Day 1: Picton-Nelson
Lucky escape with the ferry. I was booked on the 2030-2400 sailing, but when I showed up for checkin it turned out it had been delayed by four hours. That'd mean I didn't need my hostel in Picton, but I'd be doing the first day on little sleep .. and that's really not a good idea. First days are when problems appear.
So I rolled back into town, and passed another ferry that looked like it was getting ready to depart. Turns out it was a massively delayed 1330 sailing, and they could accomodate me! Usually on ferries I ride on after all the cars, and tie up on the side. This time I loaded the bike into the back of a truck, and then the truck goes on the ferry.
It sailed about 2000 so I arrived about half an hour before my original schedule, which is the kind of fast footwork I appreciate. It's likely I'll never get back the ticket price for the ferry I didn't take, but I have no regrets!
Stayed the night at the Atlantis hostel, it's big and well run, and headed out about 8. Needed a few things before getting on the road, starting with something to cover up the comedy sunburn I got after walking the Pukerua Bay-Paekakariki Escarpment track yesterday. The top of my head is red, and there's a nice sharp border where it changes to unburned. Hats and caps don't fit under my helmet, I was even looking at infant sunhats ($30!) before the shop assistant suggested a bandanna.
After all that it was about 0930, a bit late, but Komoot says it's 8 hours to Nelson so it should be fine.
From left to right: Disembarking from the ferry just before 11. Towels in the hostel. Getting started. Dutch influence. First lookout.
The elevation profile for today looked mostly flat with a huge climb near the end. This was criminally misleading: there was 1800m of climbing - nearly twice what was normal in the Swedish mountains. The reason it looked mostly flat is because the final 750m peak blew up the scale and obscured all the other climbs. So the morning was spent climbing up a hill in low gear, coasting carefully down the other side, and then doing it again. It's so steep that the first lookout was about a kilometer out of Picton.
About an hour in things started going bad. The back derailleur didn't want to change out of lowest gear. Some fiddling and persuasion and it started behaving; I'll minimize gear changes from now. The back tyre started getting soft. I pump it up and put my trust in latex tyre sealant. Then I realize the back wheel isn't turning; I track it down to the brake caliper not releasing. Push it open and try to use the front brake.
From left to right: Derailleur problem. Seat also slipped down because I hadn’t tightened it. This is where it should be. Bicycles! More views. Selfie, the bandanna is not a good look but here it is. The lake.
It doesn’t get better. After I've been on the road for barely 90 minutes, I Google for "bicycle repair shop". This feels like a capitulation of some kind, or a sign that I'm an under-prepared and out of my league ... but the bike is not healthy.
I'm still close to Picton, but there's no repair shops there. The nearest is a place in Havelock, an hour or two ahead: I call and find out the mechanic is unavailable all afternoon. Next options are Nelson, my destination, or going back to Blenheim which is two hours away. That means adding a day. It's about 11, I figure I'll press on for an hour and see how I'm going. The gear cable has stopped cooperating and won't move the back derailleur, but I can still change between two options on the front. So I have two gears: almost the lowest, which should be good for any reasonable hill, and medium-high, which is not enough for a nice flat straight road but I can probably do 15km/h on it. The back tyre has been pumped up three times and is now solid. The back brake I can live with, if I have to use it I'll release it by hand afterwards. Onwards!
And it goes OK. There's some steep stuff, no problem. I coast the downhills, but I'd do that anyway. A few moments where the road is flat and I want to pedal faster but can't, but it's rare - this part of NZ is so steep that there's almost no flat sections.
Get to Havelock in the early afternoon, stop for lunch in a nice little park that had three benches which were all in full sunlight. So I hid in the shade under a tree. Picked up a litre of juice and disappeared about half of it before leaving the shop, heh.
So it's all going well now, but things went sour in the second half.
From left to right: More great views. Enough material for several bad hand jokes. This was about the halfway point - Komoot said 4h to go, my hopes were undashed. Change to gravel, a sign things are going to get scenic or steep. Scenic I guess…
The route has been following the main Picton-Nelson road so far, but at about the halfway point it take a hard left and heads into the wilderness. The main road takes a long slow halfcircle to the north; my route goes straight through. Relatively.
It's all steep gravel roads. Not too steep though; I can get up them without problems. When it gets too steep and you put in too much power either the back wheel slips, or the front wheel comes off the ground. Not today. Well, not so far.
Things do turn nasty soon but for now: the path is mostly fine, the views are great, it's not too hot, and it's a pretty nice experience.
Which is boring let's fast forward to the hellish part.
