Today was an interesting day on the bike. Challenges to meet as we rode 112 km, climbed 1081 metres, heading from the Golden Bay coast to the mountains around St Arnaud.
We started off with a light breakfast at our accomodation, keen to start cycling as the weather forecast clearly showed rain was due in St Arnaud early to mid afternoon.
We were to climb most of the day as can be seen from our graph. Within that climbing, there were nine registered climbs on our Hammerhead computer. The hardest climb was that little one you can see around the 50 km mark. Seriously tested us. We had a headwind nearly all day.
Leaving Motueka we headed out along the Motueka Valley Highway, following the Motueka river. The day was crisp with only a few clouds, sun was beaming.
The plan was to follow as much of the Great Taste Trail as possible, in dry weather. The trail is predominantly gravel, of varying widths and quality. We had completed the section from Nelson to Kohatu the previous week.
We liked this sign. The bridge ahead was in better condition than the sign indicated with beautiful views as we crossed.
The trail incorporates numerous suspension bridges. This one is quite narrow and had a lot of swing! Neither of us had gotten off our bike, but straddled over as we walked across. That is not recommended. Get off and push it!
Our method resulted in greater swing! I ended up waiting for Tony to get to the other side as it was always swinging contrary to my leg movements.
The trail does follow roads at times, and this section was quiet as it went through dense vegetation providing a nice canopy from the now warm sun.
This was the start of a 31 km gravel section. At this point we could have turned left to follow the Highway and saved 14 km overall. However, we had decided to follow the trail despite the weather we knew was coming.
3 km along that road we turned back to this same spot. The road was not in good condition. It was heavily corrugated, loose, dusty and it was shaking the teeth out of our mouth, rattling our brains and reminding me I should have peed earlier!
We felt we had nothing to gain of possibly 31 km of these conditions at the very slow speeds we were doing.
This road is best tackled with an mtb bike with suspension.
Back to the highway and off we went heading to the next town of Tapawera where we needed to find food. The taste trail also looped back to this town so we would be back on our original planned route at that point.
More nice river vistas and interesting sights.
In Tapawera we were surprised to hear a cyclist call out to us. It was Anne, whom we had meet one week before at Spooner’s tunnel and then had lunch with at Kohatu.
Anne had been cycling in the area whilst Greg had a massage for a pesky back. Greg turned up and we all sat down and chatted as Tony and I had some food, Anne sharing some lovely blueberries she had purchased close by.
It amazes me these random catch ups…if you had tried to plan this, we could not have achieved a better timing result. I had only been thinking about them as we arrived in town as the cafe we met at was only a further 8 km away.
As they drove past us, Anne snapped a few more photos and sent them to us. Rare for us to have a photo of both of us riding together.
We headed back onto the Taste trail and rode up through the Maniaroa cutting. This part of the trail is an old rail trail.
We stopped to look at these three sculptures, promoting a private adjacent sculpture park. Looks like lollipops on sticks.
The next section was on state highway and not very pleasant. The traffic was super heavy and that headwind that had been omnipresent all day was strengthening.
After 15 km or so, we were pleased to deviate onto a quieter road, little traffic, just the headwind.
It was warm, and given we were climbing all day and into a headwind, we were consuming more fluid than usual. We were running low again, and Tony headed off to this stream hoping the water would be ok to drink.
Whilst he was under the bridge, the farmer drove out, and I did ask him if the water was drinkable, and he told us we’d be fine.
With 20 km to go, we had six registered climbs to complete, with two around three km in length. They were all on a busier connector road.
The further we went, we could see that down to our right, the weather was closing in,and we knew we were highly unlikely to not get wet.
With only 9.5 km remaining we stopped to don our wet weather gear and bang the skies opened. The camera stayed firmly tucked away in the dry for the rest of our ride.
We had hail and decent sized hail stones smacking onto our face with the headwind. We took cover under a forest of trees as the thunder boomed.
Each boom of thunder seemed to shake more hail from the skies, like it loosened it up. I have never been out in a hail storm before and found that interesting although wishing it would stop!
It eased up just a tad and we really needed to get moving. The temperature had dropped significantly and our legs were starting to get cold. The best way to warm our body was to pedal.
The weather gods had more tricks up their sleeves. They introduced lightning! Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening indeed! 🎶
I was counting between the lightning bolts and thunder. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three….boom!
We kept pedalling. I was thinking of the final two km climb in May climbing Passo Gardena in Italy, where we had a dry thunderstorm (the gods waited until we got to the top before sending down the rain, plus there was no lightning).
20-30 metres separated Tony and I and flash, a lightning bolt in between us! I only got to one missi…and boom the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard above my head.
I screeched out telling it to ‘go away’ (perhaps said less politely) and we headed to some trees but they provided no shelter in this case so we got back on the road, as we still had one km left in this final climb.
By the time we made the intersection to St Arnaud’s it was just absolutely bucketing down rain. The hail stopped.
Fortunately it was downhill to St Arnaud, little traffic (they were more sensible) and we just concentrated on getting there as safely and quickly as possible.
We are staying in the Alpine Lodge and have our Chinese laundry set up nicely. A warm shower and lovely dinner to end a memorable day on the bike.
Days like this are memorable for the variety and the tenacity required to get through the difficult parts. It was not an easy day with the constant climbing and headwind let alone the hail, thunder, lightning and rain.
There is something very satisfying in achieving this under your own steam successfully and we were on a high.
This is the radar as we arrived in St Arnaud’s. St Arnaud’s is around that bright red blob, South Island.
Thanks for reading and following our adventures vicariously. For those who send us messages via the various means, a huge thanks as your support and encouragement is appreciated. 😊❣️🚴
yakkablog 