DAY THIRTY-EIGHT: MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME

Day 34 (Blenheim to Kaikoura) Daily Distance: 132.37 kms
Day 35 (Kaikoura to Greta Valley) Daily Distance: 107.47 kms
Day 36 (Greta Valley to Springfield) Daily Distance: 126.94 kms
Day 37 (Springfield to Arthurs Pass) Daily Distance: 86.82 kms
Day 38 (Arthurs Pass to Hokitika) Daily Distance: 101.91 kms
Total Distance: 2,062.10 kms

We’d planned to leave Blenheim quite early to accommodate for the long day, but with some members of LSR being even less punctual than me (hard to believe, I know) it never happened. So at 11 o’clock we trundled out of town and after the first big hill the trundle soon escalated into a gallop and then perhaps a race. We averaged nearly 28 km/hr for the whole 132 km day, a personal record of some sort no doubt, and despite several stops (including one at the lovely yet lonely café 'The Store') we still arrived into Kaikoura with plenty of time to relax, shower and wander into town for a meal.

Views on the ride into and out of Kaikoura looked much like this...

(Ed: I realise previously neglecting to explain why we ended up in Blenheim heading down the east coast of the south island rather than the west coast as I’d planned. Since I’d diverted to Golden Bay and lost two days on my schedule and, in the meantime, booked my flight back to Oz on March 1^st, I had to make up those days. To do this, I decided to head down the east coast to Christchurch and then catch the TransAlpine Train to Greymouth and head down the west coast from there.)

The next day the four boys decided to have a restful day with the whales and seals of Kaikoura, but my new, tight schedule didn’t allow such luxuries, so I fought a huge headwind down to Greta Valley. I was supposed to meet Canadians Joanna and Kyle there, but they didn’t make it because of that headwind, although I did have the company of six retired Californians who I crossed paths with several times.

One of many seal colonies near Kaikoura

There was much less in the way of shops than I’d anticipated (in fact not a single shop, petrol station or pub for the first 65 kms, and not a thing open when I arrived in Greta Valley at 5pm), so it was a makeshift meal for dinner that night. I stayed in a campervan that the campsite owner kindly gave me for just $12 (the price of a tent site) given the chance of rain overnight. By “gave” I of course mean “leased”, although given its age and grubbiness, it couldn't have been sold for much more than $12, I think. It was nice gesture all the same, even though the rain never came – as seems to have been a common theme since north of Auckland when I last felt a drop (it poured in Wellington but I was off the bike on those days).

Kaikoura whale watching cruise

The next day I intended taking an easy route into Christchurch before catching the train the following day, but at some stage that morning I convinced myself to ride across the island rather than catching the train. There were two reasons for this: a) I thought it might be considered cheating (even though Greymouth is some 65 kms north of Christchurch) and b) I did the famous train ride with Dad back in 1999(ish). So I never made it to Christchurch, but cut inland and turned it into another 100k+ day to arrive in Springfield, the last town before Arthurs Pass.

The following day, Thirty-Seven, I continued west aiming for Arthurs Pass Village, the only real town of note in the National Park, which is located just a few kilometres short of Arthurs Pass itself. The village and pass are called as such because in the 1860’s Arthur Dobson was asked to survey the valley by his employer and later, when £200 was offered to whoever could find the best route from Christchurch to the West Coast and vice versa (important because gold was being mined on the west coast and had to be transported to Christchurch), his Dad - also in the same surveying business - correctly reported that “Arthur’s Pass” was by far the most suitable.

Well, Arthur must have been a fit fellow – or someone with lots of time on his hands – because it was one heck of a climb! In the world of cycling, climbs are only ‘rated’ if they are 500m or longer, with an average gradient of 3.0% or more. There are six categories (the hardest is ‘HC’ which stands for French “Hors Categorie” = “above category”, then Cat1 to Cat5). 12 kilometres into the day I met a Cat2 climb, and we had 6.2 kilometres to get to know each other. Needless to say we didn't become best friends... to say it was a beast would be an understatement, with its average gradient of 5.4% and maximum gradient of – wait for it – 17.2% … cars were struggling to get up this thing! This was followed by one Cat4 and six Cat5 climbs throughout the day. In total I climbed 1,631m over just 87 kms. Enough said.

But there were moments of relief among the climbs, notably the beautiful Lake Pearson and the crazy rock formations around Castle Hill, which in 2005 was used as the set for Chronicles of Narnia, but presumably of greater importance was said by the Dalai Lama in 2002 to be "the spiritual centre of the Universe".

Leaving Arthurs Pass was another highlight of the trip. I knew that I’d have one steep, long climb to get from the village to the top of the pass, but I didn’t know just how stunning the scenery would be descending from there. I dropped from nearly 1,000m altitude to near enough 0m in the course of the day, what a delight! It was also the first day that I really got cold on the bike, but I do think that the high winds and gloomy weather played as big a part in that as the lack of pedalling.

First sighting of the famous Southern West Coast Alps

I had lunch in Kumara, one of the towns where the previously mentioned gold rush occurred, and once I hit the west coast turned south to be greeted by a howling southerly wind which drastically slowed me down for the last 30 km. I eventually limped into NZ capital of jade Hokitika and loaded up with carbs again in an attempt to recover from a truly testing five days, four of which exceeded 100 kms, with the fifth being the Arthurs Pass day. At least I made up previously lost time and it left me well and truly ahead of my new schedule.