That would be the final monster climb. It peaks at 740m. The road started changed from one that probably goes to someone's farm, to an access road for electricity pylons. I checked the GPS and it said 340m which was pretty disheartening. 400m of climbing ahead - on a pretty rough road.
That means gradients over 10%. For several kilometers. The road was nasty: lots of big stones, which can mess you up in three different ways if you drive over them (front wheel slides off sideways, back wheel jams on it, or it rolls and the back wheel spins on it). It was often too steep to ride. So I pushed. Then I got tired, so I'd push for a few minutes, then stop to catch my breath. Hard work, and slow progress, under a very hot sun. I had brought about 6 litres of liquids, and was going through it dangerously quickly.
There's a ford, and the underwater stones are so big and chunky I can't ride over them. Get wet feet but I didn't drop the bike. Keep going.
I start checking the map to see how the route crosses the contour lines. It won't change anything but I'll take anything that resembles consolation. Another fifty meters.
The water is running low. Push another fifty meters. I try eating some chocolate but it just makes me feel sick. Fifty meters more. Is it steep enough to ride here? Fifty meters. Yes, but I get exhausted and have to stop and it's now too steep to get started. Launching sideways is too risky because there's a steep dropoff on one side; not a death drop but it'd be a trip ender. Foxgloves everywhere! Fifty meters more. Next rest at the corner. Fifty meters. Check the GPS height, must be closer to the 740m! Not much. Also I probably wasn't going fifty meters each time. Is the back brake still on?
From left to right: nice views, from when I was able to appreciate them. Old-school wooden bridge. The road surface - not especially bad. The photo doesn’t do it justic, but it’s so steep I wanted to record it. Looking back. Checking the contour lines.
The light is starting to fail. The sun is on the other side of the mountain, so I'm in shadow, but I can see the sky changing color. And there’s so little water left I’m just taking small sips.
Pass someone camping off to the side. Not sure which way they came; it'd make sense that they got over the hill, recognized they couldn't get down before dark and stopped. I plough on. A brief downhill section which I can ride, but it's undoing some hard-won climbing so I'm not happy.
Eventually I get to the top. I try to sit down and recuperate but it's cold and the sun is going down and I want to get to Nelson.
The way down was equally awful but quicker. Had both brakes in a death grip, hoping not to lock up and skid sideways, trying to avoid the big rocks, and hoping that my hands didn't slip off or the already dubious brake cable didn't fail. Because I'd start going very very fast and things would go really bad.
The surface was often so bad I had to put a foot down for security, to navigate down a particularly treacherous drop, or over some especially rugged rocks. The road reached a river, which made me think it'd moderate the road inclines - it didn't seem to.
It goes on and on and keeps going and I suppose it has levelled out a bit but my memory is tainted by all the horrible steep slopes.
There were also some fierce uphills. Often too steep and long to ride - also I was too tired. The road doesn't get any better. There's another ford but I get across with only one foot getting wet.
From left to right: At the peak, trying to look happy about it. Gravel gouge from where I dropped the bike. A deer, this is as close as I got before it ran away. More nasty downslope. An actual photo I took when the light was going, I can’t remember what it was.
Eventually Komoot tells me "turn right onto Maitai Valley Road" and that’s great, because it means I'll be on a road designed by actual engineers not some improvised pioneer route. The road follows the river, and this time it's just a nice constant downslope. I freewheel. it's getting dark and I take my sunglasses off. A few cars come past, and kick up dust which gets in my eyes. There's enough wind to blow it away so it's not a big problem, fortunately. My front light turns itself off and I have to keep poking it to keep it on. The road is fine gravel, surface seems good, but I don't want to go sideways so I treat it with care.
It switches to tarmac, still a nice downslope. It's too fast to pedal with my one gear, but freewheeling is nice and quick. I'm keeping as far left as I can, lights on, but someone comes past with lights undipped and blinds me. I'm looking away but can't see anything except specular highlights on the tarmac. I'm not going quick, try to stop and unclip but the bike goes the wrong way and I go over sideways. The driver pulls up and apologizes for blinding me, which was very nice of him. No damage.
Only a few kilometers to go. Streetlights appear. I go down a riverside route; seems nice but it's too dark to see much. A cyclist is shouting at a park bench, but gets embarrassed and stops when he sees me coming. Someone is walking their dog, nearly indistinct in the dark. Then I'm at my place, somewhat wrecked.
It's 2145. I've been on the road a bit over 12 hours. Komoot predicted 8 but I think the climb was most of the reason it was so inaccurate. I hear there aren't any more really big climbs for the rest of the trip - but if any show up, I'm going to take the road instead.
