We started to ride early, up the valley to Arrowtown, sun shining, birds singing, traffic mercifully light. After an hour or so of riding my ankle was still intact (to my great relief) so I took 2 ibuprofen and we proceeded to the Crown Range Road. Followed around 20 km of climbing , watching the snowy peaks slowly emerge all around us as we got higher and higher, trying to ride in a straight line and keep our wheels on the ground during the final near-vertical kilometre. On the top there was a tortured tree and a little plaque naming the pass as the highest (paved) road in NZ, and a road sign warning traffic that the next 40 km would be downhill (!!!!!!).
And so it was. Initially a steep drop through a lot of switchbacks, crossing the Cardrona River 12 times in its infant stages. Then down down down, all the way to the lakeside at Wanaka. Another spectacular blue wind-whipped lake, surrounded by more steep young mountains. We weren't tired yet so continued on to Lake Hawea where we spent the night listening to the (head) wind blowing through the trees around the tent and hoping for a meteorological miracle to bring us a southerly in the morning.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Queenstown 1-2 Jan
Again woke up feeling like hit by a truck, a sensation similar to jetlag but in the body rather than the head. Before too long we had an argument and decided to avoid each other for the afternoon. Having the advantage of not being hungover, I went walking beside the lake, and took a thousand photos of the scenic peaks, blue choppy water and the steamboat beating across to Walter Peak farm on the other side of Lake Wakatipu (it later transpired that Marcin had gone one better, descending into a glass-walled tank below the water to observe the incredible diving ducks).
I had a pain in my Achilles which got worse and worse as the day progressed- by evening I felt like a zombie with a sports injury. I hobbled around town feeling more and more paranoid that I wouldn't be able to ride. It rained all day. When we got up the next day it was raining again and we decided not to go anywhere. We went up the mountain during the day (rain) and I limped around complaining and generally ruining our fun. In the evening we ate dinner with a Dutch couple who were also cycling - one was a doctor and we talked about his doctoring days in Zambia and I got some free medical advice about my ankle. Early to bed, me with my foot on the pannier as a belated attempt at elevation of the afflicted limb.
I had a pain in my Achilles which got worse and worse as the day progressed- by evening I felt like a zombie with a sports injury. I hobbled around town feeling more and more paranoid that I wouldn't be able to ride. It rained all day. When we got up the next day it was raining again and we decided not to go anywhere. We went up the mountain during the day (rain) and I limped around complaining and generally ruining our fun. In the evening we ate dinner with a Dutch couple who were also cycling - one was a doctor and we talked about his doctoring days in Zambia and I got some free medical advice about my ankle. Early to bed, me with my foot on the pannier as a belated attempt at elevation of the afflicted limb.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Otago Rail Trail-29-31 Dec
Wake up in Middlemarch and do some tyre-switching, and set off around 11. It is burning hot with a huge sky- the countryside is barren and shadeless and looks like a steppe or a prairie. We ride and eat, eat and ride. In the middle of the afternoon we nap by a stream in a shaded gorge. There is an insistent piping sound and I wonder, half-asleep, if there is an exotic flightless bird in the vicinity. After a while it becomes clear that it's a lost lamb looking for its mother. These (and rabbits) are still the only animals we've seen.]
There are plaques every couple of kilometres beside the trail and we stop conscientiously to read them all. Thus we learn about the Taieri Pet, a cloud formation created when the north-westerly blows up over the Rock and Pillar Range, piling the cloud in towering layers. We also learn that the steam trains were liable to set the countryside on fire with sparks from their engine-boxes, and that barrels of water were kept near wooden bridges so that any passersby could douse them if they caught alight.
In the evening we start to ride again. About ten or fifteen kilometres from Ranfurly we stop at a pub to fill our water. There are unfriendly signs on the door threatening cyclists who try to have a surreptitious piss and get unauthorised liquids. It turns out to be the last preserve of the local bogan species and we have a beer and watch them come and go in their trucks, red swollen men and little dessicated women, all with fags hanging from their hands.
