DAY THIRTY-THREE: HANGING OUT NORTH OF THE NORTH ISLAND, ON THE SOUTH ISLAND…

Day 30 (Wellington to Mouteka, via Picton)
Day 31 (Mouteka to Takaka)
Day 32 (Takaka to Picton)
Day 33 (Picton to Blenheim) Daily Distance: 58.65 kms
Total Distance: 1506.59 kms

The plan had been to catch the ferry from Wellington (at the southern tip of the North Island) to Picton (at the northern tip of the South Island), and then immediately head west towards Nelson and straight down the west coast, but that plan was thrown into disarray when LSR managed to convince me to jump in their rental car as soon as we arrived in Picton and have a few days off the bike – ‘coz I haven’t done that lately!

Apart from the fact that I’m rubber-armed and terribly indecisive in any case, I’m on holidays so why not?

Also rubber-armed were Tourers #13 and #14, Canadians Joanna and Kyle, who a few years back rode all the way across CANADA! 5,000 kms I think they said, crazy. I met them on the ferry and after bonding over our shared Tip to Toe itinerary and shared homeland (sort of), they were somehow also convinced to hire a second car to join our party, heading north from Picton towards Golden Bay.

Readers who failed ‘Geography of New Zealand’ at school (and probably even those who didn’t) will now be confused as to how you can go north from a city that is at the northern tip of an island. And it probably won’t help if I throw in more geographical detail: Wellington and Picton lie at the same latitude. As in, they are each as far north, or south, as each other.

Confusing, isn’t it?

So technically, I had just sailed south to a city north of where I started, on the northern tip of a ‘south’ island, only to jump in a car and drive north of there to a place far further north than the north island city I originally began in before the ferry. Well, you should know by now that everything in this country is backwards, upside down, or just bizarre.

I’ll wait while you go and find a map.

We drove around Queen Charlotte Sound and through Nelson to Mouteka with the intention of kayaking along the coastline of Abel Tasman National Park the following day. We were presented with no less than 10 options for kayaking, all with different start points, end points, durations, inclusions, costs etc, and so did what any normal people would do: none of them. Instead, we drove our car to Kaiteriteri Beach, supposedly one of the “top 5 beaches in the world” (no), and then to Split Apple Beach, not supposedly one of the “top 5 beaches in the world” (although we think it could be). It was fantastic.

L-R: Brian, Lex, Parri, Mark, Devin

After a stunning, if stomach-churning, drive across mountains I wouldn’t dare touch with two wheels, we found ourselves in Takaka, the first and biggest town in Golden Bay.

We visited Pupu springs, with its fresh water that is apparently the clearest in the world – a grand claim but it did look pretty clear – and then set up camp before embarking on what would be the best night of my trip (or LSRs) to-date. To summarise: Brian got on stage to sing and play guitar in between sets of the band that was actually supposed to be on stage, and even dedicated two songs to me!

Devin went crazy with a dance routine that, believe it or not, included toe-tapping, break dancing, push ups, foot-stomping and older-lady-spinning within 30 seconds of each other.

Lex had a random drunk girl come up and randomly start cuddling him. Or rather, cuddling his lap. It was slightly awkward.

Mark befriended all the locals, and somehow ended up being convinced that LSR should join me on the west coast once the riding resumed since “the east coast is boring”.

And a local kid bought me a beer in exchange for a ‘ride’ on my shoulders while we danced on the dance floor. He could have died. (Which would have been controversial since he was only 17 and so not even legally allowed in there – the bar manager knew, but it was a small town so she clearly didn’t care because she sold him drinks. Maybe it was her brother? After all, her Mum was the older lady that Devin was dancing with. No, she seriously was.)

And this was all after we met some fun and chilled-out hippies (I’m sure that they would also choose that word to describe them) in the middle of the local library car park where we drank beers and sang along to two ukuleles. One of these was an English guy who is currently renovating his boat and needs four people to help him sail it to Australia, hmmm…..

Unfortunately the next day we had to head back to Picton to return the car AND to make sure that we started riding from there so as not to invalidate any north-to-south cycling claims. We stayed in Picton that night so that I could watch Australia reach 4-0 over the Windies in cricket, and the boys could edit and post their third update video (you can see it here, although Mum please note they have somehow captured me on video the only two times on this trip that I have said a swear word).

The next day we only had 35 kms to ride to Blenheim, but we decided to stretch that out to 58 kms so that it could include some of the famous Marlborough wineries, a chocolate factory, a fudge factory, and two punctures for Lex. There was a huge food and wine festival on in town that night, so we joined the revellers in the street party until we realised that the next day was to be a three-digit-km day on the bike.