"Cue the locals"

Hi everyone...Clay here.
Adria and I are tucked into a hostel in the weirdest town ever - Haast.
Adria is cooking dinner and I was just uploading the best pictures to-date when the connection crashed; so no pictures this go-round. Insted, you'll get a description of the pic and my cheesy commentary.

Pic 1: An action shot taken from my perspective of Adria riding yesterday.
You think she's stoked? This is what I got to look at all day yesterday, in addition to the rest of the gorgeous scenery over here. She is grinning from ear to ear, and that's the way we both looked yesterday. Yesterday was probably the best day of riding she and I have had. We were on a double-track gravel road, winding through open graze land (all free range livestock over here - the only living beings more stoked than me about that are the animals!). We started at higher elevations and ended up between the gorges that we were looking at all morning. Riding along a river, explored an old sheepherders stone cabin, two water crossings that made us crack up (Adria cleaned both of them!).

Pic 2: An old blue and white camper van parked on a hill, backdrop of clouds and blue sky, foreground of lush green grass and a bottle of wine on a table.
We stayed at a farmstay a few nights ago - super nice hosts put us up in this old camper, since we dropped in and all the cabins were taken. We scored. Who needs a cabin when you can stay in an old camper - it kinda reminded me of Into the Wild, but nobody ate poisonous shrubs and died at the end. Adria fell in love with the goat on the property. There were lots of sheep, too. The hosts grow peonies and export them to the states.

Pic 3: a blurry picture of a group of folks outside a stone building at night.
My cheesy commentary: Three words: "Cue the locals." Maybe you've seen the Chevy Chase movie where he and his wife are looking a buying a home in this old New England village and the locals really want him to live there (he's a famous writer and they think their town will benefit from his presence) so they stage all this fake, corny behavior to mis-represent the town as this idyllic, quaint village. Well, Adria and I experienced that firsthand at Chatto Creek. We had ridden the Otago Rail Trail, and were dusty and tired and needed a beer. We stopped into the Chatto Creek Tavern for a Speight's and ended up sleeping in a room only 18 feet from the bar. We shared drinks with the locals - farmers, sheep ranchers, an architect, a guy with a pet pig, a local police officer. If I blindfolded you, teleported you to this place, removed the blindfold, and asked you where you were, you would have said "New Zealand." The men all had sunburned faces, bulbous noses, crew cuts, popped collars. There was rugby on the TV. Pictures to follow.

Pic 4: Adria hunkered over a map with a local from the i Site shop.
My cheesy commentary: i Site stores are like our own little travel agencies. This day, our plans changed at the last minute when we learned that a bus was involved to get where we wanted to go. I think my exact words were "F the pavement." We ended up on 70 Km of gravel road and loved it!


I am into food, and have been taking pictures of all of our meals. The predominant meal has been oatmeal - lucky for us our favorite at home and easy to make on bikes, too! Every morning the portions get bigger and each time Adria says, "Can we really eat this much oatmeal?!" It's a running joke now. There's also a picture of the market we shopped at for dinner tonight. There are two empty coolers - empty but for a few heads of broccoli and a bag of carrots, some bananas and citrus. The top of the cooler says "Fresh Food." Bad times tonight for dins, but Adria managed to pull something together, as usual.

Big ride tomorrow to the glaciers - 120Km - up at dawn!

Cheers!

Having way to much fun!!!

Hey Everyone!

Dad got home safe and sound and Clay arrived without any problems. We have been having the best time.

We spent Clay's first day here enjoying Christchurch, getting his bike put back together, buying some Icebreaker Merino Wool (great sales over here) and planning our next two weeks of cycling.

We left bright and early the next morning (Friday) by bus to Cromwell, which is in the center of NZ in the high country. We started our biking adventure with an atomic tail wind and pouring rain, but we were so stoked to be together and on biked that we had a blast riding in nature's elements. We rode to the town of Clyde where we started the Otago Rail Trail. A 100 + mile rail to trail ride that took us through old mining towns and some beautiful scenery. Fall is peaking over here and the colors are spectaular. Our first night was spent at the Chatto Creek Tavern, where we enjoyed ourselves with the locals (including a pet pig) until late... (the tavern was our night's lodging as well)... Details to come on this gem of a place!

