Westport to murchiston

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Lower Buller gorge]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Huge Dragonfly]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Upper Buller Gorge]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Nzs longests "swingbridge" (read suspension bridge)]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Again the whole bridge though]

off kayaking in Abel Tesman on wednesday and thursday which should be fun.

New Map......

Now in Westport

Fox Glacier to Westport

a short hop over to Franz Josef Glacier of about 25k then another 60 to Hokitika with a a steep climb in the pouring rain , here it rained for about 36 hours non stop really , we took shelter in a motel which we then turned into a sauna with our wet kit and the heater. From there we went on to Punakaki via Greymouth where we got sunburnt and viewed the pancake rocks and blowholes , this was an 90k day and from there a shortish but hard with headwind/hills day to Westport. We have taken a day off here to recover and arrange Kayaking for Motuaka.

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[the top of the haast pass]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Some long distances there ]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[The gates of haast]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[falls at the gates of haast looks tiny in the shot but if i tell you that from where the shot is taken to the water is about 3 times my height]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[blue skys]

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From New Zealand Cycle tour

[rainbows at Fox]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Fox Glacier Terminal face]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Fox Again]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Chris , one of the Austrailian couple we played leapfrog with between fox and Hokitika]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[jayne]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Franz Josef glacier terminal face]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[again with people to show just how big it really is when you are there ]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[us with the glacier in the background]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[a lunch stop in Ross]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Riding along past these Sandy Bluffs(cliffs) you could hear them crumbling away sounding like they were going to collapse at any time ! ]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[It looks nice when the rain stops. Much of our ride from Hokitika to Westport was made up of Waterfront roads , unfortunantly with these come the wind ! ]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Looking for Austrailia]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Drink stop at Barrytown.....Baz vegas as far as we could tell was their name for the pool table and the ping pong table with a discoball over it ......]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

Bluffs at Punakaiki

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[sun set at pancake rocks]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Pancake rocks blowhole, the sea smashed into the cliffs some 40-50foot below and came up a crack in the rocks and blew out the top like steam!!]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[Interesting staircase on the cliffs]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[The view back to the cliffs]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[the sleepy town of westport...still one of the more populated places we have seen.....this year.]

We hit 2500kms on the odometer yesterday also.

Also while reading the local paper we learned than the bannockburn hotel which the Bannockburn classic race we did on december 30th has had its roof blown off in a freak tornado.....glad we aint in the tent in that area still !!!

http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/bannockburn/38754/mini-tornados-lift-iron-roof-bannockburn-hotel

Long day ...Fox Glacier

We did a very long day today (for us) from Haast to Fox Glacier in a 125 k single swoop. The wind was kind and did not blow in our faces all day long as it has been. We had planned to stop at Jacobs River but we arrived there at 2pm and decided to do that last 45k to Fox.

Tomorrow we are going to do the final 25k to Franz Josef and look at the Glacier. This will help us regain the lost day from the Hawea flats - Makarora day

We met 4 other cycle touring couples in the holiday park here , 1 set on the road and a french couple in the campsite at haast .....safe to say its a popular destination for tourers !

New year ........Couch surfing, Makarora , Haast

Most people reading this wont know what couchsurfing is so i suggest checking out http://www.couchsurfing.com/

We found our selves in the wanaka area with no where to stay. No where had spaces left , most places either laughed at us or told us that they had been booked since april ....thats tent , hostel , motel , cabin ....everything

Andrew the irish man from earlier in the journey told us about the above site so we tried it and found our selves staying with Jamie and Liz.A kiwi and a Londoner staying in Hawea flat who took us to a friends indian(curry not native) themed party who was a scot from Helensburgh and we met another guy whod been based in arbroath at 45 commando.



[Our hosts]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[where we stayed ]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[has everything you need for couchsurfing and more]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[The view from the door ]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[it rained again...Makarora]

From New Zealand Cycle tour

[We paid for this hut....looks nice on the outside but wasnt a patch on the couchsurfing hut....]

We Met up with spook from nofuss on New years day , he is looking well and "coping" with the "stress" of living over here HAHA . It looks like he has settled in well.

We are now in Haast so dont expect to hear from us after this for a while as we havnt had a phone signal for 2 days , the landlines have only just come back on after being out for some reason or another and it only gets remoter ...the next city is about 300k.