new zealand …uphill

Getting into the swing of things

I had almost made it to Dunedin and been through a couple of hard days adjusting to life on a bike. Taking a rest day in Mosgiel was essential as my body was sore and mentally I was shot. I was spent and couldn’t believe I had got so far. I was happy but exhausted. I knew there was still some monster days to come so slept and slept and slept. This didn’t quite prepare me for the next day.

I had to get through Dunedin, cover 60km and climb three massive hills. The first two had a climb of 400m each and the third 200m. Mentally I was faltering and I was trying to find any way possible to avoid the hills, impossible of course. So once again I saddled up and pushed on. The weather forecast was for sun and heat and it was right. The day was beautiful, and as I grinded over the first hill I quickly went through half of my water. It was a Sunday in Dunedin so things were very quiet and knowing I had still a ways to go I pushed on through the city knowing that the hill out was going to be much worse.

It took me two hours to climb the hill out. I had to stop every 5 minutes and rest. I was cooking. To make things worse, a procession of Lycra clad cyclists were passing me every 10 minutes. Those bastards on their speedy road bikes, I was carrying 20kgs of bags, they just had their trendy bike shorts and sunglasses to deal with. I kept grinding and grinding. Then as I almost reached the top, a steady procession of cars containing the cyclists with bikes on the back came streaming the other way. It was obviously a common Sunday activity to park a car on either side of the hill and to cycle up and over then drive back. Those lazy bastards, I thought. From the top, I could see the appeal. A beautiful vista of the peninsular and Dunedin. I lingered for a while taking it all in, but I knew the best part was about to begin. Going down the other side.

I was giddy with excitement. This would be my first real downhill run. I checked my brakes, strapped everything down and prepared myself mentally. Then I started down. My speed picked up and picked up and I had the road to myself. The wind was screaming past as if in protest to my new found speed. I laughed, and laughed and laughed and zig-zagged through the dashed white centre lines. It was the most fun I have had on the trip so far, my eyes were streaming and bugs were constantly bouncing off of my face. I wound down the hill that had just taken me 2 hours to climb in 12 minutes. It was choice! For a split second I contemplated going back up and doing it all again.

I was reunited with SH1 and stopped at a roadside store for a drink and a bite to eat, and a sit down. I sat down next to an old cobber watching the ocean and shot the breeze for a while. I find myself talking to a lot of people wherever I stop. Most are interested in my cycle. Ron and I had a good yarn about life in the South Island while his grandsons ate their pies so as to not make a mess in the car. It was a nice break. Spending such long periods alone on the bike means any chance for a conversation is a pleasure. I said good bye to Ron and he shock my hand firmly, not in a thanks for the meeting kind of way I am so used to, but in a “It was really nice meeting you and chatting” kind of way. The way a handshake is meant to be.

I had one more hill to cross and it was steep, but my guide book had an alternate route around the coast that seemingly avoided the hill. I couldn’t face a 200m climb as I was almost out of juice, so opted for the coast. What the guide book didn’t make clear was that I would be trading a 200m climb and decent for a procession of plentiful but smaller hills. It was tough. The one big hill would have been the better option but the view of the ocean made up for it somewhat. It was slow going but I only had to get to where I was going, Waikouaiti, by night fall. I eventually crawled into town knowing that if I saw one more hill that day I would die.

I found a small motor camp and organised a bed for the night. I needed to organise some food, and had nothing in my bags. The motor camp was some ways out of town and I couldn’t face getting back on the bike again. There was a small pub attached to the camp so I fancied a beer and a pub meal. I sauntered in and took a look at the menu of deep fried everything. I didn’t care what it was I just needed food in me. Then disaster. I almost collapsed when the bloke behind the bar told me there was no meals today. The look on my face told him everything.
“Hold on a tick” he said and disappeared. Out came his wife who also ran the motor camp.
“Do you fancy some chops and potatoes love?” she asked. I just grinned.
“I have something in the freezer I could defrost for you”.
“Yes please” I replied, she was a life saver.
I ordered a beer, and sat out on the deck in what was a warm evening breeze. The stars were out and it felt like the middle of summer. Then it became clear to me how hot the day actually was. My beer strangely evaporated, so I ordered another. Then my angel appeared with a hot plate full of chops, mashed potato, peas, pumpkin and gravy! I devoured it and wondered if it would be bad manners to lick the plate clean. I thought perhaps on my way down the hill earlier I was actually hit by a truck and heaven was a seaside motor camp where you ate chops and mashed potato every night. I cleaned the plate, it was spotless. I hit the sack and slept soundly.