Saturday was an all day ride on the trail. We went through tunnels, across aqueducts, and enjoyed many a vista as we made our trek to the little town of Wainaka (sp?) where we bedded down at an adorable homestay that offered us their caravan for the night... Once again, more stories to come on this adventure! I fell in love with a goat, a dog, sheep, peony gardens and more...

Sunday we rode aggressively on some tough rocky terrain in order to meet our train (an old vintage stream train) that took us to the historic, college town of Dunedin. It was a thrilling ride and Clay and I had so much fun riding in tandem on the railtrail.

Monday afternoon we bused to Te Anau to enjoy the fjorlands of the south island.

Today we spent the day on a boat, cruising the fjords of Doubtful Sound. It blows our mind that glaciers created this amazing place!

Tomorrow we bike south....

Happy Trails!

4 Wheelin' in the Hyundai

We decided to take a day off from the rigors of adventure travel... biking, kayaking, trekking, what not and decided to rent a car for the day so we could explore the Northwest side of the Abel Tasman National Park (there is a mutha of a hill that separates the town where we are staying from this part of the park and Dad said riding that hill was a no go. Once I saw the climb, I understood...).

So, we walked down the road from our campground and rented a Hyundai (sp?) for the day. $30 U.S. for a day's rental. Not bad considering what we put that poor thing through. I mean who knew that a little compact 2 wheel drive hatchback could 4 wheel through the back roads that Dad took me through as we explored the Abel Tasman high country. It mightily crossed a couple of fairly deep stream crossings to boot! (water coming up over a hood is never a comforting sign, right?) I love my Dad!

We hiked along a sub-tropical tree fern trail that took us to a beautiful waterfall where we had to cross a swinging cable bridge. Other than a couple sandfly bites, we were in heaven.

After exploring the park, we were back on the road after heading up the coast to find some fresh water thermal springs. And then!

Me: "Dad, do you hear that noise?"

Dad:"Its the wind, roll up your window."

Me: I roll up my window, then "Dad, I still hear that noise, you hear it?"

Dad: "Roll your window up tighter."

Me: After checking that all windows were up and secure... "I still hear it and feel a vibration."

Hmmmmmnnnnnn....

We pull into a gas station where 'Big Guy' (this one is NO Hobbit!) takes a test drive with Dad to see what the noise is all about. They come back and decide a plastic piece under the front bumper is the culprit and after some snips, the plastic piece is removed. (we'll deal with the evidence later, we quickly agree) Must of been those darn river crossings, Dad says.

So, we are back on the road and its not 100 yards that I hear the noise again. (conversation from above is repeated. No joke.) :) We pull off the road and into a little parking lot for a hospital of all places. Dad crawls under the engine and sees that the other side of the car is doing the same thing.

Dad: "Adria, see if you can find anything that we can tie this piece of plastic out of the way with."

Me: Like a little fledgling baby blackbird with my first big assignment, I flitter off in search of baubles, string, or some shiny thing. I walk into the hospital... and find some of the plastic string that is used to bind packaging. SCORE!

Dad, in true McGyver fashion, attaches the plastic up and out of the way and we are back on the road! I love my dad!

Kayaking the Abel Tasman Coastline

Kayaking the Abel Tasman coastline was a feast for the senses. There was beauty everywhere we looked and at some points it just didn't even seem real to us.

We got to the kayak shop at 8:30 in the morning and had to switch from our bike panniers to the kayak's vestibules. It was a feat in to be seen for sure. We did have a couple of dry bags with us, but the good old black garbage bag really came in handy for us as we unloaded then re-loaded our gear into our kayak. Within a couple of days we had the packing of that kayak down to a science!

