By Lucy

Note; some of the situations in the forthcoming posts may seem concerning, but I am writing this safe and sound back at Simo’s place!

I don’t sleep well again. The fan is loud, but it’s too hot to sleep without it. The bed isn’t great, but the blankets are awful. I’m probably sore too, muscles humming away, overworked.

I’m rudely awoken at dawn by the sun streaming in. The window has no curtains. What nonsense is this? I manage to doze for a bit longer, but I’m up before 8.

There’s a small hill nearby called Mosquito Hill. It’s isolated from the rest of the foothills, just chilling by itself. Too bad there’s no hiking trails up it, only 500 meter elevation gain, and probably lovely views of the ocean from the top.

Now what? I wanted to go to Fox glacier, but I underestimated the travel time again. Maybe I can hitchhike. When I go upstairs to change, my roommate – Caroline – is finally awake. She’s going that way, but she says her car has too much stuff in it for me to go with her. Rats.

I pack up and walk out to the road. Belatedly, it occurs to me I should be on the other side of Haast, to catch all the tourists coming from the motels. I’m on the side of Haast closest to the pass and ain’t no one coming through the mountains this early.

I go back inside and change into my biking gear and hop on my bike. It’s another warm, sunny day, breezy. The road follows the coast closely, teal blue waves tossing whitecaps viewed easily as I drive. Then the corners start getting tighter and tighter.

I make it 30 clicks up the highway and pull over at a lookout, Knight’s Point. It’s pretty. My legs are burning. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. I hop on the bike and head back down the way I came.

“You dweeb.” Paul says. “How could you hike if you can’t even ride?”

What? Hiking and bike riding are like skating and walking, two different muscle groups. If I didn’t have to drive to the hike, it would be doable. I’ve done the same thing as my first trip to Aoraki, tried staying at a place too far away cuz it was cheaper instead of just sucking it up and paying for the expensive hotel.

Well, let’s do some relaxing by the seaside then. Richard said Jackson’s Bay is nice, and it’s only 30 clicks away. I speed past the turn off for Haast and keep going down the road.

The first half of the road is nice, wide open with views across the sand dunes to the line of the ocean. The sea breeze brings the smell to me… aaaaah! I missed this. I love Superior, but it doesn’t smell like the ocean.

There’s a small town named Carter halfway along, and after that the road changes. The pot holes come out, the lines fade away, and the trees close over the road in a canopy.

The road came damn close to killing me as I crossed the Arawhata river. The road makes a hairpin turn after the bridge, but there was no signs indicating this and the bridge is a high, narrow, steel contraption that makes it hard to see what’s coming. I slammed on the breaks, but I was mostly saved by the fact someone’s driveway is at the end and I was able to slow down and turn around there. If it hadn’t been there, I would have flown off the side of the road.

The road here was fine, but there was earthmoving equipment by the side of the road and signs that there had been landslides recently, or slips as they call them.

Jackson’s Bay is a nice little cove. The bay is sheltered from the weather and the tide, so there is a nice long sandy beach that’s easy to swim in. Located on the beach is a bright orange food truck called The Cray Pot. Just like possums, put aside the notion of the usual crayfish; small river dwelling things, cheap and picky to eat. Crayfish here are the size of lobsters and are expensive. I wasn’t spending lobster money on a lunch here, so I order catch of the day; orange roughy, which seems to be some kind of snapper. In taste and texture it was just whitefish, battered and fried like usual, although looking it up later gave me a bad taste. It usually lives for 150 years, meaning it can be easily overfished, and it tends to accumulate lots of mercury because of its long life.

Still… it was yummy when I didn’t know.

There’s a short walk nearby to a bay less sheltered to the tide, where the waves crash impressively on the rocks. The trail is mostly flat, winding away into the mossy trees, vines as thick as my arms forming cat’s cradles between them.

We were past 11AM and the tide was coming back in. It was nice to sit and listen to the waves for a bit, but I quickly decided to walk back to Jackson’s Bay. There was a family sitting in their garage with a bunch of display boards; Saturday had been the 150th anniversary of the town’s founding. Like Greymouth, it was also a former gold rush town. They let me look at the boards, which was nice of them.

I went back to the beach, took off my shoes and walk in the water for a bit. It was slightly cool, felt good on my sore feet.

The lady at the Cray Pot said dolphins had been spotted at Neil’s Beach, a little way back down the road, so I went down there, but I didn’t see any. According to Google, dolphins like low tide, so I was a couple hours too late.

