February, my favorite month for consistent, cold winter temperatures in Wisconsin, has been quite the opposite here in NZ. Warm, sunny days and a lack of rain has been characteristic of the month. The headwinds haven't been so strong and the temperature of the ocean has been perfect for swimming. People on the West Coast that get their water from rain that pelts the coast are in the midst of a long drought. The streams are running low and water trucks in high demand, driving up and down the coast delivering water to thirsty customers. But from the saddle of a bicycle I can't complain about the weather at all, it has been almost perfect.
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| Lake Matheson near Fox Glacier on the West Coast, reflects Mt Cook/Aoraki (3,754m/12,316ft) and Mt Tasman. |
I stayed up in the Nelson area for about 3 weeks before heading south. Nine days of that were spent at the Luminate Music Festival; an alcohol-free gathering of about 3000 people for music, workshops, and good times. The festival is set at about 1000m in the hills above Takaka and Motueka/Nelson. It's about 10km inland from the famous Abel Tasman National Park, full of silver beech forest and rock outcroppings that are geological anomalies. Music happened on several different stages; an electronic stage featured dj's playing 24hrs a day, and a live music stage featured great acts all afternoon and dj's after midnight. The workshops focused on alternative living ideas; I took classes on reflexology, yoga, biodynamics, rebirthing, african dancing, healthy living, food resilience and community living. It was a magical place and an amazing experience to be surrounded by such natural beauty, loving people, educational workshops, and great music!
I was a volunteer for the festival and ended up on security duty which gave me free food and a free ticket. I spent the first half of it lounging about at the back gate monitoring vehicles as they drove the public road through the festival grounds. The second half of the festival I spent staying up all night backstage mingling with artists and festival organizers and doing my best to guard the premises. I was told by many that my smile and easy-going attitude was very unbecoming of a proper security guard - I guess I shouldn't consider a future in the profession...
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| Going into the festival grounds from the camping area. It was a leave-no-trace event, although they did have big composting toilets and a massive public compost pile! |
Time passed quickly back in Nelson with Ron and Carol - family friends from Christchurch that I spent every Christmas with. After spending some time applying for jobs and getting my resume back out on the market after the xmas/summer break, I hit the road to the south.
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| One way section of road along the Buller River to the West Coast. Very few cars and beautiful riding. |
Although I saw more tourists - especially cycling tourists - than I ever saw on the North Island, the West Coast was something special. I pedaled on my own from Nelson into the Alps and followed the Buller River past the whitewater kayaking mecca of Murchison to Westport on the Tasman Sea. I spent 3 nights at an old family vacation spot - the Cow Shed Cafe - at the mouth of the Mokihinui River. The off-the-grid lifestyle of the Atkins family there was truly impressive with a digesting-worm septic system, micro-hydro power, a large vege garden, wood/coal burning oven for hot water and baking and the ambition to buy strictly kiwi-grown food (with the exception of coffee of course...) Good on you guys!
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| View from Jesse and Jessica's house near the Mokihinui. I had my tent in front! |
I met up with Lauren in Westport and we stayed with Alan (born one day before me) and Ashleigh. Alan works as a mechanic for a mining company and we learned a lot about the West Coast mining industry. Most of the coal is actually shipped off to China where they dump it in the ocean for safe-keeping! The coal industry (along with tourism and forestry) provides the economically depressed area with much needed jobs. At least the mining company is mostly government owned (but not for long...).
Lauren and I left Westport and headed south through beautiful countryside. The riding was comparatively flat to the North Island and the scenery was stunning. I felt like I was transported from Big Sur, California, to Pemberton, British Columbia, to Patagonia, over the course of the 7-day trip down to Southland. I have been feeling pressed to get back to Christchurch soon to find a job, so we were doing big days of at least 100km.
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| Paparoa National Park and feeling like a tropical rainforest version of Big Sur, CA |
Biking down the West Coast we stopped to check out the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers, some of the lowest lying glaciers in the world and receding at a remarkable rate. Won't be long before they're gone. But the bush that has popped up where ice once stood is beautiful and is a nice reminder that not all change is bad.