The next day had a prelude of rain overnight. This made the road gleary while it dried in the sun. My goal was Oamaru, back onto SH1 and not so many hills. Once again I had the option of a coastal route to avoid some hills and decided a view, even if it came with hills, was better that trucks and sheep. Pulling off of SH1 lead me to a road all to myself. It was not hilly and smell of the ocean spray that shrouded me was divine, and made a pleasant change from the smell of cattle trucks and silage. The road was so quiet I rode down the centre line. It was beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable. It felt great to be back on the coast. Off shore a tanker was slowly crawling up the coastline in an otherwise unblemished ocean. Oamaru arrived almost too soon.

Oamaru was a really fantastic town. Lots of interesting buildings and plenty of places to grab a meal, a coffee or something stronger. I realised I haven’t had a coffee in over a week. I thought perhaps this would be a good opportunity to keep off of caffeine for good. But I enjoy coffee, and I was quickly informed via those following my progress on Twitter that caffeine can provide a real boost when riding. So before I set off on my next days ride I was reacquainted with a hot latte from one of the many main street coffee shops, and they were right. I had a new spring in my pedal and things felt good. I made it half way to Timaru and stopped for another coffee, and then pow I was off again. The coffee fix was working.

Now, on the way to Timaru I noticed several inconsistencies with the road signage. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but when you pass a road sign on a bike that says Timaru 18km, then 4km down the road another say the exact same thing, this bothers me. As I go from town to town, one of my joys is approaching a new road sign and seeing if I can guess how far is left to go, and feeling rewarded as the number goes down in large chucks. When the signs get it wrong they rob me of this pleasure. I kept going and noticed I was passing Half Chain Road, a road I passed some 50km back. I began to get worried. Perhaps I was going in a circle, or worse, perhaps there was some rift in the time and space continuum between Oamaru and Timaru. Perhaps Oamaru and Timaru are actually the same place. I am stuck in a never ending cycle never actually getting anywhere, destined to spend my days riding from Oamaru to Timaru. Then finally I arrived at Timaru and luckily it wasn’t Oamaru.

I made good time and was aware that the weather was about to pack in for the next few days so while the going was good I considered pushing on a further hour or two up to Temuka, also just incase there was a rift in space and time and could wake up tomorrow back in Oamaru. I had some energy left so I could make it by dusk. I thought I should ring ahead just to make sure there was a bed waiting for me, and luckily so.
“Oh you won’t be findin a spare bed in Temuka tonite” the friendly lady from the first place I rang informed me. “It’s the ploughing at the moment so the town in completely booked out”. The ploughing sounded like quite an event, and kind of spooky. So I decided to risk being lost in space and time and I stayed in Timaru the night. I woke up in Timaru the next day.

The weather had turned, and it was bucketing down. If I wanted to be in Christchurch by Friday I needed to push on so I piled on the layers and coat and ventured out into the downpour. I couldn’t rain all the way. It did. I stopped in Temuka, and not a plough to be seen. I did find great coffee.

I stopped for my regular coffee stops, and to thaw all the way to Ashburton. I was lucky to have a tail wind so I just had to put up with being wet. I got my layers right so being wet was not a miserable experience, in fact it was fun. Once you are wet you are wet so I took great pleasure squirting through the puddles. I kept moving so as to not get cold, because I knew if I got cold it would be the end. Not terminally, but it would be very hard to keep going. The occasional hot coffee helped and eventually I dripped into the Ashburton information centre and asked for the closest place with a bath, and after two more kilometres, defrosted in a deep deep bath of hot hot water. I couldn’t get to bath hot enough! So I discovered that I could ride in the rain, drenched, with a tail wind. At one point I turned into the wind and had to cycle a few kms into it. That was murder, and there is no way I could have cycled 80km in the rain into that cold frigid wind. The next day was forecast to be continued rain, and hopefully the same southerly behind me.