There’s lots of dead possums on the road here, lots and lots. Some of them are barely touched and look like they are sleeping. There’s a spot for gutting fish at the hostel, I bet I could get away with skinning a couple of possums. But then I’d have to tan the hide. Plus I probably shouldn’t bring them back to Canada, biohazard and all.

On my way back to the hostel, I stopped for gas and grabbed a pack of gummies. I felt like some candy. Actually, I felt like alcohol, but I was trying to resist that. I made myself a pack of noodles and sat down on my laptop in the main room, as two kids screamed and chased each other around. The further I get from my desire to have kids, the less I want to tolerate other peoples’.

I showered in the evening and decided to walk down to the beach. There was a sign at reception for a walk that was only 40 minutes to the beach, thru the bush. If I stayed ’til after the sunset, I’d be walking back in the dark, but there was only possums to menace me anyway.

My new roomie showed up around 8, shortly before I headed out, flung himself onto the bottom bunk, and passed out.

It was a nice walk to start, well-graded gravel. According to the sign, it used to be a railway. It threaded its way through a mire, and there was lots of birds around – great for bird watching if you’re into that sort of thing. At one point, a large bird making a sound like “wub-wub-wub” flew in a graceful arc up, stopped at the peak of the arc and fell to Earth, flapping just before it hit the ground and swooping up in an arc again. Playing around!

As the clock ticked on 8:40 with no end of the path in sight, I started to get nervous. Then I heard the waves. I had to be getting close!

Another 20 minutes later, I found the road. A few minutes passed the road was the beach.

Ok, that is too far to walk this late at night. I’d be walking fully in the dark, nevermind the possums, at least it was a mostly full moon. I’d be overtired and sore and up past my bedtime when I got back.

I snapped some photos of the sun meeting the water and started to head back.

As I crossed the road, I heard the sound of a car. I ran back to the other side and stuck my thumb out. The truck stopped.

“I thought you were a deer!” The guy exclaimed, clearly in the mind to go hunting. “You going back to town?”

“Yes, just the backpackers in Haast. The sign said it was a 40 minute walk!”

As he drove, he talked about deer hunting – he was real keen to know if I’d seen any in the bush – and how dry it had been. Apparently most of the houses run on rain water, except the hotels, which run on “town water” of an unknown source. They hadn’t had any rain since Christmas and it had been at least 5 years since the last time that had happened.

The other issue with no rain is what happens when it does rain eventually. The soil dries out and becomes loose when it doesn’t rain, and then a deluge can loosen it and cause landslides. In an area already prone to them.

I thanked him for the ride and went back inside as the sun was disappearing beneath the horizon. My roommate was still passed out, having apparently not moved at all since he flung himself on the bed. His sheets were still neatly folded at the foot of the bed. I wish I could sleep like that.

I felt pretty good Monday morning. I was up at 7:30 feeling well rested and went down to make breakfast. I was at the end of my zucchini, and decided I should take a brain break and go out for breakfast Tuesday. With that in mind, I still had 4 eggs left, which I put on to boil while I cooked brekkie and then left cool while I ate.

Someone flooded the woman’s bathroom. Literally, the bottom hem of my pajama pants were soaked.

My roomie did not get up before I left, although clearly he had roused in the night because he was now curled under the blankets. I tried to pack quietly. My remaining food was just on the edge of being too heavy to take in my helmet bag, but I wanted the peace of mind on the drive. By 9:30 I was on the road. I opened the vents on my jacket cuz I was sweating, but I suspected – and was correct – that once I was on the road, the sea breeze would cut the heat.

I already knew what to expect up ’til Knight’s Point by my ill-conceived flight of fancy the other day. After Knight’s Point, the road turns inland a bit, passing around Lake Moeraki and Lake Paringa and a couple of smaller mountains, and is mostly flat and straight. Here the road most resembles Canada, when you can’t see the palm trees or the ocean, this could be the highway coming up to Sault Ste Marie.

I had noticed several signs saying the highway would be closed between Haast and Moeraki on Tuesday. I had timed this well. I also noticed several signs saying “Take Highway 6 for glaciers”. As if you have a choice! There are no other routes, every other road is a backroad leading to a dead end. You can either turn around and go back the way you came, or keeping going up to Greymouth, and that’s it!

