So I Guess That’s Why They Call It The West Coast Blues

From Queenstown to Kaiteriteri (24/02 – 08/03)

Seeing the beautiful mountain setting around Glenorchy wasn’t the only reason I went on a 130km day trip during my “resting day” in Queenstown. I also wanted to warm for what was awaiting me the next day, both physically as mentally. My next destination was Wanaka, on the southern shore of the lake carrying the same name, and there were two options for getting there from Queenstown. Or I went east to Cromwell and then up north to approach Wanaka from the east, never climbing higher than 400m above sea level taking the main highway, or I went straight over the Crown mountain range. This latter option is obviously shorter and more scenic. It is also New Zealand’s highest highway, climbing up to 1080m with an average gradient north of 7%, its steepest sections between 16% and 20%. For bike tourers like myself, that is definitely hors catégorie, and every cyclist in the area would start to sweat and turn pale as a sheet when you’d mention this monstrous hill to them. Well, that is every cyclist apart Laure, who faithful readers of this blog will remember from last episode. She came over the pass in the other direction the day before I met her and didn’t have the slightest idea what was awaiting her when she had set out from Wanaka in the morning.

I did though. A British cyclist had first spoken to me about the horrors of the Crown Range Pass in Balclutha when it was still a thousand kilometres away. I told myself he was exaggerating, but you get why I woke up to this day both anxious and excited. The excitement had gotten the upper hand though. My training ride the previous day had gone perfectly well, I like riding uphill and it was a beautiful day. It started cloudily, and I made a short stop at Queenstown’s library to recover Thierry’s camera, which he’d forgotten there the previous day, but by the time I rode out of Arrowtown, at the foot of the pass, the sun had broken through the clouds. The first part climbed up fast through a succession of hairpin bends. I had a good and steady rhythm and could take in splendid views over Arrowtown and its valley. At the top of this first part of the climb, I could see all the way to Frankton and lake Waikapitu behind it. I had to admit it was scenic alright. The route undulated for a couple of kilometres before I got to the steepest sections in the last 4km. No more hairpin bends, but straight up on the arid mountain flanks. There were a couple of lookouts, and I used them for short drinking stops. The sweat was gushing down my face, arms and legs, and most people looked up from their camera’s with clueless expressions on their faces. I can’t really blame them – why would anyone in their right mind want to do this? But I also got a lot of support and encouragement during this last part of the climb. I reached the summit and a nice lady from Calgary took my picture. Great cycling highlight!

I treated myself to lemonade in the historic Cardrona Hotel on the way down – it has been operated without interruption for over 155 years – and continued the gentle descent towards Lake Wanaka, where I was about to meet someone I hadn’t seen in 40 days.

When I cycled up to the campsite, I saw a girl waving in the distance. She was wearing a white hat and seemed to be swimming in her shirt, and I wondered for quite some time who she was waving at. It turned out she was waving at me, and the person turned out to be Liesbeth, the reason why I was here, in New Zealand. If this doesn’t sound anywhere familiar, I suggest you make a quick jump to Episode 1 of this blog before reading any further. I have to point out this encounter was not as unexpected as I make it seem. We had stayed in touch after going our separate ways in Christchurch and knew there was a chance we’d run into each other somewhere around Queenstown. I knew she was staying at this campground in Wanaka and had told her I’d be there that night.

I have to admit I was looking forward to seeing her again. She was the only person I really knew this far away from home and I was curious to hear how her journey had gone so far. It would of course also be a reality check, telling me exactly where I stood in this whole process. From my point of view, it couldn’t have gone better. We went into town and had dinner at a classy Indian restaurant. It was absolutely delicious and not the type of restaurant you’d go on your own. It didn’t feel too weird, nor tense, and we had a relatively normal conversation about our respective travels, shared some family-news and walked back to the campground. We ran into Laure in the campground kitchen, who was still up for a drink. We joined her with Pierre, a Te Araora-hiker from Bordeaux and found a pub where a local guy in a lumberjack shirt, shorts and sandals was playing some live music. It was so loud we couldn’t hear a word we were saying, so we settled for a Belgium vs France pool game. Belgium got completely hammered. Unlike the clash of these same nations at the last World Cup, this time the French clearly deserved their victory. They didn’t even need any shithousery to make victory theirs.

Everyone was taking the day off in Wanaka the next day, but the moment I got out of my tent in the morning, I knew I wanted to continue. First, the sun was out again, so better make good use of it, and second, I didn’t feel much for adapting my journey to Liesbeth’s. We still had breakfast together and talked some more, but after a second coffee, I packed my stuff and hit the road again. I had a gorgeous day riding along Lake Hawea and the northern part of Lake Wanaka, before calling it a day a 5 pm to go for a very cold, but invigorating lake-swim at Boundary Creek Campground. There was an abundance of other cyclists – a German couple, a Swiss couple and an Aussie from Dutch descent. Laure pulled up at the same campsite a couple of hours later – she had finally decided against a resting day, her schedule being quite tight. We drank tea together and talked while watching the star covered night fall over the lake. It’s impossible to ever get enough of this daily spectacle.

