I set off on my first trip on a sunny Sunday from Christchurch and headed east along the Canterbury Plains, towards the Alps – into a huge headwind – so demoralising. As I approached my stop for the night I had a great demonstration of how quickly the weather changes in NZ. My headwind, which was similar to someone holding a large hairdryer in my face, in no more than five seconds changed to air conditioning from the side. It was freezing and stayed that way as I set up my camp for the night.
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The next day was a biggie, taking on the first major climb of the trip. It was about 5km from the top of Porter’s Pass that I really started to have some issues with the gears on my bike. I had never carried so much load (with four panniers, I was basically self-sufficient apart from food), and I had never been on such a steep and sustained climb. To add to that, I was rising into the clouds, greatly reducing visibility. To speed myself up, and so be less vulnerable on the road, I actually resorted to emptying out some of my water bottles, not knowing that the top was just around the corner – oh dear, no shops for the next 60km. The fog spoilt the view until I descended down again to give some amazing scenery.
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By mid afternoon I was in Arthur’s Pass Village and very thankful to rest my aching knees (a classic sign of pedalling in too high a gear). I spent a day in the village walking the paths to one of the waterfalls, before heading down all 105km to the West Coast at Greymouth on the following very wet day. Luckily by the time I got there and set up camp by the beach things had cleared up, and I was treated to a stunning sunset.
- David
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