The road skirts the ocean a bit at Bruce’s Bay, a long sandy beach with lots of space to pull over by the side of the road and let the kiddies out of the car. There’s even a bathroom and some travelling ice cream trucks. I stopped to use the facilities, eat a hardboiled egg and stretch my legs.

Now the road swung back inland as we headed towards Aoraki, and the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. You could see the effect of the mountain right away; my previously peerlessly blue skies were now infested with clouds (although no rain fell during my trip).

Here I fell, I’d say the first time it could be called a crash. I noticed a bug inside my visor – from Bruce’s Bay? – and my anxiety kicked in. I also noticed Aoraki ahead, snowy peak framed between the other tree-covered mountains. As I slowed down to 40 to go over another freakin’ one-lane bridge, I started to pull over just to snap a photo, and I heard the bike start to skid on gravel.

It wasn’t even that much gravel, it was probably my distraction and exhaustion more than anything. Luckily I was going slow, and I stepped off my bike and let it go down without me.

For a moment, I was stunned. I patted down my legs, worried I had hurt myself somehow and couldn’t feel it. Then I clicked that my bike was laying in the middle of the road and it would be hard for incoming traffic to see us and stop, although at least they’d be slowing down for the bridge. Before I could start to pick up the bike, a tractor trailer came by. He looked me over, but I guess because I wasn’t frantically waving him down, he decided I was fine and kept going.

I detached my bag from the bike. Good to know I strapped it down good enough that it wouldn’t go flying off even if I fell. There wasn’t even a scuff on it. A quality bag!

Next to pick up the bike. This was the easiest time I’ve had picking it up, even sore and tired. Getting stronger!

I wheeled it as far over as I could, snapped the photo I had crashed for, and gave myself five minutes to calm down.

It’s not even crashing that scares me, not if I died right away. I have no regrets, I’m not scared to die. What scares me is being maimed, specifically any sort of gut wound that needs surgery to patch up. Any surgery in my abdomen would most likely turn into another, more aggressive, tumor. At a minimum it would mean another 2 years of chemo and surgery and tests. But until that happens, I’m gonna dust myself off and get back on the bike.

I continued on to Fox glacier, barely 5 kilometers down the road.

I presumed, because Fox glacier is a 4 hour walk, there would be a little picnic area and bathroom in the parking lot. Nope! Still, I was too tired to search for another. I ate my tuna sandwich and did a couple laps to stretch my legs and sooth my rattled nerves.

Once I was back on the bike, it wasn’t even 5 kilometers down the road to the town and the gas station. I went in to pay and use the bathroom; she directed me to a public park 300 meters down the road, with a picnic table, bathroom, and beautiful view of the mountain! Impatience for ya.

Between Fox and Franz Josef the road was all switchbacks. Sometimes ascending, sometimes descending. I was glad most of the traffic was heading the other way, because I’m not sure I went above 60 the entire time. Some of the hairpin turns were so sharp that I felt the centrifugal force push me down onto the seat, the thin string of the helmet bag digging into my shoulder even through the leather jacket and sweater. A sign also warned about kiwibirds, although they are nocturnal so I paid it little mind.

The road here seemed almost carved into the rock, the walls covered in moss and ferns, like the villi of some giant. Like a protozoan mass reaching out to engulf me.

Once I was passed Franz Josef, the road opened up again. More lakes and fields, the ocean visible in the distance. The clouds cleared as quickly as they had appeared; I was past the Aoraki atmospheric phenomenon.

Driving past the Whataroa river was interesting. It looks almost like a mangrove forest; perhaps it is. The trees look like they are growing right out of the water, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was brackish.

After Whataroa, there was more switchbacks. I was getting tired again. Was I there yet?

I stopped in Harihari to catch my breath and have a snack and a drink.

I noticed some of the rivers here were a deep, reddish-brown, like freshly steeped tea.

The flowers were bursting into bloom by the side of the road. Some trees had shows of red flowers – someone later told me they are called Rata – and the sides of the road were coated in blue and purple flowers that looks suspicious like magnolias.

Then I passed the sign for Ross. Finally!

I’d had some sort of plan to stay at Yvonne’s place in Hokitika, but that fell thru, and basically every place in Hokitika had been booked up, so I had asked Richard for recommendations. If necessary, the hostel in Greymouth still had space for me, but I didn’t want to go that far if I didn’t have to.

He recommended the Ross pub. Of course, it’s not actually called the Ross pub; it’s called The Historical Empire Hotel. The lake across from it is actually the former gold mine, they just filled it in with water once it was done.