We sleep in the campground at Ranfurly. Because the sun goes down so late, it's hard to stay awake until dark. We are fed, watered and reading The New Yorker (told you it had a lot of words) by sunset.
I wake up in the morning feeling like I've been hit by a truck. Probably the heat the previous day. We pack everything anyway, choke down some unadorned porridge then go to the supermarket for real breakfast. When we start riding I feel OK. It's cooler than the previous day but the wind is picking up again. We cross the pass and also the 45th parallel, halfway between the south pole and the equator. From there we are suddenly riding downhill all the way to Omakau and our second night's camp.
In the campground we meet a scientist working on discovering the causes of diurnal changes in diameter of pine trees. He is utterly incapable of small talk so we discuss stem diameters and dendrographs for a while. There are also 2 kids riding the trail with their parents- their mother tells us that there's a no-whingeing policy, but when the going gets tough they get a piece of chocolate every 3 kilometres. Nobody seems to have informed them about stranger danger so they pop up every few minutes asking questions- what do you eat for energy? Where do you come from? Why do you have accents? When are you catching the boat to Wellington. Camped beside us are another family from a different demographic (the kids have mullets and have to carry all their own gear) who keep to themselves and strenuously ignore us when we try to talk to them.
In the morning the scientist is up first- he sleeps in a coffin-like bivvy bag and has no incentive to linger in bed. We are also up early and eat a huge plate of leftover pasta before setting off. We cover the 30 km to Clyde a bit sadly, stopping every 10 seconds to take photos. There are fields of purple flowers everywhere and we pass the smallest post office in NZ. We try to buy a postcard to send Ange and Renee but nobody's around. It's still more or less downhill, beside a river now so that the enormous sky is held at bay. At the very end of the trail we see a family who's just started riding and have a puncture already. That's the only puncture we've seen on the whole trail.
At the end of the trail we stop and eat all the food we have left- cheese sandwiches, nutella, some tomatoes that have seen better days. We sit on the damp grass, eating and looking at the road we're going to take- it's uphill and the traffic is heavy, and we both get depressed.
The hill is brief but the traffic is real. After 3 days on a carless track we're used to being kings of the road and aren't keen on sharing. Also, there is a raging headwind that sweeps occasional showers towards us. We labour up the valley towards Cromwell beside a milky-blue dam, half considering stopping there for the night. The next town after that is Queenstown, another 50 km away.
We eat in Cromwell and I buy a tube to replace the one that exploded. It's still early so we decide to keep going, thinking that we can spend NY Eve in Queenstown living it up. The wind is still raging and we stop to buy cherries just outside town-we can't carry them so we just sit there next to the road in the eddies of dust and eat half a kilo of them. Then off we go.
The road is narrow and rather busy. We're riding in a gorge with a speedy river the same colour as the dam roiling along beside us. It starts raining but there's nowhere to stop and put on our rain gear so we just keep going. There's about 20 cm of chewed-up shoulder we can claim as our own, and it takes all our concentration to stay on the white line and keep off the road, while also avoiding falling over the railing into the gorge. The shoulder is populated with the damp, decomposing bodies of stoats which we ride over every few kilometres.
It keeps on raining. Apart from the lack of space, the cycling isn't bad-the elevation drawing made it look like an endless uphill but it's not the case. Coming out of the gorge there is a break in the traffic and we ride along for a few peaceful minutes through the misty hills with the hawks circling above us. We stop for 3 minutes to eat our emergency cake but have to start agan because we start to freeze.
On and on through the rain. We arrive, finally, in Queenstown in the evening, and find there's nowhere to stay except the rugby field. We desperately don't want to sleep there and eventually find a place in the campground, though not without considerable risk to our marriage. We find a bungalow which is not being used, and pitch our tent on the verandah. It's dry there, secluded, and we have a view down over the lake and the peaks of the Remarkables (they are).
After dinner we sit on our verandah with a bottle of wine, not saying much. Marcin suggests we go into the tent and talk in there. Within 10 seconds we're both unconscious, and the midnight fireworks barely make an impression.
