather than the expected stunning view promised by our maps over lakes and forests.
In the end, we did get rewarded by the most beautiful and extended downhill run through indigenous forest and a gorgeous, long, quiet traffic-free valley.
It’s always a gamble, whether to take the quiet, hillier and windier routes versus the busy, noisy main roads. New Zealand’s long-distance traffic happens on ordinary two-lane highways rather than dual-carriageways, let alone motorways.
Hence, all lorries thunder past us on main roads. At times the drivers have a somewhat optimistic estimation of cyclists’ capacity for steadiness and need for space. (Mark holds the bike amazingly steady, even in side winds and after the blasts of wind that follows passing lorries). On the whole, though, our tandem invites a lot of good-will and cheering on by passing cars.
South Island farm animals and deer are, by the way, just as puzzled by us on the tandem as their North Island comrades, and obviously consider this two-headed creature to be a freak of nature that curiously nevertheless moves ahead efficiently.
To me South Island is much prettier and more varied than the North, and more reminiscent of Bavarian or Austrian countryside.
The West of the North Island that we traversed seemed mostly to be one huge and somewhat monotonous farm with solitary houses on top of hills surrounded by bare grass. I suppose it facilitates overlooking their land.
New or well-kept houses have beautifully-tended gardens with exotic flowers and a profusion of bushes and trees; such a relief to the eye.
Huge rainwater containers on their grounds provide their water. In towns, road signs as we cycle in remind everyone to use municipal water supplies responsibly.
South Island, especially the West, has plenty of water. Sadly, our photographs can’t convey the lovely gurgling of frequent streams and the beautifully eloquent and pure sound of Tuis (native birds) that chat away noisily with each other above our heads.
On both islands you often see fire warnings, for instance a huge coloured disc with a hand showing the level of fire danger. Forest and land clearing fires are an issue here – as we witnessed yesterday cycling into Blackball.
Formerly the Blackball Hilton
Profusions of NZ flowers
The bar and restaurant in the Formerly Blackball Hilton, with Mark as usual on the laptop.
So, with my leg well-iced, massaged, Arnica-creamed and with a good dose of Nurofen inside me, we should be back on course tomorrow towards Hokitika via Greymouth.
