So today I did something really silly. I took the harder route. Elise was clever. She took the “touring bypass”. It took Elise 18 miles and 2 hours to get to Reefton. It took my 9 hours and 30 miles.

We got up and I gave Elise some of the stuff I was hauling. I then left early, since I knew this would be a hard day. It wasn’t raining and hadn’t rained much in the night, but when I turned off the main road, the streams near the road were almost overflowing into the road. This is the first place where I should have turned around.

I continued up the road, which turned into gravel. There was a nice 1000ft climb up the gravel, which I really enjoyed. It took me to an old gold mining town. In fact, this town was home to the second most prosperous mine in New Zealand (until it collapsed). The town is now completely abandoned and maintained by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

It was really interesting and a bike up another couple hundred feet to see one of the old mine shafts. When I got up there, the clouds broke giving me a fantastic view. Well, I continued to the start of the 4x4 track. There was water running down the track. This was the second time I should have turned around.

The track was formidable, with me needing to hike my bike a lot. There were puddles of water up to 6 inches. At one point my garmin started saying that I was offtrack, which I thought was due to the remoteness. I was still pointed in vaguely the right direction. I continued down the 4x4 track for a good mile. The conditions got worse. I walked my bike up a hill, and then checked the topo map on my phone. I was way off course. So I turned around and went back down to where my garmin told me I went off course. This was the third time I should have turned around.

After this I followed a hiking track uphill. I tried cycling, but it didn’t work. I’d get 20 feet and then have to start hiking again, so I decided to just get off and walk. The track was washed out in a ton of places, including a few where I had to take off the bags, carry the bike over a dead tree, and then put them back on. It was exhausting.

A couple hours into this mess, I ran into a couple from Scotland who were doing the same thing in reverse. They had started yesterday, but it had rained so heavily that they had to stop halfway and stay at the DOC hut. Not good news. However, they told me that conditions improved significantly after the hut.

The rain pummeled a bit more and then began to clear when I finally reached the hut. This was around 3 in the afternoon. I had my first real stop for the day and sat on the porch of an abandoned building and ate my lunch. A man with two young girls arrived in a 4x4 coming from the other way. He told me that the road was ok, but a bit washed out in a few places.

I knew that it was mostly downhill from here. I started down the 4x4 track, but it was treacherous. There wasn’t any gravel, just large stones. It then began to rain heavily and the track became a stream. The road was so washed out, I have no idea how the man had got his 4x4 up there. In fact, he past me on the way back down as well!

Finally, a true gravel track emerged. I threw myself down it, ready to not be biking any more.

When I arrived at Reefton, Elise had made friends with everyone. We stayed at a nice small holiday park, and I ate dinner and went to bed.

The man and the kids in the 4x4 happened to be camping right next to us with a ridiculously nice set-up.