new zealand …uphill

Getting into the swing of things

April 30, 2009 on 9:14 pm | In Notes from the bike | 7 Comments

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.