The Simple Life

Heavy rain had been forecast for the morning, so when I woke to dry conditions outside I decided to pack away quickly and get moving before it changed its mind. It started pouring just a few miles in — my rain coat isn’t so waterproof these days, not since it went through a warm colours wash by accident and the material lost whatever it once had. I was soon soaked through, head to socks, with no option but to keep riding. My hands turned cold and started cramping around the wet handlebars. I found Eal paused at a stop sign; the heavy rain had loosened rocks further up and caused a small landslide across the road, and a helicopter was already at work, scooping water from the river and dropping it onto the slide to push down anything still loose. Mud, rain, wind and a small tailback along Highway 6.

Once we were through, we carried on toward the New Zealand west coast. Towns weren’t forthcoming, so another roadside picnic of peanut butter and jam sandwiches had to do. By then the rain had passed over and the sun was out in force, and when I reached the town of Charleston there was no sign of either a shop or Eal. I found the recreation area on the beach instead and laid my wet layers out to dry in the sudden heat.

The ride along the ocean brought back the American Pacific coast — the road hairpinning inland over bluffs the same way Highway 1 had, rock stacks standing off in the sea, my brain still insisting we ought to be riding on the right. Slightly disorienting, until a passing kiwi accent recalibrated my sense of where in the world I actually was.

Hold up.

Ad-hoc dry zone.

The local attraction at Punakaiki, where we spent the night, is the pancake rocks and blowholes. I only managed a single photograph before my camera battery died, but they were unlike anything I’d seen before — pretty remarkable stuff.

From there it was a short thirty-mile day into Greymouth, where we planned to take the Monteith’s brewery tour that afternoon. We found the Neptune’s Backpackers in town, another wonderfully friendly family-run place, much like Turangi had been, and ran into Ben from Vancouver again, who was staying five days on the strength of the free accommodation they offer to anyone willing to work a while — he had a few weeks in hand before Queenstown, so it suited him perfectly. We restocked on road supplies at the supermarket, then spent a good stretch of the afternoon sipping our way through Monteith’s. They rather wasted their time on us with the seasonal apricot wheat — everyone on the tour, when asked what beer they actually liked, answered strong IPA. Monteith’s don’t make one. Maybe they’ll take note one day.

The next morning, strolling down to the kitchen for the free guest breakfast, the weather outside looked atrocious. I checked the forecast: heavy rain all day, with winds up to twenty-five miles an hour. Eal had arranged for some tyres to be delivered to a bike shop in town, and with no guarantee they’d arrive before noon, we decided to stay another day at Neptune’s.

I swapped the tyres over on my own bike, did some laundry, and we spent the afternoon on the free pool table. Eal had thrashed me seven-one back in Wellington, so I was glad to claw back some pride with a best-of-five, three-one win this time. The sideways rain never once let up, and I found myself repeating, over and over, how glad I was not to be out riding in it. It’s not so much the getting wet — it’s riding with your head bowed and your eyes squinting, missing all the scenery, and on the narrow New Zealand roads, genuinely dangerous, since the spray thrown up by passing trucks stops the traffic behind them from seeing you at all as you hug the white line.

Re-stocking inventory.

We said our goodbyes to the owner at Neptune’s and hit the coast road again on another beautiful spring day. I stopped to talk with a couple of German tourers heading north — we’d started seeing more cyclists in general as the finer weather set in, the south island perhaps a more popular destination in its own right. I stopped for lunch halfway through the day in Hokitika. Eal and I had agreed on a primitive campsite for the night a few kilometres south of Ross, so I gave myself a few hours to relax rather than arrive too early.

Setting off again at four, aiming to reach camp by six, I met a local cyclist with a striking prosthetic left leg fitted with its own cleat mechanism for his road bike. He told me the camp area I was aiming for was much further south than I’d thought, based on what Google Maps had told me — Eal had the paper map, which I hadn’t actually laid eyes on myself that morning, so I couldn’t check. Lake Ianthe would be another twenty-five kilometres past Ross. I saw the same cyclist again in town; without me saying a word, he told me he couldn’t offer me a place to stay, having had too many people steal from him over the years. Fair enough, though it stung a little. I confirmed the distance to Ianthe with the shop owner. Setting off now would mean arriving in the dark, assuming the terrain behaved and I didn’t get a flat or worse, so I resolved to make up the mileage in the morning instead and found an odd little cabin to sleep in for the night.

Very basic, and dusty, but it would do. The rustic setting nudged me toward pen and paper, and I finally finished some postcards I’d been carrying, unsent, for two weeks — better late than never. It would be the first night since the twenty-seventh of May that Eal and I hadn’t spent in the same place.

Tyre and vert skills check.

German tourers.

Yes mate, I agree.

$25 admission! I’ll take my chances on seeing one in the wild.

Guy liked his plates.

Cabin for the night, sans electricity.

The early alarm I’d set to catch up with Eal failed to wake me, for whatever reason — my cabin had been a little chilly through the night. When I finally woke at seven I got moving quickly, out into some amazing early light, still and quiet. The day began with glorious scenery: views of Mount Cook in the distance, pristine lakes, snow-capped ranges.

The views kept me wowed well into the afternoon, to the point where I found myself debating whether this might be the best bike ride of my life. I settled, eventually, on the thought that it was simply special and precious in its own way, the same as so many other days on this trip. A couple from Brisbane, of all places, where I’d be heading myself before long, were stood on the bend of a river taking photographs, and offered to take mine in exchange for me taking theirs. Afterward I managed to stab my calf on the big chainring while turning the bike around, and with no way down to the water to clean it, my bottle had to suffice. Nothing could dent my mood that day, though. So happy with life, genuinely euphoric. The couple beeped and waved as they drove past — if ever I feel like sharing a smile out on the road, I throw a wave toward an oncoming driver, and it’s almost always returned. It helps to feel a little less alone on days like that, and it’s a good reminder that there are real people inside those metal boxes zipping by.

Arriving in Franz Josef, I still needed to track down Eal, checking every campground and backpackers in town without luck. I’d made good time, so he must have set off much earlier, and it crossed my mind he might have pushed on to Fox Glacier instead. Either way, we both knew we’d be in Fox Glacier by the following afternoon, having agreed that our one splash-out “kiwi” experience would be a glacier hike. I found a good rate at the YHA, offered to cyclists as part of their carbon footprint scheme — I decided not to mention the two long-haul flights that had got me this far.

I shared a big dorm room with one other guest, from Hong Kong. We had some trouble communicating, but he was enthusiastic and friendly throughout, asking questions and working hard to follow my answers. He’d just been down to Antarctica on an icebreaker for three thousand dollars, with other touring cyclists among his fellow passengers, and after hearing about my ride, nicknamed me “Ironman.” It didn’t quite fit, curled up on my bed like a Cheshire cat under the quilt with woolly socks on for warmth. Meow.

First view this morning, set the tone for things to come.

Howdy!

Said it before, don’t forget to look behind once in a while…

Hey buddy, I think you’re important.

Top of the climb.

Calves…

No hands happy rider.

Simplify.