The kayak shop gave everyone a lesson before heading out. Most of the tourists were there for a day trip with the guide, Dad and I were the only ones who were heading out on our own for three days. The instructor, Steve, was a comedian and had all of us in stitches while we practiced our strokes, etc.

One we were out on the water, we left the group and paddled down the coast first to check out Split Apple Rock. It was a good paddle and gave us a chance to get our strokes synchronized and get a feel for everything. Then we turned around and headed up the coast for a few hours of kayaking. We hugged the coastline mostly and it was one beautiful cove with a white sand beach after another. The water was incredibly clear and a brilliant turquoise color. We saw some amazing rock formations as well and paddled into a couple of different caves. Wait until you see the pictures. Whenever we felt like stretching our legs, we would beach our kayak and then explore the beach or take a hike up into the sub-tropical forest. I love all of the tree ferns over here. The beaches are covered with shells, so beach combing was extra fun! At times, we felt the scenery almost seemed 'too perfect', like it could be the set of a Disney film or something. Maybe the movie Swiss Family Robinson? :)

Our first campsite was our favorite. There were maybe 5 tents there total. We set up camp, then went for a hike to get an aerial view from up on top of the hill. We enjoyed meeting some of the other hikers who were also staying in the campsite. (we ran into one of the German couples and had dinner with them the night that we came back from our kayak trip)

The second day was more glorious paddling. We really enjoyed checking out all of the different beaches, looking at the birds, fur seals, the plants hanging over the water, the rock formations, the color of the water. It was all magical. Our second campsite was nice as well. It did have a few more people than the last one, but we enjoyed meeting a group of Kiwis and ended up staying up quite late chatting with them. They had us convinced we should be living over here. :) We had an owl hooting during the night along with a possum outside of our tent that started screaming at about 2am. Now that was freaky. But it turned out to be a good thing cause it got me out of my tent to investigate and once out I was able to see the amazing, brilliant, deep orange moon coming up over the water on the horizon, next to a large rock formation. A sight I will always remember. The constellations down here are completely different. Fun to explore and learn new things...

The third day we packed (fast and easy on our last day... we had it down!) and headed back down the coast. We checked out an island that had some cute fur seals. They are so playful and fun to watch in the water.

We made it back to the town at around 2:30pm, went back to the shop, re-packed out gear for biking and then headed to a cafe to wait for our bus back to the town where we are staying. It wasn't until our lattes arrived that the rain started to fall. Couldn't have been better timing. The weather has really been cooperating with us on this trip. Sweet!

Hope to post some pics soon!

Blog suffers...

Hey Everyone,

The blog is suffering at the moment due to the fact that we are having WAY too much fun! Quick update to let everyone know that we had an awesome time kayaking the Abel Tasman coastline. It definitely made my top ten list. We got back into town yesterday evening and needed to take care of some maintenance... like removing the salty crustiness from our clothes, skin, etc.

Today we explored some other areas of the park that were also incredibly beautiful.

Tomorrow we ride through the town of Nelson as we work our way over to the Marlborough Sound (North of Picton).

Sorry no pics at the moment. Hope to work on that!

We are having a great time! :)

Sea Kayaking Abel Tasman Nat'l Park

Tomorrow we head out to sea kayak around the Abel Tasman National Park. Will be camping for the next three days. (campsites on the beach)

Stay tuned for the next blog entry... coming in a few days!

Pure Bliss

Today's riding was.... Pure bliss.

It was a crisp clear morning and we were on the road by 8am. We were grateful for the cool air for we had a good sized hill within a mile of leaving Hu-Ha Bikepacker's Hostel. We made it to the top of Hope Saddle (2,100' elevation), took some pictures and then descended (pretty much)for the next 55 miles to the coast. The ride was spectacular. We had a fun descent, hugging the curves that took us down into a beautiful, green river valley. Norman Rockwell country to be sure. Lots of sheep, cows, horses. Old barns. Snow capped mountains off in the distance. I don't know if it was the clear blue sky, the fresh clean air, the smells of pine, eucalyptus, farm animals, or just what, but I think Dad and I were high on life for about 8 hours today. Pure bliss.