DAY FORTY-TWO: STUNNING SOUTH ISLAND WESTLAND

Day 39 (Hokitika to Franz Josef Glacier) Daily Distance: 139.68 kms
Day 40 (Franz Josef Glacier to Fox Glacier) Daily Distance: 41.66 kms
Day 41 (Fox Glacier to Haast) Daily Distance: 135.73 kms
Day 42 (Haast to Makarora) Daily Distance: 81.90 kms
Total Distance: 2,461.07 kms

I started the morning in Hokitika with a ride to Sunset Peninsula where there are lovely views both west and south, and then a stroll along Hokitika Beach where there is a tonne of driftwood and so many lovely sculptures like these ones:

The local favourite is no doubt the name of the city spelt out, a sunset photo of which recently became the main welcome sign to the city.

 

This day would, by a small margin, become the longest of this trip so far, although it was a highly scenic ride which firstly saw me cruise pass a long beach that lay under bright blue skies and beside even brighter green fields, and then for the entire middle section of the day it was like riding through a huge rainforest, incredibly lush and dense but also keeping the wind away from me which I was thankful for.

I had coffee in Ross and lunch in Harihari before attacking Mt Hercules, which sounds much more threatening than it actually was. The only threatening moment of that climb was when a coach passed me extremely closely as it almost slowed to a stop – it was an AAT Kings coach and the Tour Director, Phil Wilson, had worked with me in Europe. He was waving to me madly as they passed and, bless him, was sitting on a plastic chair by the roadside in Franz Josef Glacier when I arrived many hours later. He handed me a beer before I even had the chance to say hi. What a guy!

Franz Josef is a relatively small but thriving tourist village with what seems like dozens and dozens of hotels, holiday parks and other accommodation options. The surrounding area is absolutely indescribably beautiful, with snow-capped mountains in several directions, although perhaps shamefully I never actually saw the glacier because it was off the beaten track and I’d heard it has receded so far that it was a much better option to go to Fox Glacier down the road.

I had planned a day off the following day but decided to do the short ride from Franz Josef Glacier to Fox Glacier because I’d heard it was quite demanding and the huge distance from Fox to Haast (with no towns or services in between) meant that it was by far the smarter starting point for cycling on Day Forty-One. Demanding was right – there were three huge hills to climb and descend, each of which was considerably more difficult than Mt Hercules!

Fox Glacier Village is smaller and less tourist-ridden than Franz Josef, and the ride to the glacier was definitely an unexpected highlight – a dedicated cycle trail through rainforest with lots of twists and turns. They’ve put lots of chicanes (i.e. huge boulders) in the path to stop crazy cyclists from me from going too fast, but they failed because I was going much too fast along the trail. It was impossible not to.

I walked the last 20 minutes to the actual glacier and got within 100m of it. It’s fascinating actually seeing the glacier fall apart in front of your eyes. It’s big and blue and sort of beautiful, but also dirty and with lots of tourists walking all of it (each of who paid at least $120 for the pleasure!)

Fox Glacier

That afternoon I met a couple from Switzerland who are cycling around the world and having spent the last 24 months riding through Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and some of New Zealand, they have just cracked the 42,000km mark!!! I was speechless. When finished, I will have covered just 6,500km in both of my tours combined. (To give you an idea of how crazy they are, in Australia they cycled from Perth up the west coast to Katherine and then Darwin, then down the country past Uluru to Adelaide, and around the coast to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane where they flew to Christchurch…)


Klemens & Brigitte from Switzerland

I woke at 7am on Day Forty-One to enable me to ride the 12km round trip to Lake Matheson before departing for Haast. This lake is famous for providing beautiful reflections of Mt Cook on its surface, but unfortunately the clouds were hanging around when I was there. It was still stunning.

Lake Matheson

After that trip I continued south, passing another couple who are nearly finished their round the world cycling trip (this pair, from NZ, have only covered 19,000km. Pfft!). I stopped at a salmon farm for lunch – don’t worry, I didn’t eat salmon – and then passed more spectacular scenery on the way to Haast where the steep Haast Pass awaited me the following day.


The climb through the Haast Pass was certainly no cake-walk, but it was nothing like Arthurs Pass as it only rose to 540m rather than 960m. In addition, I seemingly had half of the worlds touring cyclists to do it with - I have seen more tourers in the past two days than in the rest of the country combined. A Taiwanese kid who'd broken his gear cable and was struggling to ride, a middle-aged man from Colorado, two Australian women from Melbourne, a Kiwi couple, Peter from Toronto, Gemma from England (who with her friend Izzy I had run into twice up near Rotorua!) who was stranded in Haast with a broken spoke, two English guys who are following their cricket team around, and the list goes on...



The area around Haast is apparently the wettest in the country with an average rainfall of 400 inches a year (!) but again I seemed blessed as there was nothing but blue skies and a bright, hot sun. I stopped to do a few side walks, the best being down to Blue Pools which were very cold but stunningly clear and blue, as the name would suggest.

 

Blue Pools

I camped in Makarora, having completed the stunning South Island West Coast and with just the beautiful Wanaka, Hawea and Wakatipu Lakes – and the huge Southern Alps – in front of me en route to Bluff.