Little Adventures on Two Wheels: Maruia Springs to Picton

07/5/08: 63km, Maruia Springs - Glen Roy River
08/5/08: 63km, climb: 804m, Glen Roy River - Lake Rotoroa DOC
09/5/08: 33km, climb: 850m, Lake Rotoroa - St. Arnaud via Porika Track
10/5/08: 90km, climb: 508m, St. Arnaud - Nelson
11/5/08: 44km, climb: 1127m, Nelson - Pelorus Bridge via Moungatapu Track
12/5/08: 40km, Pelorus Bridge - Aussie Bay
13/5/08: 16km, Aussie Bay - Picton

We traded our kimonos back for our bikes after an extended breakfast by the fireplace. It was a nice day for cycling and we were in a good mood so when we got to Burnbrae we spontaneously decided to take the turn off for a four wheel track as we were getting bored of cycling on the road. It turned out to be one of the better ideas we had as the track was enjoyable biking leading through forest and through several streams and we didn't see a single sole for the rest of the day. We camped by a beautiful blue river and had a swim.

In the morning we continued along the gravel road though farmland before returning to the main road in Murchison by lunchtime. We only had 5km on the main road before we took another turn off onto another quiet road. It started off paved but turned into a gravel road after a while and then went over a 650m hill. We stared to think it might be usefull having a map with contour lines. It was a beautiful long short cut. We descended to Lake Rotoroa just as it was getting dark and camped by another beautiful lake.

We had spotted another four wheel track on our map (the one without contours) which went from where we were towards St. Arnaud which is where we were heading next. We had enjoyed being off road so much we wanted to keep off. The road turned out to climb 600m to over 1000m in the first 4km which meant we had to push our rather heavy bikes some, most, all of the way up. The path was loose gravel and extremely steep so it took us a few hours to get up. Once we did get to the top we had a great time cycling down into the beautiful Howard Valley, and then joined the main road for the last bit to St. Arnaud. We slept in a backpackers as we wanted to start early the next day so we could get to Nelson at a reasonable time.

We spent the next day back on the main road, it was mainly downhill though and pretty easy apart from a couple of hills. One of them being called Kikiwa hill, which we, or at least Kiki was excited about. Arriving in Nelson in the afternoon we checked into a backpackers that provided us with free chocolate pudding, our sweet teeth had to be fed.

The next day we took another jeep track over another hill. We heard it would be pretty steep and could be muddy and you should not really try it with a lot of luggage but we thought it couldn't get much worse than the Porika Track so we went for it. It did turn out to be pretty tough but not quite as rocky so it was a bit easier to stay on the bike going uphill, when the gradient was not ludicrous and a mud stream was not flowing down it. We met a mountainbiker coming down who obviously thought we were crazy. It was a relief to eventually make it to the top around three o'clock. The downhill was great fun even after it started pooring with rain. We stumbled into Pelorus Bridge after dark and the kind man at the campsite clearly felt a little sorry for us as he gave us a cabin for less than it would have cost to put our tent up ($15). Kiki felt like it was his birthday.

The next day we cycled along towards Picton following the coastal road. It was pretty nice and we camped by the sea. We had a whole little beach to ourselves for our last night on the South Island before catching the ferry to Wellington the next day.