We climbed over Haast Pass together the following morning, which gave way to the first impressions of the west coast. It is New-Zealand’s most remote area – outside of national parks – and even though stretching over 600km, it is home to only 30 000 people. The major reason for this remoteness is probably the fact it rains for over 300 days per year, making it a wetter area than Scotland. Moreover, the hills, covered in an unpenetrable rain forest, start climbing steeply up almost directly from the shores, all the way up to the Southern Alps. It is a natural beauty, but there isn’t much you can do for a sustainable living around here, apart from looking after tourists.

I liked the west coast straight away. I had been walking and cycling through these very wide, open valleys, surrounded by barren mountain ranges for the last couple of weeks. They had been cultivated in the past by early settlers, but the vegetation hadn’t returned, leaving the land exposed to the whims of the never-resting wind. The west coast was different. We hadn’t even reached it, but along the Haast River, you could see the first glimpses of the rain forest. Small streams ran along the rocks, right next to the road, and the dark green bush covered every hill in sight, climbing up all the way to the top. The scenery changes quickly in New Zealand, and this was yet another example.

We went to the local convenience store for beer and cookies and checked into the campground. I went to have a look at the facilities first, and to my great delight found a large and fully equipped kitchen and an even larger lounge area with sofas. I also noticed a familiar tandem with a yellow flag leaning against a wall.
It didn’t take long for Konrad to get me a beer, and I introduced both him and Ute to Laure. They rode into the rain the next morning, but I felt like taking a break, and Laure did so too. We booked for another night and settled for a day of doing nothing. That means I worked on my blog, and Laure read over a hundred pages in Dostojevski’s “The Idiot”. Our peace was brutally disturbed when soaked Irishmen (and women) started dripping in late afternoon. As the beer bottles emptied, the noise level rose, and by the time I tried to cook us some dinner, it felt like I was stuck in the middle of a terrible circus performance. Between her exhibitions of clumsiness, Daisy, the clown of the show, managed to explain this gathering of kiwi’s from Irish descent served to raise some funding to help her and her 6 sisters maintain their parents’ house in the region. They were all going for horseback riding the following day. Laure didn’t plan to wait that long to get rid of the noise and unveiled to me her imminent intention of killing them all. The whole situation was ridiculous and hilarious at the same time.

The weather was even worse the next day. Laure and I stared out of the window during breakfast, hypnotised by the constant downpour of rain. Our Irish friends decided against horseback riding and went to the beach instead. I guess you have to be Irish to go and sit on a beach as a backup plan for rainy days. And you have to be an incredible moron to go out for a big bicycle ride in this kind of weather, which is of course exactly what we did. It wasn’t just rain. After a handful of a kilometres, we turned right to officially start our journey along the west coast and straight into a fierce headwind. The rain forest would shield us in some places, but the gushes of wind we faced on the open sections, were the worse I had experienced so far. Then they got worse. We cycled up a steep hill and I saw Laure being blown from one side of the road to the other in front of me. I wasn’t able to keep a straight line either and wondered if I would be better of falling to my death to my left, where the cliffs dropped dramatically into the sea or being run over by a big campervan on my right. I didn’t have to find out. When a small bus rode past me, the side door swung open and a young woman yelled out if we wanted a ride. Laure didn’t need much convincing, and a couple of minutes later we found ourselves seated in the back of the cosiest campervan ever. Fritz and Lola, a German couple on a working holiday in New Zealand, had refurbished an old campervan themselves and used it to travel around the country. The interior was covered in shiny wood and they had even installed a small stove, which they fuelled with a big pile of pinecones assembled right in front of it. They would definitely need it that night because we were soaked, and we sat on their sofa. Our bags were soaked, and they sat on their bed. I felt a little bad for them, but the relieve of having gotten out of a stressful and even dangerous situation soon took over. We laughed our asses off on our way to Fox Glacier, which was further than we had planned to ride that day. We arrived slightly after mid-day and took our saviours of the day to a pub for a hot drink and some food. It’s curious how, very often, good people come along just when you need them. We were joined by Fritz’s parents, who were visiting their son for a few weeks, and had a good time together, before going our separate ways. We checked into a hostel for the night and prayed for better weather in the morning.

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Our prayers were heard and we climbed 2 steep hills between Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier in the sunshine the following morning. On the way down to Franz Josef township, 2 familiar cyclists caught up with us. We joined Thierry and Max for the last bit to Franz Josef’s car park and had lunch together there. Laure and I had been planning to do a day hike in this area the next day, but since we were here now, we decided to walk the Roberts Point track that afternoon already. It was supposed to take 5 hours, which gave us just enough time to complete the trail. It was quite technical, and we had to climb over rocky terrain and cross a dozen streams on our way to a splendid viewpoint over the majestic Franz Josef Glacier. Not so long ago we wouldn’t have needed to come this far, but the glacier had retracted a lot in the last decades. It remained a spectacular view though. The glacier sat as a thick blanket of snow and ice between dark and rugged alpine slopes, stretching down into an open valley, where the glacier river emerged. The current was so strong the water looked like an enraged stream of clay, making its way down towards the sea with a thunderous noise, only interrupted by the occasional sound of breaking ice higher up the glacier and by the screaming helicopters flying over our heads, rewarding its wealthier occupants with a closer look over this stunning sight. Facing such raw natural force is always a humbling experience, but it was punctured by a growing sense of sadness stemming from the knowledge that even this untamed power would soon fade under the crushing pressure of us, almighty humans, running the show now.

