160km, 3040m elevation gain, 4.15am-11pm
Just like my last motel night in Methven, I struggled to sleep. Maybe it was too hot inside; maybe I’d had too many calories too fast. Not long after 3am I gave up.
Strangely ennervated, I scoffed the last of the rolls and a bacon-flecked kumara salad before squashing my gear explosion back into bags. At 4.17am I rode into darkness, back to the main road and the start of a gravel path that was the Alps to Ocean route.
I loved this flat, silent ride beside the canal, through near-total darkness. The black wraps you up and all you know is a moving puddle of light. You listen more, and smell more. I rode in my jacket, the cool air welcome after yesterday’s scorch. Flat gravel felt so fast compared to the mountains. This felt fun again.
In the distance, strange lights sat by the canal. Eventually I realised they were fishing for salmon, perhaps farm escapees. The fishers seemed furtive but perhaps that was imaginary. I knew when I’d passed the farm by the wall of smell.
Nearing the shore of Lake Pukaki, the black was lifting to purple. I’d been going 2 hours, covering a pleasing 42km, when I stopped at a picnic bench. I bolted down some crisps and bathed in the sunrise. For the first time in days, I extricated my phone and took a few photos, trying to capture the beauty and joy. Even as I rode off, I kept glancing back to Aoraki, watching colour climb up her faces.
Soon I crossed the main road, leaving the Alps to Ocean, and the route swung onto another road parallelling a waterway. The notes implied this would be bumpy but it was more benign that I expected and relatively quick. Not long after 7am, I crossed a river but decided to try for water at an upcoming campground.
But after the river, the rough gravel deteriorated massively. I felt like I’d misinterpreted the notes, which implied the bad bit was before the bridge, so rode along feeling confused and stupid. Looking back, I wish I’d managed this section differently, either by walking or standing more. It was mostly fist- to baby-head- sized river stones, making for a very bumpy ride. While standing was more comfortable, the scale of the stones made it hard to maintain momentum and balance. Dawn’s joy had ebbed. I can remember my left sit bone feeling tender with all the hard bounces, but just dismissed this like the other constant pains.
It was 5 heinous kms to the campground, where the few campers were starting to rise. I stopped at a tap festooned with warnings. I treated it, glad I’d brought so many aquatabs. Riding out of the campground, it was already warming up and I felt some concern about the hot day ahead. At least the road surface improved. There were a few 4wders out and I thought one was heading right for me without slowing. Then I realised it wasn’t even on the road, just driving parallel on the river flood plain.
Soon I was lakeside again – Benmore this time – before turning into the next section of private land. We’d been given the code to this gate. I remembered Brian saying he’d just vault over with his bike. But lifting my bike over gates was never easy and I was grateful I’d noted the code on my phone. Not long after I stopped for a break, already uncomfortably hot at 9.30am.
The route gradually climbed 500m up the valley, relatively painlessly, especially with music blasting away. When your headphones are physically connected to your bike, balancing it through gates is a challenge but I persevered. A sweeping hairpin marked the approach to the saddle – far quicker than I’d expected. I dropped my bike and took a few photos, so good was my mood, especially since it was downhill from here. There was a panoramic view of a lake, though I had little sense of where I was outside my small map tiles. From here to the Catlins, my mental map was non-existent, which would feel increasingly dislocating as sleep deprivation ramped up.
I enjoyed the descent and started imagining lunch at Otematata. But my joy turned to irritation as several more saddles appeared. The route then sped down to the lake, but it was a drowned valley with many descending spurs. An angry study of the topo revealed yet another sharp saddle to come before I’d descend to the dam itself. Increasingly hot and discontented, I watched the lake as I rode, boaties enjoying themselves. I wondered how they’d got there. My torturous idea of leisure seemed totally divorced from theirs. I swooped past a tree-lined beach, boaties relaxing on it, then up another pinch grovel. Why hadn’t I stopped there for some shade? It was after 12, I’d been riding for 8 hours and I really needed to eat. The sun beat down as I dropped and climbed again, this tree-less country feeling more and more hostile.
When the route dipped close to the shoreline 15 minutes later, I didn’t make the same mistake. I scrambled down a bank to a welcome tree, to munch melting cheese and shapes. I waded into the lake, toes stirring velvety murk, and rinsed out my singlet. Otematata’s shops, surely not far away now, got me back up the bank after 25 shaded minutes.
It was now 1pm and I’d travelled 103km. Late last night I’d watched Pete inch up the Hawkdun range after starting from Tekapo that morning. Given I’d started so early, I knew I’d be able to get at least there, if not farther along the tops. I knew climbing that terrain would be better in the evening than the sun-blasted day. My current struggles with the heat would be recompensed later – and maybe I should stop flogging myself.