There are plaques every couple of kilometres beside the trail and we stop conscientiously to read them all. Thus we learn about the Taieri Pet, a cloud formation created when the north-westerly blows up over the Rock and Pillar Range, piling the cloud in towering layers. We also learn that the steam trains were liable to set the countryside on fire with sparks from their engine-boxes, and that barrels of water were kept near wooden bridges so that any passersby could douse them if they caught alight.
In the evening we start to ride again. About ten or fifteen kilometres from Ranfurly we stop at a pub to fill our water. There are unfriendly signs on the door threatening cyclists who try to have a surreptitious piss and get unauthorised liquids. It turns out to be the last preserve of the local bogan species and we have a beer and watch them come and go in their trucks, red swollen men and little dessicated women, all with fags hanging from their hands.
We sleep in the campground at Ranfurly. Because the sun goes down so late, it's hard to stay awake until dark. We are fed, watered and reading The New Yorker (told you it had a lot of words) by sunset.
I wake up in the morning feeling like I've been hit by a truck. Probably the heat the previous day. We pack everything anyway, choke down some unadorned porridge then go to the supermarket for real breakfast. When we start riding I feel OK. It's cooler than the previous day but the wind is picking up again. We cross the pass and also the 45th parallel, halfway between the south pole and the equator. From there we are suddenly riding downhill all the way to Omakau and our second night's camp.
In the campground we meet a scientist working on discovering the causes of diurnal changes in diameter of pine trees. He is utterly incapable of small talk so we discuss stem diameters and dendrographs for a while. There are also 2 kids riding the trail with their parents- their mother tells us that there's a no-whingeing policy, but when the going gets tough they get a piece of chocolate every 3 kilometres. Nobody seems to have informed them about stranger danger so they pop up every few minutes asking questions- what do you eat for energy? Where do you come from? Why do you have accents? When are you catching the boat to Wellington. Camped beside us are another family from a different demographic (the kids have mullets and have to carry all their own gear) who keep to themselves and strenuously ignore us when we try to talk to them.
In the morning the scientist is up first- he sleeps in a coffin-like bivvy bag and has no incentive to linger in bed. We are also up early and eat a huge plate of leftover pasta before setting off. We cover the 30 km to Clyde a bit sadly, stopping every 10 seconds to take photos. There are fields of purple flowers everywhere and we pass the smallest post office in NZ. We try to buy a postcard to send Ange and Renee but nobody's around. It's still more or less downhill, beside a river now so that the enormous sky is held at bay. At the very end of the trail we see a family who's just started riding and have a puncture already. That's the only puncture we've seen on the whole trail.
At the end of the trail we stop and eat all the food we have left- cheese sandwiches, nutella, some tomatoes that have seen better days. We sit on the damp grass, eating and looking at the road we're going to take- it's uphill and the traffic is heavy, and we both get depressed.
The hill is brief but the traffic is real. After 3 days on a carless track we're used to being kings of the road and aren't keen on sharing. Also, there is a raging headwind that sweeps occasional showers towards us. We labour up the valley towards Cromwell beside a milky-blue dam, half considering stopping there for the night. The next town after that is Queenstown, another 50 km away.
We eat in Cromwell and I buy a tube to replace the one that exploded. It's still early so we decide to keep going, thinking that we can spend NY Eve in Queenstown living it up. The wind is still raging and we stop to buy cherries just outside town-we can't carry them so we just sit there next to the road in the eddies of dust and eat half a kilo of them. Then off we go.
The road is narrow and rather busy. We're riding in a gorge with a speedy river the same colour as the dam roiling along beside us. It starts raining but there's nowhere to stop and put on our rain gear so we just keep going. There's about 20 cm of chewed-up shoulder we can claim as our own, and it takes all our concentration to stay on the white line and keep off the road, while also avoiding falling over the railing into the gorge. The shoulder is populated with the damp, decomposing bodies of stoats which we ride over every few kilometres.
It keeps on raining. Apart from the lack of space, the cycling isn't bad-the elevation drawing made it look like an endless uphill but it's not the case. Coming out of the gorge there is a break in the traffic and we ride along for a few peaceful minutes through the misty hills with the hawks circling above us. We stop for 3 minutes to eat our emergency cake but have to start agan because we start to freeze.