I walked in and there were some regulars drinking at the bar, and a picture of a naked woman pinned to the wall. Of course.

“Hi, could I get a bed for the night?”

“Sure!” The young man behind the bar says. “We have suites, with private cooking facilities and a bathroom.”

“How much does that cost?”

“100.”

Well, 100 wasn’t the worst price…

“We also have cabins. 20 a night.”

“Cabins?”

“Yeah! Do you have sheets with you?”

“No?” Who has sheets casually in their bag and not a tent or a camper?

“5$ for the sheets, then.”

Sure, 25 for a bed. Not arguing. I agreed, and he wrote me down on the list and walked me to the back, where a woman was cooking. “She’s taken cabin 13.”

“Cabin 13?” The woman frowned, washing her hands. “By herself? 10’s a bit nicer.”

“Yeah, I’m by myself.”

“Here, I’ll take you.” The woman says. She walks me across the gravel parking lot to a row of rooms, not unlike a motel. She unlocks 13, which has a single bed and a bunk bed, and then 10, which has a double bed and…. that’s it. There’s no table, no chair, no lamp. But I did ask for a bed, and this was arguably a better deal than the hostel, cuz I didn’t have to share the space.

“Yes, 10.” I said.

“I’ll get you sheets.” She left and came back with an armful. “The pillows are fresh! Here’s a mattress sheet, a top sheet, and a duvet. There’s a buffet on tonight, 35$ all you can eat.” She smiles. “Starts about 6.”

This is a lot better than I thought the day would end. A room to myself, a meal to stuff myself full…

I email Yvonne to tell her I’m coming up to visit, and unpack my bags and make the room up quickly. There’s a single plug, about halfway up the wall by the door. Excellent. I threw out the water bottle I had been reusing for 3 months as it was starting to grow mold, and the cream-turned-butter, which was starting to look funky.

Hokitika is about 20 minutes away. Yvonne’s house is nice, really open concept, all glass walls and concrete floors. Her husband, Richard, is tall and funny, and she has close cropped hair and the no-nonsense demeanor of a teacher. She insists on making me a tea before we settle down, and then she tells me the story of how she met Rosemary. Then she turned to me.

“Why are you here?” She asked.

“Well, Anthea and Rosemary recommended I meet you.” And also, why not?

“Ah, I’m the career advisor.” She divined.

“You’re not much of an extrovert, are you?”

“No, I just pretend to be one. Why are you in New Zealand? You must have some reason you want to travel. Does it run in your family?”

“Actually…” I told her the story about how my grandfather used to jump into the coal cars of random trains and just get out wherever. The man who’s name I had defied my parents to carry. Who I wasn’t even sure I’d ever met. Who’s body they donated to science when he’d died because no one wanted it.

“You must have inherited the gypsy gene from him.” She commented.

I winced at the not-political-correctedness, but I had wondered that myself. Was that something that could be passed down? The madness, the urge to keep moving.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Ross pub.”

“Ah, we stopped there before. It’s a bit… rustic.” She said, obviously hinting at something else. I mean, yeah it’s a bit seedy and rough around the edges, but unless it turns into Mad Max after the sun goes down, I’m not terribly concerned.

She told me about some events the Soroptimists were doing in March and offered to contact the rest of the club and see if I could join. I enthusiastically agreed; sounds like fun!

In the end, she counselled me to keep travelling.

I went back to the hostel just in time for the buffet. I changed into casual clothes and went to the front of the bar to pay for dinner and ask for the wifi password. A young woman of dark complexion with short hair walked in and ordered something as I walked off.

The buffet was at the back. What a feast! Of course, it wasn’t much, but after days of instant noodles it was amazing, not to mention I should probably be consuming more protein than I am. Gonna give myself Kwashiorkor or Rhabdo. I grabbed a bowl of chowder and loaded up a plate with every kind of protein on offer, plus some carrots.

As I grabbed a table outside, the young woman walked up to me. “Can I sit with you?”

“Sure!” Actually, I had been looking forward to a quiet meal to de-stim, but I could imagine not wanting to sit alone in a seedy bar as the regulars eyed you from across their third beer.

Her name is Pilar and she was quite chatty. I let her chatter away as I nodded along, pausing occasionally to refill my plate. She’s from Barcelona, which explains her complexion. I’m pretty sure she’s the first proper Spaniard I’ve ever met, even I can be educated. She’s on her way across the mountains to start a job in Christchurch. She ended up eating fish and chips, although she confessed she hadn’t intended to order it and just wasn’t clear on what she was ordering. She cleaned her plate, regardless.

