A2O Twizel to Omarama

I spent last night at Twizel in a backpackers hostel called High Country and I enjoyed the stay. I was up early as usual and after a quick coffee at a bakery I hit the road. The temp was below freezing so I had to be careful of the black ice on the roads until I got to the A2O path which is crushed stone. The trail today was a bit rough in a few areas but otherwise it was a fairly easy ride. The scenery again was gorgeous with more fresh snow on the mountains making them stand out against the dark lower elevation where I was riding. The temps stayed right around freezing all day and light snow flurries were falling but no rain or hail today. The wind was still howling though.

I only had one little problem today. I had a seizure while riding along and I had to drop off my bike. Lucky for me it only lasted less than a minute. I could not ride afterward though. I had to wait over an hour before I stopped cramping up and I got my motor control back. It could have been much worse for me if I would have had a prolonged attack. I was 15 clicks from a road at the time so if I had to be rescued it would have been a big deal. Plus there was no cell phone signal so I would have had to wait on the trail until somebody came along the trail to go get help. I do hope I do not have that happen, ever. The other unfortunate thing is I landed on my camera and it has not worked since. It says "card error" every time I try to take a picture. I am hoping that getting a new SD card solves this problem but I am not sure it will. So I have not been able to take pics since the seizure.

Tonight I am staying in a holiday park cabin. I ran out of cash and there are no ATMs anywhere close to where I am. The next one is two or three towns away. I may get a bit hungry before I get there. I really do not understand why there are no ATMs around with all the tourists that come through here. I can’t be the only one that planned my cash supply poorly. Oh well such is life. I am still loving the ride pics or no pics.

Here are a few pics from before I smashed my camera.

Mount Cook to the Ocean, A2O

I started my Alps to ocean ride today. I got a shuttle to the Mt Cook Village and after a huge breakfast and a couple coffees with an awesome view out the window, I went over to the museum/MtCook Center and looked around. Not much new there for me so I just took off on my bike. The weather was bright sun with almost no clouds as I left the village. That did not last long. Before the village was out of sight clouds blew in over the mountains and it started to rain. The wind picked up to a gusty 30-45mph blow right in my face. I hate headwinds. The rain stopped and then it started to snow. The snow lasted about 15 minutes then the sun came out again. A few minutes later it started to hail. The high wind was blowing the hail into my face and it hurt like hell so I had to stop and go hide behind a sign until the hail stopped. I rode on taking pics here and there then it started to rain again. The wind got so strong I could barely make forward progress. I was riding in granny gear on a flat road. I kept pushing on because there was no other choice available. After about five hours of really hard riding I made it to Twizel a small mountain community and I checked into a packpacker place called High Country. Nice people running it. We talked for quite a while.

I also went to the laundry mat to dry out all my clothes. I was soaked when I got here from sweat and rain and snow. It was near freezing at 34 degree fahrenheit weather or 2 degrees celsius. The only reason I was not cold with all the wet clothes on was that I was working so hard to overcome the wind that I was sweating all day long.

Still a good day despite the hard work and weird weather. Tomorrow I do it again. I hope the weather is better.

A few pics

Oamaru NZ for A2O

Today I am in Oamaru NZ getting ready for a bike ride from up on Mout Cook all the way down to the ocean. My plan is to take a shuttle up to Mt Cook from here and ride back to here which is the end of the trail. I will leave unnecessary junk behind and only carry what I need for this ride. I hope the weather allows me to do this. The forecast for today and tomorrow is rain at lower elevations and snow at higher ones. I will not do the ride if there is more than an inch or so of snow on the ground or if the trail seems too slippery from frost and ice. The temperature forecast is from a low of 31 to a high of 34 so it will be very cold at the start of the ride. I hope I can ride far enough down into warmer temps before I need to camp for the first night.

Here are a few pics from the last couple days. Check out the little bluey pizza ingredients for the pizza I had last night over at the Scotts brew pub, it was very tasty. My night in the pub was a strange one. I walked in the door and there was a girl on her knees looking up at me like we just finished. Then I looked around the pub and it was all men. I had one pint and all the men left and were replaced by all women for the rest of the night. I had a good time the entire night and the beer was good. Now off to pack for my ride.

Time off

I am taking a couple days off again here in Dunedin. I spent a few hours booking my next bike ride. Next week I plan on doing the Alps to the Ocean trail or also known as A2O that goes from up on Mt Cook down to Oamaru on the coast which is a 300km long ride mostly along dedicated bike trails. There is snow in the forecast on the mountain and the temperature up on Mt Cook where I will start is for about 30 degrees F or just below 0 degrees C. I hope there is not a lot of snow accumulation on the ground or I won't be able to do it. If the snow clouds clear however, the views of the mountains should be spectacular. It is worth the risk for me to try to do this route because the payout if I get good weather is so fine. Here is more info if you are interested on the web site for the trail, http://www.alps2ocean.com

Of course it is raining here in Dunedin again. The rain just follows me everywhere I go. It is getting comical now. Some friends of mine I am hanging out with here in Dunedin told me it would not rain while I was here and I told them just wait and see. It rained of course and we all laughed about it. Nothing else to do at this point but laugh.

no pics today.

Queenstown to Dunedin

I had a lazy morning waiting for the bottombus that left at 10:30 to go to Dunedin. There were only two people on the bus. The other was a 21 year old girl from England. Our driver was still very good giving us a history lesson about all the stuff we rode past on the way and other interesting info. The road was not real interesting but generally, it did change a lot in a very short distance. I enjoyed the ride which took until 4pm to get to the end.

I almost fell asleep at one point when the scenery was repetitive for a while. There was no wildlife or anything like that to stop for. We stopped to look at the big new dam, Whoopee. Sorry I was not impressed even though it is the largest concrete structure in New Zealand. The river it dammed up was a gorgeous fast flowing river with crystal clear water. I would rather have the river there than a dam.

Once in Dunedin we toured the city since we were an hour early. Not a big tour but we did go to Baldwin Street the steepest residential street in the world, again whoopee.

some pics taken from a speeding bus...