The next morning the rain had been reduced to a drizzle, and the wind had dropped. The temperature had dropped 4 degrees and although I wasn’t wet, I was cold. I found a good rhythm and made it to Christchurch in surprisingly good time. I wondered if it was a combination of a tail wind, one week of cycling under my belt, caffeine, getting my diet right or all of the above but things were generally feeling easier. My seat still causes me great pain and being cold on a bike in no fun either. My legs were feeling good though, and mentally I was in a better space. Having the stamina to go the whole distance is still to be determined but for now I was feeling pretty good about progress. Getting to Christchurch would mark one quarter of my trip complete, and this to me was huge.

Pulling into Christchurch I had the joy of city traffic and stop go stop go at the traffic lights. It made a change from the 600km of farm land to have city streets to ride on, and after constant consultation with my map found my hotel, the first and probably only hotel on my trip, a kind gift organised by Daniel from Trade Me’s Travelbug.co.nz. Two nights of comfort! I was worried about a hotel accommodating my bike, but as I rode into the reception at Hotel SO, the smiles on the faces of the receptionists told me this would be no problem. A bucket of cold beers awaited me at reception as well as a parcel from home. There was plenty of room for my bike, the bed enormous and the beer quickly inhaled.

I am in Christchurch for the next day or so taking my second rest day. I have caught up with a whole bunch of people I have met online or as a part of my blogging and tweeting about my trip already. I am attending a Tweetup tonight so am looking forward to meeting a whole lot of new people.

The donations have been coming through to TASC, thanks to you all. Next week I am starting a series of profiles on some of the people involved with TASC. All the donations will go a long way to helping them out.

I have some more video footage that I will edit and put up as soon as I can, and internet connectivity permitting. Thanks for all your tweets, emails and comments on the blog and FaceBook. It makes a huge difference knowing there are people out there giving me moral support. It would be a long long lonely journey without you all.

Route Thu 30 April – Ashburton to Christchurch

Today I didn’t nearly get as wet. I did 86km but the tailwind made it feel like 60 so I was thankfull for that. It was bloody cold, but probably not the coldest day I will experience in the next 5 weeks.

I am in Christchurch for the next couple of days being a tourist and catching up with some great people. This is a milestone for me, basically 1/4 of the trip is under my belt. Woohooo!

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Route Wed 29 April – Timaru to Ashburton

Today’s ride was wet wet wet. Luckily I had a tail wind so got to Ashburton quicker and out of my wet clothes.

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Route Tue 28 April – Oamaru to Timaru

Today was a mix of flats, hills headwinds and tailwinds. All in all a good days ride.

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Route Mon 27 April – Waikouaiti to Oamaru

A nice trip up the coast!

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Route Sun 26 April – Mosgiel to Waikouaiti

A hilly day, highest climb was 400m. Fun going down again tho :})

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Video log – Stewart Island to Dunedin

Here is the first official vlog of my trip. Starting in Auckland, I fly to Invercargill, bike to Bluff, ferry to Stewart Island, cycle to the southern most point, ferry back to Bluff, cycle to Gore, then to Balclutha, then to Dunedin (Mosgiel). Comments welcome, please!

Week one – Stewart Island to Dunedin

I am officially on the road! I stood at the start of SH1, New Zealand’s longest road that goes from tail to tip. I stood and looked at the signpost that in one direction pointed to Stewart Island, from where I had just come, and in the other to Cape Reinga. The sign gave a distance of 1401km in a straight line. My route would add an extra 1200km to that. I departed Bluff riding Sh1 on Wednesday with my temporary riding partner Tomoaki from Japan. The day was a little grey and cool, but we had a slight tail wind. Tomoaki has been cycling around the South Island for the last two months so I planned to learn as much as possible from him as I could. I bombarded him with questions and extracted some good info. I learnt I was travelling relatively light, which is good. My rain protection is lacking which is bad. I will have to get a better rain coat if I plan to stay dry. Also I was advised that the west coast is wet wet wet and some of the mountains make you cry. As long as it is raining when you cry I thought, then no one will notice. I had been leaning towards heading east anyway so Tom helped me with the decision. Tom was only heading for Invercargill today, I was going to push on to Gore.

