The High Country
Molesworth Station.
It was raining in Wellington as we woke up early and packed our gear on the bikes. Thankfully our Marshguard, down tube fender, rear mudguards combined with the rain blocking capability of the frame bags kept the wheel flung road puddles off us, for there is nothing worse than having soaked gear on a long days ride, and today was going to be a LONG day. Off we scarpered to the ferry via the main road into Wellington central. It was slightly damp outside by this time but no heavy rain. We took a page out of wives organisational playbook and checked in 35 minutes early before the masses arrived. It was a good thing too as we missed out on a bus load of people and a epic line up at the check in counter. The ferry journey saw brother dear catching up on some sleep and I making a futile attempt to get blog entries up to date, while weathering a choppy Cook Straight.
From Picton to Blenhiem there was a gentle tailwind and we made good speed. Along the road we again found the property called Rivendell that my wife and I spotted on our honeymoon tour of New Zealand. Random stranger questions answered and supplies for the next two days were collected in Blenhiem at New World. We sauntered along country roads towards Young's Pass. After a few darn uphill kilometres of gravel road we stopped to collect filtered melt river water. The river gorge was so wide that it took a few minutes to walk from the spring melt banks down to the relative trickle of the summer river.
Slowly after sheep herding, speeding farmer dodging and seeming eons of climbing the Sun's light started to fade. Sunset was at 9pm, a concept that was quite startling coming from Queensland, the land of no daylight savings. Twilight seemed to drag on for another hour and our riding uphill dragged on for another four past that.
It was an epic day, 10hours in the saddle saw us reach camp at 2am Sunday morning. It was a grindathon, but there was no other source of easily accessible water or sanitation, we had to make camp at Molesworth Station DOC campsite. Our pinky toes went numb and yellow in the process of pedalling there in the descending temperatures, but we got there... again thanks to Klite Dynamo lights.
Cold and sweaty we hastily put up the tents and decided a head torch illuminated sponge bath was the only solution. So walking a kilometre in ether direction so as to not view any brotherly nudity we worked from top down, removing dirty section of clothing, hastily sponge washing and quickly donning clean apparel. Bed was very welcome as a source of warmth after all this as you can imagine.
Day 14
The repeated slamming of the long drop toilet door by fellow campers at 7am woke us to our gritty sleep deprived reality. Four hours sleep, blearg! The friendly on site ranger pottered over to say hello and speculated that we must have arrived late and was subsequently gobsmacked when I told him it was actually early morning. We broke camp, paid the meager fees for our meager stay and rode up the road to discover our campsite had been a sheltered river bend in the high alpine valley nestled between snow carved mountains.
The scenery was so vast that panoramic photos were needed to suitably capture it all. As it was a public access road through a privately owned station, there was regular stock gates to open and close, open and close... To say we developed a system of thoroughfare would be a blinkin understatement.
It was epic scenery, and probably seemed to us even more epic due to our physical and emotional baking from the almost endurance race that was yesterday. After Isolated Valley, which really was quite spectacularly isolated, we stopped beside the Severn River for lunch.
The rice crackers that we had now hauled over 150km of gravel roads as part of lunch were now looking a bit worse for wear, but still tasted good. We filtered more almost pristine snow melt water from the river and continued on our merry way.
The gravel roads lasted till the outskirts of Hanmer Springs, 80km in grey gravel totality. My 29+ front wheel steamrolled over all the road irregularities and ensured I had an enjoyable ride. Snow melt carved river gorges extended almost all the way to Hanmer Springs, but excluded our insane descent into Hanmer via Jollies Pass Road. Note to self; we should have taken right turn and followed the NZ cycle trail signs, not turned left onto Jollies Pass Road!
As we awaited our well earned rides end burgers, three lots of inquisitive people passing by stopped to ask questions about bikes, tyres and where it was that we had traveled from. Before heading to the holiday park and our powerless cabin a passerby couple inquired in a German accent; "are you sponsored by Rohloff?"
