Goodbye Yellow Dirt Road

From Mount Cook to Dunedin (25/01 – 31/01)

The strong wind kept me awake almost all night, so I wasn’t really surprised to find myself looking up at a clouded sky when I popped my head out of my tent the next morning. Konrad, who had arrived at the same campground the previous day with Ute still behind him on the tandem, called me over to show me how a Kea bird had eaten away at his bike ribbon during the night. Kea’s are the world’s only alpine parrots. They measure up to 50cm, are highly intelligent and equally perceived as an attraction and a nuisance. They are known for stealing items and food from unattentive campers, but they have also grown a reputation for using their narrow, curved beak to peck at tents, all kinds of rubber on vehicles and other non-edible stuff. They made their presence felt by flying down to the campground around sunset and issuing high pitched shrieks from the roof of the large shelter building. I had to chase a Kea away from my tent during my first night at the White Horse campground and the following morning I could attest it had subsequently gone on to pry apart the bottom part of a neighboring couple’s tent. Konrad had apparently suffered a similar fate the next night. Ute just laughed about it and wrapped a white bandage around her husband’s handlebar, as if to tend to a wound.

I put on my rain jacket and started cycling back on the same road I had come from 2 days ago. The wind that kept me awake during the night now turned into a great ally and blew me to the town of Twizel in no time. The next morning, I joined the Alps2Ocean cycle trail, a mainly unsealed mountain bike track stretching over 300km, starting from Mount Cook and going all the way down to Oamaru on the east coast. I had skipped the first section of the trail, because it involved arranging an expensive helicopter flight to get past some mountain rivers, but there were still over 200km left to enjoy by the time I started to follow it. It took me along a third big mountain lake, Lake Ohau, which is a little overlooked by most travellers, who limit themselves to lakes Pukaki and Tekapo, because they lie on the main road between Queenstown and Christchurch, unlike this at least equally beautiful, deep-blue glacier lake, surrounded by hills and snow-covered mountains on its northern shore.

Winding away from the lake, the road became just a single track gravel/dirt road, climbing up to the trail’s highest point at Tarnbrae High Point (elevation 900m). It wasn’t too steep, but I made slow progress nonetheless. The track was quite rocky at places and certainly better suited to mountain bikes than to heavy loaded touring bikes like my own. I didn’t care, because it was all so beautiful and calm. For all I knew, I could have been the only person alive. All in all, I made good progress and there were plenty of creeks with fresh water streaming down the hill I could immerse myself in for an instant cooldown.

The trail joined a broad gravel road a little further on, and I cruised towards Omarama. I didn’t see snow-covered peaks anymore, but in front of me a wide, lush-green valley unfolded itself. I felt great and road as fast as I could on the gently descending road, sometimes slipping away with my rear wheel in the deeper gravel sections, but always in a controlled fashion. I marvelled at the sheer perfectness of it all and felt the excitement rush through my veins. In that moment, I remembered exactly why I was here, doing what I did.

I set up camp on a free DOC campground next to the Ahuriri river, and was offered a glass of red wine by a friendly Dutch couple, Joop and Mirjam, riding around the country for 2,5 months in a spacious camper. Joop is a life-long Ajacied, and we could grief Robbie Rensenbrink passing away earlier that day together, but we also had interesting conversations about New Zealand’s history, Grand Hotel Europa, cycling infrastructure and of course, football.

I continued on the A2O trail for the next two days. The mountains had given way to pastoral valleys, who had to make way themselves for some big hydro-dams, enlarging existing lakes like Lake Benmore and Lake Aviemore in the process and providing up to 30% of the total amount of hydroelectric power generated in the whole country. That is quite impressive, if you take into consideration that hydroelectric power covers almost 60% of New Zealand’s energetic needs. The dams were equally impressive in their own right.

The last part of the trail took me past a large vineyard and some Maori rock drawings just before entering Duntroon, from where it left the Waitaki river to climb up to Elephant rocks and further up to Island cliffs. I found myself once more in pastoral land, enjoying great views over large valleys. Eventually I would need to reach the Pacific Ocean though, which happened when I rode into the old colonial town of Oamaru, where I checked into a backpackers hostel for a change, one with the resounding name “Empire Hotel”. There were no beds left in the dorms, but new manager Viviane – she had been there for just a week – was so kind to offer me a private room at the same rate. Great deal! I couldn’t thank her enough, because I had read about this place and I had been looking forward to stay there for a while. She told me the building had been in use as a hotel since 1867, which is probably not so long after British settlers started to change the character of the Otago region and the look of this coastal town.

I firmly believed the rough A2O track and a good rest in Oamaru had turned me into a cycle-touring Hulk and I had no doubt I would ride the 130km separating me from Dunedin in the blink of an eye. I didn’t even need to look at the route, because it would all be flat and easy ro ride along the coast, right? It goes without saying, I couldn’t have been more wrong. New Zealand just never is that boring. The south-eastern shores reminded me a lot of my struggles on England’s Cornwall coast, 9 years ago. I got the first part done relatively fast, but a steep climb out of the bushy Trotters Gorge caused my legs to almost explode. I had an enormous slice of lemonade cake at the local shop-annex-cafe in Kirtane, but by the time I reached Warrington, which is only 11 km further down the road, I felt completely exhausted. I couldn’t remember the last stretch of flat road and every rolling hill seemed to be steeper than the last. I had to break really hard on the downhill sections, only to find myself racing towards a vertical wall at the bottom of the descent. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is all self-inflicted and with hindsight I always prefer a challenge and the reward of a spectacular view, but in that moment, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I decided to leave the last 30 km into Dunedin for the next day and joined a whole bunch of campervans at the free campsite of Warrington Reserve, just a stone’s throw away from the beach. I strolled over it for a while, hoping to see some sea lions, but they must have chosen different shores to rest on that night. Before jumping in my tent, I laid down on the grass next to my bike and looked up at the skies. I have been doing that ever since my first night at Lake Tekapo. Once the sun has set and the moon has taken its rightful place as the guardian of the night, the first distant star appears. Its light is fade and looks like it could disappear anytime, but it doesn’t. It grows stronger, shining ever more confidently. It very soon gets company from other emerging starlights, as if someone were lighting them up randomly, one by one. The darker the sky gets, the more stars appear, until it looks like a deep dark blue blanket laid-in with an overload of diamonds. It’s a marvellous sight, so much richer than what I am used to see at home. It always makes me forget about everything else. On that night in Warrington, I felt like a rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.

I arrived in Dunedin shortly after midday on Friday. I had taken the scenic route over Mount Cargill into the city and coming in from the north-east, I cycled past Baldwin street, which is supposed to be the steepest street in the world. It gave me the shivers and I cycled away from it as fast as I could. In the afternoon I collected some information about the Catlins Forest Park in the visitor center and sat down with a large coffee in Dunedin’s central Octagon to plan my route through this park, which had been described as often overlooked, but absolutely stunning by everyone I met who had previously been there. I looked forward to being in the outdoors again and had the next week or so planned out in no time. Then my eye caught sight of something on the counter and I changed my mind.