Day 8: Hokitika-Franz Josef
It's another day on the bike, with all the usual stuff: State Highway 6. 1000m of climbing. Unrealistically steep mountains. Some drizzle. Even a bit of rail trail.
I've complained/griped/observed/whined/celebrated all these things before so let's talk about something new: one way bridges.
One way bridges are a pretty good idea: instead of a two lane bridge how about we only make one, at half the price? I'm sure it doesn't actually halve the project cost, but I can imagine it does reduce it substantially - and if that means the limited roading budget can connect a few more communities, it makes perfect sense.
Which brings us up to the present, when I'm trying to cross them. Traffic flows in alternate directions, of course, managed with politeness, and a big sign indicating which direction has priority.
There's enough traffic that there's usually a queue. So it means show up, wait for the traffic going the other way to cross, then go. But these bridges are long, and bikes don't easily keep up with the traffic flow. So to not fall too far behind and cause a delay, you have to do a full sprint. After which you're exhausted. But there's still hours to go and these bridges keep showing up. Isn't this fun?
I suppose it's part of a balanced workout. Sprints did come up during my training; but I didn't really think I needed to focus on them, since I was there to build endurance and they seemed unhelpful. Perhaps that was a mistake...
From left to right: Starting out on some very good backroads. The railtrail, carrying the rail joke a bit too far, but not for me. Totora river bridge. End of the Wilderness Trail in Ross. Waitaha River Bridge; I shouldn’t be taking photographs while cars are waiting.
The other occasion was roadworks. A bit south of Ross I hit a red light and a queue, for road works. The road surface was being replaced. Unusually there was a pilot vehicle leading us through the work site. That makes things a bit different! The light turns green, we move off, I get up to speed. Need to push to keep up ... Then push for a bit longer. And a bit longer. I'm starting to lose pace and fall behind, we're still on new tarmac with potentially unreliable gravel, the end is not in sight. I gamely push on to the end, but I'm quite behind the last car and obviously wrung out. In one of the cars in the waiting queue everyone was hanging out the windows while waiting, they gave me a round of applause when I went panting past, which did make it better.
From left to right: Queue at the roadworks - no photos after it went green, I was pushing too hard. Flat roads and spectacular mountains. Buttercup windmill. Lunch. More rivers colored by glacial flour. Mountaintops visible from Franz Josef.
What else? The road shoulder wasn't bad today; there were some tight moments with buses and trucks but there was a grass verge I could use which is enough to keep safe. Traffic gave me a wide berth; no worrying drivers today.
But the combination of long day with regular sprints means I'm worn out. I’m going to take a rest day tomorrow, which is useful. I'm a bit ahead of schedule and there's two days I need to use up.