On and on through the rain. We arrive, finally, in Queenstown in the evening, and find there's nowhere to stay except the rugby field. We desperately don't want to sleep there and eventually find a place in the campground, though not without considerable risk to our marriage. We find a bungalow which is not being used, and pitch our tent on the verandah. It's dry there, secluded, and we have a view down over the lake and the peaks of the Remarkables (they are).
After dinner we sit on our verandah with a bottle of wine, not saying much. Marcin suggests we go into the tent and talk in there. Within 10 seconds we're both unconscious, and the midnight fireworks barely make an impression.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
28 December
Finally left Dunedin after a long morning- coffee, further gossip, farewells. Marcin hadn't smoked for three days and when we stopped to provision in the city I begged him to let me buy some nicotine patches, but to no avail.
We didn't really start riding until midday, and consequently when difficulties started it was in the hottest part of the day. At the foot of the first (highly vertical )climb, a puncture, which we repaired in the blazing sun because we were unwilling to lost the 10 m of altitude we'd gained so far. When we replaced the tube and pumped up the new one, it exploded. We had a heated discussion about the cause of the detonation- I say it's defective gauge on the new pump, leading to over-inflation, Marcin says it's the edge of the valve-hole cutting into the valve stem. We gave up the discussion when it became clear nobody was going to back down.
On the second attempt, success, but I rode off very gingerly, expecting another eruption at any minute. We continued climbing, in the heat, with a headwind. 6km/ hour. The roadside sheep ogled us with barely concealed amusement. There was nowhere to shelter and we kept riding without stopping except to consult our map. An unspoken mantra of how far now? hung in the air.
Finally we arrived at Clarkes Junction, went into the pub and ate 2 stacked plates of salt and saturated fat while the publican's daughter, who looked about 8, conscientiously smeared the tables with a damp cloth. After this Marcin miraculously recovered and we set off again on the 'downhill' portion to Middlemarch, which still included a couple of significant uphills. It was getting late and the trickle of cars slowed- we had the whole great grassy desolate expanse to ourselves. We photographed ourselves silly and finally descended to arrive in Middlemarch just on dusk, and took a hut in the campground.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Boxing Day
Another early morning. I would sell my mother for another 2 hours sleep. We drift through the empty city to the bus stop and load our gear onto the bus to Dunedin, and proceed through alternating tropic and arctic temperatures through the morning. (The driver is cold. He turns on the heating. When it reaches 35 degrees he gets hot. He turns off the heating. When it reaches 15 degrees he gets cold. He turns on the heating. And so on.) The country is flat, fenced and utterly tame. The only things that stand out from the landscape are huge box hedges grown along the sides of the fields as windbreaks. Marcin says Ahh... the land of the long green tree, and we laugh halfway to Dunedin. I don't feel a moment's regret for not riding on this road: the traffic is heavy, the wind howls, and the cultivation is relentless.
From Dunedin we ride up to Sawyers Bay along the harbour rimmed with petrol storage tanks and industrial buildings emitting a questionable smell. My friend Ange and her partner Renee have just bought a house up there, with a soft green lawn and a spectacular vegetable patch which sends me into the first of several pastoral reveries. We sleep in their guest room in the most beautiful bed in the world. I tell Marcin that we should consider acquiring this sort of linen for our guests and he says We should have it for ourselves, you show off pony.
We graze their Christmas leftovers for several hours and then they take us down the peninsula to see the penguins. The sun doesn't set until about 10:00 at this time of year so we have plenty of time. They show us a sheep farm where you can go and choose a sheep to produce you a custom made jumper. You pick the colour and the type of wool and they send you the jumper and pictures of the naked sheep as proof of its provenance. At the end of the peninsula there is a car park perched on windy cliffs, with an albatross colony (the only mainland one in the world) on the outcrop above and the sea beating on the rocks below. We see some albatross and smell some seals (they stink like an old can of tuna which has been left in the fridge for a week). Renee knows everything about the plants and animals in the area- she is a marine biologist working for the Dunedin City Council, and tells us that young female sea lions often turn up on the beaches around Dunedin where they go to escape rape by romantically inclined males.