Riding with a partner is much more enjoyable. We took turns at leading, and just having someone to pace yourself with is fantastic. Although I think my exuberance meant I took on hills with reckless abandon whereas Tom took the sensible slow and steady approach.

We checked out the Invercargill information centre and the live Tuataras on display, Tom dragged me to the dispaly. He was fascinated by them. There was a Burt Monroe exhibit there, our very own World’s Fastest Indian, and a room full of crates that looked to hold archaeologists treasures, with one long man slowly examining the contents of one. I have no idea what was in the crates but it looked exciting.

I said good bye to Tom and insisted he travel to the North Island and stay with me in Kerikeri. I hope to see him again in a few months time. For now I was pushing on to Gore. A slight uphill gradient all the way, and an extra 70kms. It was going to be a big day. I was keen to see what I could do.

The going was pretty good. Cranking it out uphill all the way. The countryside is beautiful and the wind was cooling. I had to adjust layers a couple of times to get my body temperature right, but otherwise it was a good ride. I had two rewards on the way where the gentle incline became a steep decline. The first was an awesome drop for a kilometre or so (distance not altitude). I gripped the handlebars tightly and went wheeeeeeeeeeee. I could have turned around and ridden up the hill to do it all again, but I didn’t need to because in another 20ks was anther drop. Wheeeeeeeeee. If it wasn’t for those two awesome hills the ride would not have been nearly as enjoyable. I was screaming with joy, literally. It felt good.

I reached Mataura 15km short of Gore and felt like my tank was near empty. I had an option of accommodation in Mataura but was determined to push on. A quick stop at a petrol station for chocolate and I was off again, uphill some more to Gore. I hurt. I arrived just on dusk after a long seven hours pedalling. I covered 98km in one day and I was stoked. My legs didn’t hate me as much as I though they would, just a mild dislike. My arse was not my friend though.

The next day I dragged myself out of bed and packed the bike up once again, and departed for Balclutha. This day was a mission and almost broke me. I have a cycling guidebook that gives some detail on routes and gradients. It has elevation charts that show the hills, but it is taking me some time to figure out what a little lump on the chart translates to in the real world. The scale of the elevation meant little to me at this stage. A 100m climb vs a 300m climb all depends on the gradient. The route to Balclutha was up hill with a continuous series of bumps. Not just a few, but dozens of bumps. I though nothing of it looking at them on paper until the I arrived at the third one, then the fourth one then the fifth one and on and on and on. I was a never ending cycle of grinding up a hill, reaching the top to see the road disappear down into a valley then up another equally steep hill. And every hill I prayed that when I got to the top I would see flat road. It never happened. It was sole destroying, and I knew this was the work of Frank, the hill at home in Kerikeri that still insists on tormenting me. After such a successful first day Frank was knocking me down a peg or two. It all felt like some sick joke as I climbed and climbed and felt like dying. Then, I must have been halfway through the hills and it happened.

I got to the top of one of the hills and cried.

Not of sadness or pain. I cried out of happiness. It sounds odd, and I didn’t know what was happening to me. I was so so angry then I remembered where I was and what I was doing and I shouted, and I mean at the top of my lungs, “Yeah, I am F#@%!n doing this!” and put my head down and I kept going. My legs started moving easier and I found a new energy. I blanked the hills out and made it to Balclutha. That night I collapsed.

I was pleased I have nailed two pretty tough days but I realised I haven’t been eating properly and running out of gas. After a consult to the Twitter-verse it was clear that I needed to fuel my body better and continuously on the go. For the next day to Dunedin I stocked up on nuts, and energy bars to snack on all the way.

