2011 Winter South Island – Part 2

This is the second, final part of my write-up about my 3 week cycle ride around the top of the South Island.. The first part can be read here, and photos are here.

So after a couple of relaxing days in Westport, I headed up the awesome Lower Buller Gorge, where the road weaves up the valley between steep cliffs and the powerful Buller River. It’s another great ride, and it was much better this time (compared to 2009 when I last rode it), when i was riding through in a torrential west coast downpour!

So a decent length day back up the river to Murchison, then a short day to Kawatiri Junction where I turned north and stopped at a great place called the Hu-ha Bikepackers. I stopped here on my last trip, and I heartily recommend it to anyone passing through. It’s based on a farm, and they sold me some ridiculously tasty sausages and patties made from their own animals. I (again) had the place to myself, but apparently in summer it’s quite busy, and the night before they had 5 people staying (although none of them were on bikes).

It’s a short, sharp climb from the bikepackers to the top of the Hope Saddle, which provides really nice views of the surrounding mountains, including back to the Nelson Lakes ranges around St Arnaud. From here it’s all down-hill from there through the Motueka Valley, which is a great rural valley where they grow hops and sheep, with an amazing backdrop of the mountains of Kahurangi National Park. I stayed in Motueka at the White Elephant Backpackers, where they let you set up a tent in the backyard. This is great as you get the facilites and social aspect of a backpackers with the relative privacy, space and lower cost of a tent.

The next day was the day that I had been most concerned about on the whole trip. This involved riding over Takaka Hill to Golden Bay, a ~800m climb, said to be the only alpine style ride in NZ. Most other climbs in NZ cruise up a valley and maybe only have a few hundred metres of steep climbing at the end. Takaka Hill by comparison climbs steeply straight from sea-level. Luckily this was towards the end of my trip, and I was feeling reasonably fit. As usual, the best approach to a hill like this seems to be to put it in a low gear, take your time and just spin your way up. I had all day, and ended up hanging out a bit at some of the lookouts, so it took about 2.5 hours to make the climb, and 20 minutes for the descent down the other side!

I made it to Takaka that evening, then headed on to Collingwood the next morning. I was hoping to stop at the Mussel Inn, a well know cafe/bar about 16km from Takaka, but they were closed for winter. This is one of the biggest downsides to cycle touring in NZ in winter- a lot of places are closed in the off season. It’s not as significant in places where there’s a ski industry, but places like Golden Bay are really summer places so struggle in winter a bit.

I set up my tent at the camping ground at Collingwood, then rode my unladen bike up to Farewell Spit, along a flat road, about an hour’s ride away. This is the northern-most point of the South Island, and the spit is the longest sand spit in NZ. It also serves as an important waypoint for migratory birds, some of whom (i think) travel from here to the Arctic! The land beside the spit is managed by the Department of Conservation as a farm in a way that minimises the impact on the spit, so they have lower stock numbers etc, and lots of patches of native bush. The best part about this is that there are several tracks that you can walk and bike on in the area. The DoC brochure said that on particular track along a nice ridgeline with good views was open to cyclists. Here i learnt another important lesson- just because you’re allowed to try and bike a track doesn’t mean you should, especially on a rigid touring bike with reasonably narrow tires! The track was pretty tough, and I may have been able to do it with a full-sus bike, but it was a bit beyond my LHT.. But I did get some nice views as I was pushing my bike along! It didn’t help that when I got to the end of the track I found a sign saying that bikes weren’t allowed on that track! I brought this up with the local DOC office that they need to work on their consistency of messages!

Because of the difficulties on the off-road section I got back to Collingwood just before dark. The next day saw me return to Takaka and push on towards Abel Tasman National Park. On the way I stopped for a coffee at a cafe on a ship in a marina that used to be owned by Jacques Cousteau. My sneaky plan to avoid cycling back over Takaka Hill (partly as it’s even steeper on the Golden Bay side) was to ride to Totaranui in Abel Tasman National Park, and get a water-taxi back to Kaiteriteri near Motueka. There’s still a 300m climb to get over the hills into Totaranui, but it is a nice gravel road, and at this time of year there is hardly any traffic- i was passed by a total of 3 cars! It was a real highlight of the ride. There were only about 5 other people at the campsite, which in the peak of summer caters for well over 1000 people! I spent the afternoon/evening swimming at the golden sand beach, and taking some star photos, check out the photos for more.

The next morning I got the water-taxi, which cost $70 for me and my bike, but saved biking over the hill, and let me see some nice views of the national park. This was another short day- I stayed at Motueka again that night, and headed on to Nelson the next day. The big tip for the ride from Mot-Nelson is to take the scenic route via Ruby Bay, instead of following the new bypass. This means you see a really nice part of the coast, with views of Golden Bay and across to Nelson. Closer to Nelson, there’s an awesome cycleway from Richmond to Nelson. This follows an old railway line, and the coast, and is generally nice smooth asphalt, usually well away from traffic.

I’ve got a couple of friends in Nelson (both of whom I met in Antarctica), so I spent a couple of nights in this great town. It was then a ride over a couple of hills to Havelock for the night, then around Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton and the end of my trip! On the way I stopped at the New Zealand Outward Bound school at Anikiwa. I did an Outward Bound course in my last year at high-school, which is 10 years ago now! (That realisation made me feel old!) It was a great experience, and I’d recommend it to anyone.

Anyway, all up it was a great ride, and again I can recommend winter cycle touring in New Zealand. At this time of year there are fewer people around, less traffic on the road, less wind, and often less rain. And photos are often nicer because there’s snow on the hills!

So yeah, photos can be viewed here. Keep following this blog, as it’s going to (hopefully) have some interesting content about my big world trip!