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Published: April 6th 2005
Ohh yeh, that's a mullet
Ashburton seems to be NZ's mullet capital, so far DAY 7 : ASHBURTON - rest day
It was perfect riding weather today, but we had decided to rest so we spent the day at the internet cafe, bank, supermarket, 2nd hand bookstore and camping store.
DV had conjured up an interesting route for the next leg of the journey to Dunedin. Not wanting to go on Highway 1 for too long DV found some unsealed roads which should get us there and provide some awesome scenery.. After a bit of research today we found you shouldn't ride it except for during summer (according to a book), but then a camping guy told us we'd be fine. So we did a few
stealth photographs of the pricey topographical maps (hey, we're on a budget here - plus we still need to make up for the $140 we each paid for excess baggage).
We also did another bit of stealth photography. DV spotted a
nice mullet walkiing into a bank
("Careful, he might come out with a balaclava" - suspected DV) so DV walked over to the entrance while i got into position ready for the shot. Unfortunatly he went the opposite way to where DV was sitting
so there's only the pic of the mullet. DV has spotted 4 mullets in Ashburton while i am yet to make a sighting - damnit).
DV cooked up a very tasty vegetable soup tonight.. SO yeh, that was the rest day.
DAY 8 : ASHBURTON --> FAIRLIE 106km
Today we burst out of the camp grounds, fuelled by
several pancakes, headed for Fairlie. Along the way we passed more of those
hedges that seem to border every farm in NZ. They can stand 7 metres high and are usually always immaculately trimmed. We're not sure about why there are so many of them, and we haven't asked a local yet as we have fun trying to figure out their purpose. *I* think that from a helicopter looking down all the hedges join to make some sort of picture, like a Fern leaf, or a Kea or something.
Anyway, the weather was nice in the beginning - tail winds and sun shining. Then, a few k's before
Geraldine, the sun went away and the clouds got lower.
We didn't stay too long, had lunch and then away again.
The road became quite hilly
after this, which was a nice change from the flat, straight roads of the last two days riding.
The clouds brought with them drizzle, and we couldn't see that far around us - we're sure there are mountains surrounding us but the clouds are hiding them.
We made it into
Fairlie just in time to buy some sausages & onion for dinner - living like kings we are.
DAY 9 : FAIRLIE --> 20 "Ford's" south of a nameless road 75km
DV fixed up his pedals today - he didn't want to be climbing any mountains without those cleats. The sun had come out and we could finally see the mountains around us - they looked daunting, but as it turns out the road wove its way gradually to a peak at
Burke's Pass so it was easier than expected.
Dog Kennel corner ( the turnoff we had to make to begin our route off the main road) turned out to be a large clearing where, before there were fences, a dog was kennelled to keep the sheep in check - not as interesting an explanations as we thought it might be - DV
thought it might have been philosophical, that you had to somehow look to the Dog kennel within you when you reach that corner. The view from DKC itself was amazing as we ate lunch (cold sausages on bread with tomato sauce or honey - your choice!). There was some contention over whether or not we could see Mt Cook, eventually it did come into view as we went further South.
We threw the frisbee as far as it could go at some crossing further south and let the tent out to dry.
The next road we had to take didn't really have any sign posts saying it was there, but using our spy photos of the topo maps we were able to make out enough telephone poles to determine it was correct.
It was a
terrible road though - completely flat, yet we could only get to 7km/h max as we tried to find the smoothest route through the loose fist sized rocks. It required complete and utter concentration otherwise the wheel would turn on a rock and you'd crash. We only had to do this for a half hour or so, but it seemed much longer.
It was so silent out there, no birds, no traffic, no trees - well, not until the
"Fords". We're not 100%!s(MISSING)ure if it's supposed to be spelt Fjord or Ford, so we'll spell it how the NZers spell it.
It was a fairly good climb up to the
Hakataramea Pass. The roads were mostly hard packed gravel by this stage so it was all good - but sometimes you'd hit some loose stuff and the bike would tip a little bit further than you'd like - this usually just resulted in a few exclamations and a faster beating heart - no accidents - yay!
We then rolled down the valley between two mountain ranges.
Our campsite was probably the most scenic so far, and it was still warm (and was even a warm night) so the stream shower was not too bad at all.
DAY10 : 20 "Fords" South of a nameless road --> Oamaru 121km
We awoke through the night several times. Then finally awoke at 7am to find there was a
cyclone going on around us. ALright i may be slightly exaggerating, but i estimate they were 50km/h winds with
gusts up to 80km/h - easy. The most fun part of the morning was putting the tent away - there was no shelter around to help us out either. Luckily it was around 17degC - very mild.
We had breaky and packed up as fast as possible as those winds were heading exactly the same way as us!
Being pushed along flat gravel road at 30km/h - no pedalling required was a fun change. This lasted 20 or 30k's before we began to go across the wind - that wasn't too fun. By 10 o'clock we arrived in Kurow with 40km under our belt.
We had a quick first lunch here then flew off again as the american cycle tourist who had just arrived warned of a front coming over the mountains.
We hurtled along at 40km/h (sealed roads & a huge tail wind - yay) trying to out ride the clouds which we cuold now see building up behind us. We'd get a drop here and there on our back which only spurred us on harder and faster as we did our
slipstreaming tagteam thing.
We kept this up for 20km and the "gave
it the slip" (as DV said) when we turned to the right for a bit.
The next 30km's were up and down large hills, and our friend the storm caught up with us and decided it didn't like us giving it the slip earlier in the day, so it poured down with rain.
We had a second lunch under some pine trees then set off in a break - we decided to head to
Oamaru as there was a promise of a hot shower.
The shower was hot and long - usually in Aus I have short and sharp showers - conserving water and all that. But i figure in NZ i'm allowed to have a shower for as long as i have been rained on that day.
Dinner was a more reasonably priced
$2.40 for fish & chips (they charged us $3.60 at Ashburton - the nerve!)....another long day ahead tomorrow.
DAY 11 : Oamaru --> Dunedin 119km
Last night was
cold!! It was so cold that i needed to wrap the sleeping bag liner over my face!! The feet were the worst though. I didn't have any socks handy
halfway through the night, so they were quite frozen in the morning. NZ in't supposed to be cold:P (kidding)
We travelled Highway 1 for most of the day - blasting out some tunes on the tranny, trying to hear it over the traffic zooming by.
We finally saw the ocean, but didn't go in for obvious reasons (even though it was a clear, sunny day)
We got off of highway 1 for a bit at
Waikouaiti and took the scenic route along the coaset. It was also the hilly route. At one point going up a steep hill there were two girls riding
horses, at a very lesuirly pace, that threatened to overtake us (but they didn't - so there!)
We then spent another hour in 1-1 (bike gears - mountain climbing position)
climbing Mt Cargill to get into Dunedin - what was supprising was that we didn't need a break once, even after doing 100km already that day - DV must finally be getting fit -
zing!! take that DV..haha nah truth is we both feel better each day, though after averaging 100k's for the last 4 days we've deserved a rest day tomorrow.
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anonymous
non-member comment
need more mullets
Your comments are cracking me up, you'd think that with all the moisture over there, you could't keep it that dry..;-). Good blog, keep it up, get some more mullets. Else I will have to start taking them around here.. - ak