I departed in the mist from Balclutha after a large breakfast of carbs and found more of the same hills, some steeper and longer. I now knew I could do it and powered on. I took a lot of breaks and snaked often and it helped. Finally I broke out of the hills and found flat roads and I was thrilled until once on the plains the headwind hit. Right on my goddamn nose, I couldn’t believe it. I was cycling on flat road and it felt like I was still going up the hills, except there was no down the other side of the hill. So this was a new experience. I could feel my speed was not where I needed it to be to make Dunedin and had bursts of hard grind into the wind to pick up my speed. Then I discovered something very useful. If you position yourself the right distance from the stream of traffic screaming by, when a big truck goes by you can ride in the tailwind the truck pulls behind it and this gives you a fantastic boost. So I experimented with my gap to the traffic from close to the traffice and not so close to certain death and found a good spot. Plus I found that two trucks together gives you a better boost, however a truck coming the other way can also deal a blow of wind that will slow you. To take my mind off of my aching legs and backside I focused on this new reward. I had to keep my mind positive and so I listened out for trucks, and as they passed I hit the gas and waited for the tailwind. The boost helped me get up to a better cruising speed and I could go up a gear for a while. When you are 6 hours on a bike each day you look for every optimisation you can find.

I hit Mosgiel, the southern part of Dunedin, and then ventured up the hill into Dunedin. I knew this was going to be tough after three days of hard grind and mentally I was screwed. I had been fearing this hill all the way from Balcutha so much I was fixated on it in an unhealthy way. It was late in the day and I gave it a go despite my body saying “no”. A third of the way over I bailed. It was getting dark and my tank was dry again. I turned back to Mosgiel. I felt like such a failure. I had my rough schedule in my mind and knew that spending a full day on Stewart Island left me a day behind. Was doing the whole country in less than seven weeks going to be an impossible task for me? I hit the sack and slept an eternity.

The next day I consulted my schedule. Before I left I had three possible routes through the South Island. What would determine which one I took would be weather, my daily capacity for distance I can cover and possible accommodation options. These routes roughly told me where I had to be on what days to keep on schedule. Seven weeks will go pretty quick and I can easily fall behind if I am not careful. I have opted for the east coast so now my route is fixed. I then do a five day plan to map out my stopovers. I have to factor in where there is likely to be accommodation around where I am expecting to stop. My range is an average of 70km a day so this can be a little tricky, as you don’t want a day where 70-80kms leaves you 30km from any accommodation. I have a sleeping bag so if I have to I can find somewhere to crash in the wild should I need to. I use a variety of tools to find accommodation. First there is the vianet.travel network and retail sites like www.travelbug.co.nz and stayn.co.nz. The interactive maps makes it a real doddle to find accommodation in the back of beyond. I follow this up with a quick Google and these together give me a pretty good list of options for each area. Then I double check with the information centres as I pass through town to check for other alternatives. I amazes me how the information centres have so little information on surrounding towns and I always find more options online than the information centres are aware of. The information sharing from i-site to i-site is really non-existent which really surprises me.

I re-planned my route and calculated my stopovers up the east coast. I did it twice. I couldn’t believe it, I was a day ahead of schedule. I had originally planned to go from Invercargill to Balclutha via a more scenic route through the Catlins. By going through Gore and by pushing through some long days I had shaved off two days. I had to have it wrong I thought but no, it was right. And so I decided to take a rest day in Mosgiel. I probably should keep cycling as the day is beautiful and conditions perfect and I should get ahead of schedule while the weather is good. But heading though Dunedin there are three monster hills to get over plus I have to do my 70km to get to the next accommodation. It will be a big day and I need to be ready for it. Besides you have to be able to enjoy the beautiful days on your days off to My rest days are also planning days so I will sort out the next week ahead. I want to be in Christchurch by Friday to keep on schedule. If I leave on Sunday I will have six days cycling to get there and I can do it in five if the conditions are right. I attended the local Anzac Day parade and was amazed at the army of old service men that came in by the busload for the parade and it was another humbling example of why I shouldn’t complain about having to spend seven weeks on a bicycle.

I am expecting rain this week, so I had better get a raincoat! It is a shame Mosgiel is closed for Anzac day. Looks like it will be a day of forced rest.

Route Fri 24 April – Balclutha to Mosgiel

Here is today’s route. Not quite all the way to Dunedin but technically in Dunedin City.

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Route Thu 23 April – Gore to Balclutha

This day was a lot harder. I was hoping to hit 90km and get to Milton, but those goddamn hills were killers.

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