Then we settle down to wait for the penguins. As sunset approaches a small crowd gathers, including a pair of Americans who cannot shut up and commentate every vacuous thought that goes through their heads. We are waiting to see the disturbance of the water which marks the approach of the penguins as they come ashore in a 'raft'- it is a windy evening and every ruffle on the water is discussed extensively by the Americans. The penguins (more cautious than David Attenborough would have us believe) wait until the sun has set to come ashore. They waddle hesitantly out of the scrub, freezing every time a flash goes off or somebody shifts and mutters. It takes them over an hour to be convinced it's safe enough to come out of the bushes. They move slowly up to their burrows and we start to hear the happy sounds of homecoming.
Anyway, the whole process was very long for someone who has watched too many nature documentaries and expects penguins to leap out of the water and race heedlessly for home. More like the 'making of ' extra, where you see how long it really takes to film five beautiful minutes of animal activity (eg three years in a row of failed snow leopard expeditions to the Himalaya before getting any footage at all.)
From Dunedin we ride up to Sawyers Bay along the harbour rimmed with petrol storage tanks and industrial buildings emitting a questionable smell. My friend Ange and her partner Renee have just bought a house up there, with a soft green lawn and a spectacular vegetable patch which sends me into the first of several pastoral reveries. We sleep in their guest room in the most beautiful bed in the world. I tell Marcin that we should consider acquiring this sort of linen for our guests and he says We should have it for ourselves, you show off pony.
We graze their Christmas leftovers for several hours and then they take us down the peninsula to see the penguins. The sun doesn't set until about 10:00 at this time of year so we have plenty of time. They show us a sheep farm where you can go and choose a sheep to produce you a custom made jumper. You pick the colour and the type of wool and they send you the jumper and pictures of the naked sheep as proof of its provenance. At the end of the peninsula there is a car park perched on windy cliffs, with an albatross colony (the only mainland one in the world) on the outcrop above and the sea beating on the rocks below. We see some albatross and smell some seals (they stink like an old can of tuna which has been left in the fridge for a week). Renee knows everything about the plants and animals in the area- she is a marine biologist working for the Dunedin City Council, and tells us that young female sea lions often turn up on the beaches around Dunedin where they go to escape rape by romantically inclined males.
Then we settle down to wait for the penguins. As sunset approaches a small crowd gathers, including a pair of Americans who cannot shut up and commentate every vacuous thought that goes through their heads. We are waiting to see the disturbance of the water which marks the approach of the penguins as they come ashore in a 'raft'- it is a windy evening and every ruffle on the water is discussed extensively by the Americans. The penguins (more cautious than David Attenborough would have us believe) wait until the sun has set to come ashore. They waddle hesitantly out of the scrub, freezing every time a flash goes off or somebody shifts and mutters. It takes them over an hour to be convinced it's safe enough to come out of the bushes. They move slowly up to their burrows and we start to hear the happy sounds of homecoming.
Anyway, the whole process was very long for someone who has watched too many nature documentaries and expects penguins to leap out of the water and race heedlessly for home. More like the 'making of ' extra, where you see how long it really takes to film five beautiful minutes of animal activity (eg three years in a row of failed snow leopard expeditions to the Himalaya before getting any footage at all.)
New Zealand New Zealand
Christmas Day 2008.
We get up at 5 in the morning. Marcin trips the first crisis by pretending not to have the keys to get back into the house after the first load (I really don't have any). I narrowly avoid killing him in the staircase while he smirks down at me in glee.
Even the taxi driver is stunned into silence at the obscenity of the hour. At the airport it transpires that our luggage is overweight. This is mainly because I have decided to pack all my warm clothes and my sleeping bag in my hand baggage in the event that we crash land in the mountains, survive, and need to keep warm while waiting for rescue. This means I can't use the usual packing technique of compressing all the heavy things into a leaden but innocuous-looking carry-on bag, leaving the checked baggage within the weight limit. Marcin's smirk (from this angle it must look charming rather than invite a homicide) convinces the woman at the check-in to give us a discount.