She mentioned her camper van broke down earlier and she had another 4 hours to her campsite for the night. I frowned. The drive from here to Christchurch is 4 hours, where does she think she’s going? She mentioned the hot pools and it clicked; she was taking the north road over the mountains, the long way. I explained that to her. “Did you want to take the scenic route?”

“No! Thank you so much, you have saved me several hours of driving!”

She excused herself quickly after that nonetheless, as she still had to find a place for the night. I imagine she could have paid them 20 bucks to park here, but she was gone.

I slept good that night, let me tell you!

A group of men seem to be renting the “cabin” at the far end for whitebait fishing or gold mining, they have clearly made themselves at home there and left around 6AM.

Around 7:30 I hauled myself out of bed. The bar was still closed. I waited ’til 8. No signs of life. I should have asked when breakfast started. Now what?

I walked around the corner to a corner store. They had individual eggs for 90 cents a peice, plus zucchini. Suppose I could cook myself breakfast. I ended up buying a litre bottle of orange juice, a canned coffee so I didn’t end up with butter again, and a packet of little cakes that looked like Twinkies, because one of them claimed to be Durian flavour and I needed a pick-me-up. Resisting the urge to drink is hard.

The hot plate was part of the toaster oven. After 2 of them failed to work, I put the pan with the zucchini on the third, and started poaching my eggs in the microwave. Jokes on me, cuz the third one worked.

I went for a bit of walk around town. The police station appears to be a residential address. There’s some little odds and ends here, like a house decorated with every vintage teapot known to man.

The address across from the bar said “Crazyhorse motercycle [sic] museum”, and I wanted in on that. I went into the bar, which was now open. “Do you know when the guy across the road opens his museum?” I asked the lady.

She pointed to a man trimming a raw venison steak in the kitchen. “That’s him.”

“Oh!” Hah, of course the bar’s owner lives across the way, in this tiny town.

“She wants to see the bikes.” She asked him.

“Well, you know where the key is.” He told her.

I followed her across the road. He had a massive garage crammed with classic cars, old Harley’s and Triumphs in various states of disrepair. She had a fair few stories for them, and mentioned their son had lived in Whistler for a bit.

As we went back into the bar to pay for my room, the radio started playing Rolling Stone’s Heartbreaker. Perfection.

I packed up and returned my key. On the road again!

In the last five days, I had travelled over 1000 kilometers on the bike – 950, plus side trips – and spent 510$, including gas and rooms for the night. Not bad!

The road ahead was pretty uneventful. I knew the bit to Hokitika already. The road between Hokitika and Greymouth is straight and boring, although hopping for traffic. Between the two is the turn off for the road over the mountains, Kumara Junction. Hokitika is the hip, bougie version of Greymouth, which of course we’ve visited already. I just drove through it.

About 20 minutes outside of town I stopped at a little parkette that was a memorial for a mining accident, Strongman Mine. North of Greymouth, a lot of the industry is coal mining, with the attendant fatalities. A father asked me to take pictures of him and his two kids there.

I had one of my little snack cakes, vanilla. They’re alright; I was hoping for them to be bursting with creme, like Twinkies, but they’re kind of dry.

Once I got back on my bike, I ran into one of the bugbears of the road less travelled; untamed roads. I found several sections where the road turns back into a gorge, only to make a sharp hairpin turn I could only take in second gear.

Half an hour later, I’d reached Punakaiki, which is a touristy place. They have the so-called “Pancake Rocks”, which are named because they look like a stack of pancakes, thin layers clearly delineated. The effect of the seawater, tide, and the rising and falling of sea levels on the limestone.

Worth noting that despite the name looking Maori-like, it’s actually a missunderstanding of the Maori name for the area because the English explorer who wrote it down had really bad handwriting.

It was here that I ran into my favourite NZ bird, the Weka. Weka look like a large Kiwi but are daywalkers, curious and unafraid. They are technically endangered and protected, so they will just wander into any open door and mug you for food because they’ve figured out no one will hurt them. They could be found anywhere in NZ but are mostly found in the area of the West Coast north of Greymouth. Lots of kiwis find them a nuisance, but I think they’re cute and an upgrade from gulls or pigeons.

They had handpies for 7.50, so I got one of those and sat down to eat.