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| Reminders of Pemberton, BC near Fox Glacier with Mt Cook/Aoraki visible in the distance |
Finding campsites proved to be a little bit tricky going down the West Coast. New Zealand has had a massive influx in the amount of camper vans in the country. The most common vehicle that has passed me on the road would arguably be a camper van. Most of these are merely vans with beds in the back, and little kitchen facilities that include a sink and a stove. Most are not equipped with latrines, and most free places that tourist camper drivers like to park for the night do not have public toilets. Thus, a human waste problem was created.
At first, tourists were encouraged to carry a spade with them and dig holes to dispose of their bodily wastes. But as with most things in this world, a few people spoil things for everyone else; toilet paper and human poop sightings became more and more frequent. In response to this, local councils cracked down on "Freedom Camping," putting fines of a couple hundred $ to anyone that was found camping in illegal areas. There were still quite a few turn offs with potential spots to spend the night, and I never ended up paying for camping, but there definitely were a few nights when the tent would go up at dark, and come down at sunrise...
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| Could be Patagonia... but it's Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown |
After crossing the Southern Alps, Lauren stayed in Wanaka to rest for a few days while I carried on alone. In a late afternoon ride, I rode over the highest paved road in New Zealand and cruised down into Queenstown. What I found there was a city I never expected to see in NZ. The tourist city had an international feel to it, immediately palpable at 8:30pm on a Monday night with streets teeming with visitors, lines out the door to the well-known burger place that I wanted to get dinner from, and bars getting ready for pub-crawls. It was a complete gong-show and after a delicious burger, I managed to quickly find a little, private beach on the lake, just outside of town, to pitch my tent for the night. The next morning I was off on a fancy old steamship that catered to the tourist crowd for lake cruises, but extends its services to act as a ferry for bicyclists. The road on the other side of the lake - the shortcut to Te Anau - was gravel and an immediate cure to my tourist-overload astonishment. I hardly saw anyone on the 90km gravel ride and even after I hit sealed road in Southland the unpopulated region satisfied my desire to be on my own in the countryside.
At Lake Te Anau and Lake Manapouri (the Upper Waiau River between the two lakes is the river in The Fellowship of the Ring at the end with the uruk-hai battle...), New Zealand saw the beginning of its environmental movement. In order to supply power to the aluminum smelter in Bluff (southern most point on the South Island) it was proposed in 1959 to raise the levels of the lakes by about 30 meters. This prompted protests nationwide to save the lakes, previously unheard of in NZ, and after a successful campaign, the environmental movement was born. A solution was found that kept the lakes at natural levels, but diverted water from the Waiau River - the second largest river in New Zealand with a flow of 400 cumecs (14,125cfs). For 21 years, the mighty Waiau was reduced to... 1 cumec... until environmentalists won another battle. By using trout (introduced to NZ) as an indicator species, scientists calculated the flow needed for 95% of trout habitat. This flow varies between 12 and 16 cumecs (423-565cfs). Environmental victory???
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| Awesome surf on the south coast. |
At the mouth of the Waiau River I hit the Foveaux Straight - the body of water separating Stewart Island from the mainland. Weather comes straight off the Antarctic ice and, unobstructed by any other piece of land, slams this coastline with high winds and cold temperatures. In the summer months, warm water circulates down from the Tasman Sea to make the ocean here enjoyable to swim in with only a swimsuit. But it must get cold in the winter...
I ran into a group of surfers and even got to try out a sit-on-top board with a paddle. I thought I'd get the hang of surfing it quickly, but it turned out the board was very different from a kayak and the most I got was two paddle strokes before falling off - forget about the waves. I pressed the surfers about life in Southland and on the coast. I asked about the cold winds, hail, rain, snow and damp cold of winter. It's tough to live in, they told me, but without the bad weather, the surf wouldn't be any good. The place must be paradise for wind and wave surfers, keen enough to wear a thick wetsuit to play in the sea.
When life gives you lemons...
After a 200km ride for my birthday, I made it to Dunedin where I'm resting up for a few days before I make the final push to Christchurch. I'm debating between the 370km coastal route and the 620km route through the mountains... If you wanna see more pictures of the beautiful South Island, check them out here:
Te-Waka-A-Maui (The South Island) I love to read comments too!
