Accompanying
me were Stephen, Gavin and Tracey.
The last
trip in March was a great success so a plan was quickly hatched to do a longer
4-day trip and venture a bit further afield. We decided to head down the West coast to the
Franz Joseph glacier. It has been a lovely dry, sunny and warm autumn, but come
the day of the ride the weather pattern had changed and wet weather was
forecast on the West Coast for the entire period. Being the hardened bad-assed
bikers that we are, we chickened out and decided to head down the East Coast
instead.
The
Southern Alps are a high and rather abrupt mountain range and tend to create a
pronounced rain shadow meaning that cool rainy weather on the West Coast often
leads to hot, dry conditions on the East Coast, so there was plenty of logic
behind the change of route. To put this in context, some locations in the West
can receive up to 9 metres of rain a year with many places on the Eastern side receiving less than
1 metre.
We took the
ferry over to Picton and from there headed down to Methven where we stayed the
night.
From
Methven we headed off to Lake Tekapo and then onto Lake Pukaki. Lake Pukaki is
a wonderful turquoise colour and is formed by melt water from the Franz Joseph Glacier. This part of
the ride passes through high plains (McKenzie Country) and scenery wise was
stunning. The actual riding on this route is ostensibly pretty easy, but was
marred by winds which must have hit 100km/hr at times and the closer we got to
Lake Pukaki the worse they got. We had planned to ride the 50km or so along the
lake to the base of Mt Cook but we could see there was heavy rain in the
distance so beat a hasty retreat back to Lake Tekapo. Accommodation was pretty
hard to come by, but we eventually found some rooms in a hotel complex called
Peppers (I think). The rooms were expensive, cramped and poorly ventilated. You
quite literally could not swing a cat in them, and believe you me we tried. Not
recommended – the hotel that is. We did at least beat the rain, which arrived
just as we checked in at the hotel.
After a
rather uncomfortable night it was a relief to get back on the bikes and hit the
road. The rain had also cleared up and after a nice and relaxed days riding we
ended up at the mountain resort of Hanmer Springs where we stayed the night.
The resort is very pretty and we quickly headed off to its famous hot pools,
which were just what we needed.
After a
much more relaxed night we alas came to the last day of the trip. This is also
where we said goodbye to Gavin and Tracey who were heading down to
Christchurch, whilst Stephen and I headed back to Picton to catch the ferry
back to Wellington.
Rather than
head back on the relatively boring SH 1 we decided to take the alternative SH
70 to Kaikoura and then onto Picton. This turned out to be the most demanding
riding of the whole trip as the road was narrow and twisty with lots of steep
drop-offs and liberal dosings of gravel and cow poo on many of the bends. Mind you, it didn’t stop
me from giving it “some welly” along this section though I was ever mindful of
the hazards in front of
me. The scenery along this 100km or so section was rather splendid but it was
still a bit if a relief to finally make it to Kaikoura.
Kaikoura is
a pleasant little town and is well frequented by tourists who come for the
whale watching tours, which sail from here. We had a ferry to catch so didn’t
have time for any marine based mammalian activities (highly recommended by the
way) so after the obligatory fish and chips lunch set off on the 2 hour ride
back to Picton.
On the road to Methven.
Lake Tekapo.
Lake Pukaki - this is as far as we got.
McKenzie Country
Near Mt Hutt on the way back to Hanmer Springs.
Somewhere on SH 70.