On my way out, a man stopped me to ask if I was on a motorcycle. When I said yes, we had a long conversation about motorcycles in NZ and went out to the bike to take a look at it. He’s a local who went out with a friend for lunch, the tourist restaurant being the only one around. I’ve learned that, in contrast with the folks in Canterbury who prefer sunny days, paved roads and the latest gear, West-Coasters are people are my own heart who applaud my gutsy moves. All they care about is that I wanted a bike and so I bought one and drove it around!

After we parted ways, it was a short walk around for the Pancake rocks. The path is wide, flat and paved. It’s probably informative and pretty for anyone who hasn’t been to the Bay of Fundy and seen the Hopewell rocks. There’s also a blowhole, although the sign doesn’t tell you when it’s active and I shall tell you, most people won’t be there when it’s active. Blowholes are most active at high tide (so, 7 AM or PM) and when the sea is rough E.I. raining and windy, not calm and sunny.

Apparently Punakaiki also plays winter host to a species of petrel.

It was so hot I was sweating buckets!

I took off and about 45 minutes later arrived at Charleston. The road between Punakaiki and Charleston is quite winding, lots of switchbacks and idiot tourists, so it took a while and was quite tiring.

There was a sign here for “Adventure!”. Cave rafting, glow worm tours, train rides, it all sounded fun. It was all also out of my budget, except for the train ride, which was 35 bucks and only left at 11AM. Maybe on the way back.

As I made my way northward, I passed over the Buller river and into Westport, the biggest town after Greymouth. I’ve had to re-evaluate Greymouth, now that I’ve been basically the length and breadth of the west coast; it really is the biggest town. Everywhere else basically exists as a waystation for tourists, miners and fishermen.

A sign warned that this was the last gas for 90 kilometers, until you reach Karamea, so I stopped to gas up.

The highway from here started weaving back and forth across the coal train tracks.

In Waimangaroa, I noticed the sign for Denniston, so I took the turn here.

If I’d had all the time in the world, I’d loved to have done the hike up to Denniston. But if you don’t have the time or inclination, there is a paved road up the hill. It is absolutely chock full of switchbacks, to the point that I did basically the whole thing in second gear. My poor arms!

Ah, it was worth it though! The view was gorgeous, especially at the top.

Denniston was a former coal mine. They set up an innovative cable-car system where the weight of the car going down would take the empty one back up, so there wasn’t a hassle to return empty cars. It was also a lonely place – there was no road access at the time, so the workers and their loved ones just rode an empty coal car up to the plateau and stayed there until they were done the contract.

It was a nice walk around. I ran into a local woman with her arms full of sphagnum moss, who explained to me about the plants. Apparently Rata has a really big bloom every 2-3 years and this year was the year, so I was getting a special showing.

Until 2023, this used to be an active historical site, with a booth to rent audio guide tours and everything. You could take a cable car down into the mine and get a sense of what being a miner is like. Sadly, it got shut down after Pike River and the new mining workplace requirements made no distinction for active vs non-active mines.

Pike River was one of the deadliest mining accidents in New Zealand. In 2010 there was a buildup of methane which resulted in an explosion. 29 men were killed instantly by the fireball and the rock collapse. The last mining accident of this kind had been 40 years early, for Strongman (the memorial I stopped at) and few people knew how to stage a rescue operation. Subsequent explosions on the days following killed any chance of rescuing the men or even recovering the bodies.

They’re still not quite sure why it happened, as no one has entered the mine since.

The youngest victim was 17, Joseph Dunbar. He had just celebrated his birthday the day before, and it was his first shift at the mine. In a case of morbid irony, his first shift was supposed to be 3 days later, but he had begged to be allowed to start earlier.

I keep seeing the video of the fireball consuming my coworkers. Grist to the mill, chaff to the wind, that’s all we are. An expense. Collateral damage. A obligatory, halfhearted letter; “sorry for your loss”…

On that lonely, windswept hill overlooking the ocean, I shed a tear for every person who didn’t make it home after work, for every person who won’t in the future, for me, because there’s always a chance it might be me.

Once I was done feeling sorry for myself, I went back to my bike. There was a group of 4 who just unpacked from an SUV. One of the men commented on my bike and we chatted for a bit, at which point we found out we’re all Canadian. They’re from Saskatchewan, but the man said he’s was born and raised in Northern Ontario and his father used to be a logger for Abitibi, which was interestingly close to me.