Now we have to wait because in my overcaution we have arrived 2 1/2 hours before the flight actually departs. There is a lego display of a wind farm and propellor-driven boats which you can activate by blowing into a hole in the glass case that contains them, and we spend a long time examining them- the model builder has gone into great detail and included a lego diver being approached by a lego shark, some lego sunbathers on deck being watched by a voyeur through lego binoculars, some lego barnyard animals grazing around the base of the lego wind turbines. Then we buy a copy of The New Yorker which is so dense that it lasts us almost the entire trip. Such profligacy with words is unheard-of, even in the weekend magazine. There is an article about what makes a good teacher that rests on an intricate analogy with choosing a quarterback (apparently it's as impossible to predict when promise will fulfil itself on the gridiron field as it is in the classroom); the first thousand words are about football, and only then is the real point of the article introduced.
On board the plane, we forget all about The New Yorker , because we have been upgraded to business class! That means real cutlery, remote-controlled seats, a personal conversation with the hostess. I spend most of the flight with my feet sticking out in front of me, marvelling that they don't even come close to the next seat back. Marcin listens to a voice recording of a book about building your wealth. By the time we land it feels like we have already lived several extra unexpected lifetimes, as early risers, business class travellers and readers of the New Yorker.
In Christchurch airport there is a bike assembly area. It is located right next to the smokers area so we assemble our bikes in a cloud of carcinogenic smoke. We go into the city and eat something and meet 2 cyclists who have just finished their trip. In the evening we go and drink beer with them and they give us their cycling guide and their address in Singapore. By the end of the day we have spoken to more strangers in 24 hours than in the past 6 months combined.
We get up at 5 in the morning. Marcin trips the first crisis by pretending not to have the keys to get back into the house after the first load (I really don't have any). I narrowly avoid killing him in the staircase while he smirks down at me in glee.
Even the taxi driver is stunned into silence at the obscenity of the hour. At the airport it transpires that our luggage is overweight. This is mainly because I have decided to pack all my warm clothes and my sleeping bag in my hand baggage in the event that we crash land in the mountains, survive, and need to keep warm while waiting for rescue. This means I can't use the usual packing technique of compressing all the heavy things into a leaden but innocuous-looking carry-on bag, leaving the checked baggage within the weight limit. Marcin's smirk (from this angle it must look charming rather than invite a homicide) convinces the woman at the check-in to give us a discount.
Now we have to wait because in my overcaution we have arrived 2 1/2 hours before the flight actually departs. There is a lego display of a wind farm and propellor-driven boats which you can activate by blowing into a hole in the glass case that contains them, and we spend a long time examining them- the model builder has gone into great detail and included a lego diver being approached by a lego shark, some lego sunbathers on deck being watched by a voyeur through lego binoculars, some lego barnyard animals grazing around the base of the lego wind turbines. Then we buy a copy of The New Yorker which is so dense that it lasts us almost the entire trip. Such profligacy with words is unheard-of, even in the weekend magazine. There is an article about what makes a good teacher that rests on an intricate analogy with choosing a quarterback (apparently it's as impossible to predict when promise will fulfil itself on the gridiron field as it is in the classroom); the first thousand words are about football, and only then is the real point of the article introduced.
On board the plane, we forget all about The New Yorker , because we have been upgraded to business class! That means real cutlery, remote-controlled seats, a personal conversation with the hostess. I spend most of the flight with my feet sticking out in front of me, marvelling that they don't even come close to the next seat back. Marcin listens to a voice recording of a book about building your wealth. By the time we land it feels like we have already lived several extra unexpected lifetimes, as early risers, business class travellers and readers of the New Yorker.
In Christchurch airport there is a bike assembly area. It is located right next to the smokers area so we assemble our bikes in a cloud of carcinogenic smoke. We go into the city and eat something and meet 2 cyclists who have just finished their trip. In the evening we go and drink beer with them and they give us their cycling guide and their address in Singapore. By the end of the day we have spoken to more strangers in 24 hours than in the past 6 months combined.
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