Day 17

Last night Josh and I cycled from Picton to Pelorus Bridge – unfortunately not starting till 6pm as the ferry was late.

As we waited to get off, the American cycle tourist we’d boarded with told us he’d just had a phone call from home saying one of his mates had been hit and killed by a car while cycling. Sobering stuff and he was understandably feeling shocked and dislocated.

As Josh and I headed up the series of hills out of Picton, we were both passed extremely closely by a white people mover. As a Wellington cycle commuter, I experience this all the time but this was right up there with the worst – felt like 10cm clearance. About five minutes later, I saw the vehicle had pulled over to look at the view. Josh glanced at the car but kept going. I wrestled with my resolution not to engage in road rage with drivers and lost. But tried to remember the best way to go about this, which is to focus on how you feel rather than attacking them. The two young female tourists took my diatribe well, apologised profusely – and five minutes later passed us again nice and wide with a wave… hopefully they will continue this behaviour.

The third unfortunate happening yesterday evening was when, glancing down at my gears, I ended up in an extremely steep sided verge. My bike handling’s improved enough that I was able to slow down substantially before the inevitable impact – more bruises adding to the ones gained on day 3, plus a medium graze on my arm. First aiding occurred, and we continued without incident, riding through the dusk and into the full darkness. There wasn’t much traffic and I felt we were pretty visible with all our lights/reflectors. A police officer watched us go by and didn’t give chase!

Despite our 9pm arrival, we resolved to have an early start the today. 7am saw us heading down the road that leads to the Maungatapu track – a road that I’ve previously walked all 15km of, after tramping in the Richmond range, and remembered surprisingly well.

The Maungatapu track is notoriously difficult – steep and rocky on both sides. It was a slog up, made easier by the cool morning. Towards the top, we were both walking and as ever I found pushing the 25kg of bike plus gear an upper body challenge.

The descent was better than I expected – I rode most of it while Josh rode it all. My new brake pads are definitely bedded in.

We made our way to Nelson, starving and focused on finding a cafe. We sat outside on bean bags (next to the bikes as always), had lunch and decided Tapawera would be far enough.

The next section to Wakefield was for me one of the worst of the trip so far – a heinous headwind, boring cycle trail and very sore abs from the morning. At one point I had to have an emergency lie down!

Finally we reached Wakefield and a very welcome cafe. Maybe some of the ab pain was hunger related as it then went away. The next section was easier – a smooth gravel climb through forestry then a long descent, followed by lots of nice sealed road (as we had to divert around a logging road closure). We rolled into Tapawera at 7pm – 122km with 2100m of climbing made it a big day!

At the pub were Catherine and Brent, who I hadn’t seen since the early days – and then Ellen turned up. Great to have a mini reunion and share stories, and hopefully do some more riding together over the next few days.

Tomorrow maybe Murchison – we’re trying to time the weather right for the Big River section after Reefton though it’s hard to think that far ahead!