I went up and around the corner to check out the “ghost town”, but since the mine shut down the cable cars, all the buildings are locked up and shuttered. There does seem to be a home or two that are occupied, curiously, as they look modern and maintained, and there were cars in the driveway.

The rest of the road to Karamea was fairly straight and skirted the ocean, minus one 20 kilometer part that was all switchbacks and tight turns. At times it dropped down to a lane and a half, squeezed in-between the drop and the rock it was cut out of.

I relayed a bit with a pair of female bikers, one sporting a helmet with large fake red braids stuck to it.

Then I was in Karamea, the end of the road.

It’s a small town, as befits its status. There are 400 residents, one small grocery store, one over-priced gas station with 2 pumps, and a single cafe to service the 3 hotels. I picked the Last Resort, which has dorm rooms for cheap. The hotel has a real “Jungle Japes” feel, with plaster walls and raw wood posts. The buildings were on an elevated platform, as if they expected it to flood.

I boogied over to the grocery store before it closed to grab breakfast.

There was a green Yamaha Bolt parked outside the store. I waited a moment for the owner to appear; a tall man with a Forrest Gump “ah shucks” sort of voice, named Peter. He’s staying at another hotel but he’s been to Karamea and the Last Resort before.

There doesn’t seem to be much interest in the dorm rooms or in the kitchen part of the hotel. I grabbed a frozen seafood medley, got back to the hotel and discovered I had lost my bouillon cube, so I had a rather bland side of rice with it. After dinner I had the green bar, which I thought was durian flavour because the shop had a flavour that were durian and green, but in this pack it’s macapuno. Which is a kind of coconut, turns out. Other than that, they were pretty boring.

No one else was in my room that night. There was 5 single beds. I chose the bed located in the corner next to the door, because it was far from the windows and I prefer a corner so I can take it over. It also shared a thin wall with the shower stall, so I had to overhear anyone who had a shower (not the toilet though, thank god).

Every time I stop somewhere for 2 nights I promise myself I’ll take the day off biking and rest, but it never works out. The bruises are getting pretty impressive and my arms are tired. I’m pretty sure the creatine is the only reason I’m still going.

I wanted to go see the Oparara arches, but I discovered they are also up a pretty sketchy gravel road. After breakfast I walked up to the grocery store to grab a few things I forgot, and ask at the information centre. They said the walk is about 4 hours each way (a bit much) or there’s an option to rent a car for 100$ (plus gas). No thanks!

The ladies I had relayed with the other day showed up at the store, I recognized the red braids. I went up and said hi, and one of them said she remembered me because of the yellow “backpack”. They’re camping at the end of the road, sadly.

I went down to the sandy beach, holding my thumb out every time a car drove by, but no luck. I aimed to be at the beach for 11 so there was a chance there would be dolphins with the low tide, but no luck there either. I took my shoes off and rolled up my pants and walked through the waves for the better part of an hour. Giggled and jumped over some waves, or ran away shrieking. It felt good.

I noticed signs saying “watch for bitterns” (which I never saw), and some pukekos. Pukeko look much like the weka, except with a vibrant blue plumage and a bright orange forehead plate. They aren’t as curious or playful.

I found some impressively purple shells. It is some kind of sea snail that makes bubble rafts to float near the surface for food. The shells appeared to still be occupied, so I left them there.

I walked back to the hotel for a nice meal, but the attached restaurant was closed. As the only staff member present was telling me so, a woman walked in.

“There is a cafe up the road.” The staff said.

“Ok.” I said.

The random woman turned to me, “Oh, I saw you walking back from the beach! Did you want a ride up the road? It’s a long way to go in the hot sun!”

Did I want a ride 500 meters up the road? I’m not delicate – and I was wearing sunscreen – but I accepted the ride. Why not.

I met her husband and the large spaniel-type dog in the backseat.

When we got there, they were still debating what to do for lunch, so I went in to order. I ordered the chowder and a smoothie and went to tap my card.

“Ah, no tap, sorry!”

Thus began a repeating issue. My card won’t work if it’s inserted, now. It just says “number of pin attempts exceeded”.

Well, now what? My card works at the grocery store, I guess I’ll just cook something at the hotel…

“We can get your lunch.” The woman who gave me a ride said, having snuck up behind me.

“What? Oh, no no, that’s ok, I’ll figure something out…” I blushed, embarrassed to look like a broke, snot-nosed kid.