I rode around a big cove, a family relaxing on its beach. They looked at me strangely. Or perhaps paranoia was setting in. Rounding the back of the cove, the route naturally cut uphill towards a headland. A shirtless man was walking up the road, staring at his hands. It took a long moment for me to recognise Rob the film maker. We didn’t really chat as he was focused on not crashing his drone. But he did intimate that Chris and Bob weren’t far behind, which I found somewhat depressing given I thought I’d left Tekapo several hours ahead. Since the high of the first saddle, I’d sunk into a suboptimal state, driven by both the heat and my disappointment in the lack of descent. By now I knew there was yet another vicious hill around the corner, as Rob helpfully confirmed. I rode off, not sure if he was filming me and whether I should attempt to look competent and/or smiley. (He was and this clip made it into the film).
Finally I descended to the dam, pedalled across its flatness and joined the sealed road. A cycle trail paralleled the road and I stopped to check my written notes. Being exactly on the route had become a moral imperative; one of the only certainties in my sleep-deprived cognitive framework. But no, the notes implied the road, which concurred with the gpx line. So on I went, enjoying the speed of seal. Disconcertingly, there were people and cars.
Soon I turned left onto a highway and right into the Otematata shops, pulling up outside an icecream store. It was 2pm and felt like 30+ degrees on the tarmac. Inside the store, I waited zombie-like for some teenagers to make their selections. Eventually I ordered a double cone and the friendly woman scooped it with a generous hand. She told me my friend was waiting under a tree in the park. After a few seconds, I figured she must mean Dulkara, who hated the heat.
I sat outside to eat my icecream and Dulkara appeared, as did Rob. Chris and Bob pulled in at some point too. My memory of this stop is strangely vague, despite Ride with GPS telling me it was a scandalously long 1 hour. I definitely bought more supplies from the dairy, including 1.5 litres of welcomingly cold water, plus a powerade which I downed on the spot. And more crisps.
We chatted about the hilly hell we’d just covered, and the travails of yesterday afternoon. Rob filmed as we said random things to camera, some of which made the final cut. My words are a little slurred! Also sitting outside the shops were a group of older people very interested in my bike but I struggled to converse as I packed up, standing in what felt like a concrete sauna.
At least riding away brought some breeze. Chris and Bob were just ahead; Dulkara still in town mulling her heat strategy. I turned into Otematata station, riding right past the farm buildings before climbing the inevitable hill. I alternated half-hearted riding with pushing, collapsing for a rest after about 500 vertical metres, about 4pm. Dulkara caught me and we climbed the final stretch together.
The ridge topped out at around 800m, followed by a nice descent. I thought the next stretch might be slow but for once my misreading was favourable. The 4wd track down valley was fast and fun, requiring little concentration. Talking to Dulkara helped – it was the first time I’d had more than a snatched conversation since the race started, over a week ago. It was also first time I’d ridden with someone else since day 2’s dawn with Brendan. 20km sped by as we chatted about life and paths taken. We passed isolated huts in grassy clearings and I wondered, half longingly, about living there.
About 7pm, we crossed the river to the base of the Hawkdun ascent. We sat down on the lawn-like bank and I ate some tuna and shapes, and showed Dulkara my bruises. There was potentially no water on the range, and I swallowed as much as I could, camel-like. I filled both my 2L bladder and my bottle, as well as my now-leaking 500mL filter bladder (vowing again this would be the filter’s last trip). This would have been a perfect spot to camp, but I had mentally committed to the evening climb many hours ago. And the temperature was finally dropping to bearable.
So we started to push. This climb to the ridge was another 500m beast. It looked very steep from the base but I felt fine, aided again by conversation. Sometimes it was push bike – brake – step – repeat, but mostly just a trudge. About 8.30pm, near the 1000m mark, riding became plausible. As we pedalled, the sun burnt the sky red and Aoraki glowed behind us. I remembered watching sunrise on its faces, a million hours ago this morning. We kept climbing, more and more ridably, as darkness fell, inadvertently herding a large flock of sheep who appeared like ghosts in our light beams. They flowed over the landscape much faster than our spent legs.
About 10.30pm I was fading and wanted to stop. There was a small hut about 7km away, perhaps another hour. Probably it was already home to a sleeping Bob and Chris. When I stopped, I wanted to have some food and not feel bad about disturbing others, so the hut didn’t hugely appeal. And it was a perfect night to camp up here. Even though we’d climbed to 1400m, the weather remained warm with only a touch of breeze. These thoughts chased round in my head for a while as we ground on.
An intriguing “stone man” was marked on the topo and I kept glancing off to the right, imagining both a fantastic apparition and potential bivy spot. But my light only reached so far. I persuaded Dulkara I’d be fine and started to look around for a flat spot. Her faltering light edged ahead, as I continuing moving while scanning the terrain. Finding a place to camp took far longer than it should, my brain regressed to near-toddler cognition. I ended up riding another desultory kilometre, interspersed with flailing searches for flat, untussocked spots.
Eventually I pulled myself together, found a tiny clearing to the right of the track and pitched my fly. I rehydrated my BCC, sadly the square meat kind, Tekapo’s supermarket having been ransacked by previous riders, and slowly sorted myself and gear out. Then I sat curled in my sleeping bag, eating warm food, appreciating the peace and stars. While I’d stopped a lot (by racing standards) in this afternoon’s heat, I didn’t regret it. This night up and along the Hawkduns was otherworldly. And now I’d been on the go for 19 hours, it was time to lie down.