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The hostel where we’d set up camp on a patch of artificial grass had a free breakfast on offer, including waffles and pancakes. We stuffed ourselves until there was nothing left to stuff us with and continued our way up the coast. Having left the glaciers behind, the mountains gave way to a flatter area and we made good progress. We cycled past sleepy towns like Whataroa, Harihari and Ross – this last one was an old gold mining site – before arriving in Hokitika the next day. We made the most of this being an actual town and went for Indian food. Besides, Laure was going to take a bus to Nelson, on the north coast of the island, the next morning, so it only seemed fitting to have something more festive than a double portion of heated Uncle Ben’s egg fried rice at the conclusion of our week of cycling together. There had been a lot of laughter, but also a lot of talking; about politics, the labour market, the environment, women’s rights and quite some personal stories as well. It’s remarkable how easy it can be to discuss complex personal topics with a complete stranger and how relaxed you feel about sharing these. Especially when travelling alone, the people you meet will determine the colour of your memories. Laure added a lot of colour to my journey and I’m very grateful to have met her.

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I continued alone on the West Coast Wilderness Trail, after leaving Hokitika. This fairly easy mountain bike track left the coastline and led straight into the rain forest for a more intimate experience of this unique natural phenomenon. I spent a night at Kate’s campground in Kumara. Kate had left Britain over 15 years ago and set up this campground and a small garden, in which she produced some veggie’s, here at the end of the world in a place where it rains all the time, with only a few souls around in the direct vicinity. She organised yoga-sessions for her guests as well and the whole place had a very relaxed feel. She wasn’t the only one turning her back on the frantic pace of European societies and looking for refuge in this desolate area. On one of Greymouth’s piers, extending quite far into the restless ocean, I found a food truck made of an old wooden lifeboat, floating a Dutch flag and advertising “stroopwafels en poffertjes”. I ordered some with the nice lady in the boat, who told me she had left the Netherlands 3 years ago to come here and sit in a wooden lifeboat selling waffles almost every day. She wasn’t alone; she had decided to follow her partner, who had been in New Zealand for over 25 years and whom she originally met in her primary school class ages ago. With this wonderful story in my mind (and the energy of the stroopwafels in my legs) I attacked the last part of the coast. The flatland transformed into hillier terrain once more after leaving the city of Greymouth. Riding from one bay to the next, following winding roads up and around a whole series of capes, made me think of cycling along the Ligurian coast in Italy, home to the most famous “capi” in the world – Melo, Cervo, Berta – and the final scene of the annual bicycle race Milano-San Remo. I talked to some girls in Barrytown, where I sat in the shade of a tree beside their school for lunch. They didn’t really know what or where Belgium was, but they did know Christchurch was pretty far away. They told me there were 20 kids or so in school, only one of which didn’t live in the village. They also proudly informed me they had an albino in their class.

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I made a compulsory stop at the Pancake Rocks, a tourist highlight along the west coast, and continued on to Charleston, one of the last towns on my route before I would turn inland again. To get there, I had to climb 2 more big hills and especially the second one seemed to go on forever. It was well past 6 pm and traffic was almost non-existent by this point. The sun started its very slow drop into the sea and I found myself immersed in perfect tranquillity. I emerged from the permanent fogginess this area never seems to be quite able to shake off and cycled down from the clouds on my final descent into Charleston. Keeping up with all other sleepy towns I had cycled through the last few days, it had a rich gold mining heritage, with the particularity that it had featured on a list of possible capitals for the new country of New Zealand at some point.

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I left early the next morning and turned east after an hour of cycling. The road continued to go up and down while finding its way along the Buller River. The cliffs were still covered in the dark green bush typical for the west coast and rose up steeply out of the gorge, cut out by the river in meandering fashion over the course of millions of years. Apart from the town of Murchinson, there wasn’t much in terms of human activity along this road, which kept its west coast feel until I climbed over Hope Saddle, 150km inland. All of a sudden, the much dryer landscape found in the east of the island appeared out of nowhere. Shades of yellow and light brown replaced the deep green on the rolling hillsides and much larger areas of cultivated and grazing land started to line the road I was cycling on. The sun no longer dropped into the ocean to my left, but slowly disappeared behind the hills as I turned north towards the last national park on my south island list: Abel Tasman.

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I arrived in Kaiteriteri, the gateway to the coastal national park, the following day, after two and a half days of intense riding since leaving Charleston at the upper end of the west coast (daily details on the Prequel page). A sense of greater urgency had caught up with me, because I had started my 8th week of cycling by now, and Auckland was still far out of sight. I could easily make it there in time for my flight to San Francisco on April, 7th, but I would need to make good progress on certain sections if I wanted to keep some margin. Besides, I had been promised a gourmet burger and a beer if I managed to get to Kaiteriteri on Sunday and I didn’t want to miss out on that for the world.