“No no, it’s not big deal.” She said, as her and her husband ordered.

“I can pay you back with a transfer!” I tried one last time.

“Don’t worry about it.”

I sat with them for lunch, feeling terribly sheepish about the whole situation. The chowder was really good and so was the smoothie.

I almost got lucky twice. Someone at a neighboring table almost convinced them to go to the arches and that would have saved me driving the bike there, but they didn’t. Oh darn! That would have meant more to me than lunch.

Peter was having lunch as well. I stopped by his bike and said hi. He said he’d gone up to the arches on his bike and the road wasn’t too bad, except for a few section where tourists, unfamiliar with getting uphill on gravel, had slammed on the gas and left ruts in the road. My concern had been potentially crossing streams (cue a discussion with Paul; is it ford or fjord? It’s ford).

Well, I suppose if Peter says I can do it…

I walked back to the hotel and grabbed the bike.

He was right. The main problem with the road is that it went up and up and up, curving and twisting, all gravel. After I’d climbed the first few rises, I blanched and stopped. I’d have to go back down.

Fortune favours the bold.

I forged ahead, cursing at Peter under my breath.

I made it to my destination. There was lots and lots of cars there, so I cursed them too. None of these people could have given me a ride and saved me the frustration?

The trail does a loop, about an hour depending on your fitness. I didn’t pass many people and the parking lot was mostly empty when I got back, so they must have taken the same direction as me.

Oparara is an interesting location because of the limestone and the rivers. It’s home to multiple sinkholes and quicksand, and experts have noted even the ancient Maori avoided the area because it was so dangerous. It’s of interest to archaeologists, because lots of animals have gotten sucked down into the quicksand and preserved. There’s even an area called “Honeycomb Hill” because it is like a honeycomb, crisscrossed with tunnels worn through the limestone. Access is restricted to a few guided tours, for safety and historical preservation.

The first stop is the “Moria” arch. No filming occurred here, it was just named that because it reminded someone of Moria. I concur; the only way to access the arch is to climb down a set of stairs carved into the rock, so shallow that even I had to duck under the ceiling. But wow, what a view! The ceiling hovered ominously overhead, just waiting for a few more millimeters of erosion to come crashing down! Plus the dripstone…

I had been debating heading back to the bike, but decided to keep walking to the Mirror Tarn (a tarn being a small lake or pond).

As I walked, something that had been percolating in the back of my mind bubbled up. Before the last week, biking had been a lonely affair. But everyone on the coast admired my can-do attitude and the guts behind buying a bike, strapping a suitcase to it and going for it. I especially felt encouraged by my short conversations with Peter. I had travelled more than 1’200 kilometers in less than a week, but I could no longer find the voice in the back of my mind that imagined the Vagabond encouraging me. I doubted there would be any way we could have a calm, rational conversation about moving forward once I got back. I wasn’t going to budge on insisting on an apology or going to couples’ therapy immediately, and I was doubting he would agree to either. And I’m tired of fighting.

8 of swords – blinding yourself to your ambition.

There is also this slightly insecure urge to come back and fight for him. To prove that he’s wrong, I’m not faithless, I didn’t leave, I’m not afraid of him. That’s the wrong reason to go back. I don’t need to prove anything to him.

Is travelling the ambition to which I am blind? Perhaps it is.

The Mirror Tarn is pretty, I suppose. It’s just a still pond.

I felt lighter as I walked. Freer.

When I got back to the parking lot, there was another motorcyclist there. We agreed to leave together, so if one of us dropped our bike the other could help pick it up (not that I needed help).

We both made it fine. I took each descending turn faster than the next – 14 kilometers is a long time to putt along at ten clicks an hour. We passed a campervan who had driven into a rut on the side of the road and gotten stuck; he’s gonna be there a while!

When we got back to pavement, we turned off our bikes, flipped up our visors and fist-bumped; we did it!

“Where are you staying?” He asked.

“The Last Resort. And you?”

“The campground at the end of the road.”

Ah yes, with the two ladies. “Maybe I’ll see you at the Greymouth rally.” I said.

When I got back to the hostel, I had a roommate for the night, a Danish man who had done the Heaphy Track from Tasman. He asked if I would mind if he set an alarm for early as he had to catch a ride back towards Tasman. No, I don’t mind. I feel pretty good.

What was it I had said to the Vagabond, after he cynically broke my heart and then tried to manipulate me by asking me to come back?

Don’t waste my time.

I’ve got things to do.