The south coast (NZ)

Wild weather, Penguins, Sea Lions, gravel roads and deserted sandy bays would mark my ride through the very south of New Zealand. 

Two days after arriving in Riverton the swelling on my hamstring had gone down and so it was time to give it a try to see whether I could ride on it.  I was hoping to get to Fortrose by nightfall as this was where I would pick up the start of the Catlin Heritage Trail.  All that stood between me and there was 80km.

When I set off I could feel tightness in the hamstring but the sharp pain that I had felt a couple of days ago was gone so it looked like the medication and the rest had worked.  Still, to be on the safe side I would use my right leg to do most of the work that day.

As the hamstring felt good I decided that although the quickest way to get to Fortrose would have been to follow the main road it would have been no fun and so looked on the map to see if there was an alternate route that I could follow.

It looked like there was a route which followed the coastline and I would mainly be cycling on gravel tracks for the first part as far as the town of Invercargill. I took the next turning off the main road and headed towards the coast to try and link up with the gravel track that I had seen.

I had only cycled for about two kilometers when I rode into a dairy farm.

According to my map there was a route through here but when I got off and found the farmer who was busy milking his cows it turned out that road on my map did not exist.   The farmer said that I should back track three fields and there was a track through a field that he sometimes used as a shortcut and on the other side I would pick up the gravel track that followed the coastline that I had seen on my map.

I cycled back 3 fields and there was a rough track that I could cycle across.  In the field were calves who were fenced off by an electric fence but didn’t seem to be frightened of me at all and as I rode past them they just stood and stared at me.

When I came to the other side of the field I picked up the track that the farmer had said and set off in search of Invercargill.

I came to a series of junctions which were not on my map and at each one I had to guess which way to go.  I then came upon a T-junction and after getting off the bike to study the map I was not really any wiser.

I decided to take the left fork as if I knew that the main road must be somewhere to my left and if I headed back towards that I could get my bearings again.

As I was cycling down this road a fair few vintage cars past me which was a little strange given that they were in pristine condition and were being bounced around on the gravel tracks.  It definitely wasn’t doing there paint work any favours.

I had to pull over to let the cars through as the track wasn’t wide enough for them to safely pass me and one of the drivers pulled over to say hello.  Apparently the cars were part of a vintage car club and every Wednesday they drove in convoy on a predetermined route for a lunch stop.  It seemed that, like me, the lead car had somehow got himself lost and the convoy had ended up on gravel tracks as they too headed to Invercargill.  Perhaps he was following the same map that I was.

Once I had found the main road I decided to stay on it as far as Invercargill as I needed to find a supermarket to stock up on my food rations and fancied a coffee.

My first stop was at Starbucks as this was the only coffee place that I could find and ordered a coffee.  At 5 NZD a cup I don’t think that I will be enjoying many more shop bought cups in New Zealand and so added them to my shopping list for things to buy.

The barista had told me that the cheapest supermarket was called Pak & Save which was on the next block over and after savouring every cents worth of coffee I headed over to pick up my groceries.

On the way I passed a bike shop and so called in to use one of their track pumps to add air to my tyres. They were not flat but I find that I need to top them up every week or so to keep them at the correct pressure as all tyres lose pressure over time.  On this trip I only carry a tiny pump with me which is great in emergencies when you need to inflate a tube after a puncture, but you can’t pump a tyre to 60 PSI with it.

At the Pak & Save I added 10 individully sealed fresh coffee bags to my basket and instead of costing 5 NZD for a coffee I could now enjoy fresh ground coffee in a morning for the bargain price of 50 cents a cup.

It was now well past lunchtime so I cycled to the edge of Invercargill and stopped to have my usual lunch of pot noodle with an extra pack of noodles.  Whilst I was eating lunch a guy in a pickup pulled up for a chat as he too was a cyclist and was interested in what I was doing.

Thankfully, I was now well over halfway to Fortrose as my hamstring was starting to hurt once again.  I had taken my medication with lunch and had thought about taking a pain killer too but thought better of it as I thought that riding without feeling any pain could potentially do it more harm than good.

The road now turned due south and I was following the Mataura River back towards the sea.  The road crossed many tributaries and along each of these were lots of small huts with huge nets rigged up on jetties which protruded out into the water.

All of the nets were deserted and I couldn’t find a fisherman.  In a field next door to one of the tributaries I crossed was a farmer so I stopped to ask him what people were fishing for.  Apparently people are after whitebait and can only fish for them in August until November.  It seemed that I was there at the wrong time of day as the best time to catch them is early mornings on a rising tide.

At about 5 pm I cycled into Fortrose and there is a D.O.C camping site right on the shore of the river / estuary where you are allowed to camp in a tent. There were lots of camper vans already getting set up for the night and I found a quiet spot in the corner of the field.

As the weather had been warm all day I needed to get a shower and give my clothes a rinse out.  There was a tap near the port-a-loo so I boiled a pan of water and had a quick bucket shower in my birthday suit behind my tent.

Up until about 1830 Fortrose was a Maori whaling station as it is located right at the mouth of the estuary but nowadays there is little left to show its former glory days.  There is a plaque on the shoreline which shows the demise of the town over a 70 year period as it records when each of the shops in the town closed and the dates when the tennis club, squash club, bowls club and boxing club all disbanded.   It seems that the introduction of a railway line to Invercargill in 1899 was the final nail in the coffin for the town and today all that there is left is one small shop and a café which seems tailored towards the tourist trade rather than locals.  Today, I think that most people, like myself, only visit it as it has a free D.O.C campsite at the start of the Heritage Trail.

As I was back camping next to water the sand flies came out to say hello but were not too vicious as I set about preparing dinner.  As the sun went down after dinner I went for a walk around Fortrose and this confirmed the demise of the village as there really was nothing to see.

Here is a video of some of the beaches that I visited along the way during my cycle along the coastline.  As finding free wifi in New Zealand is ridiculously hard there the first part of this video contains beaches that I wrote about in my previous post (The Route South):

The next morning I was up at sunrise.  The reason that I was up so early was not because I couldn’t sleep but because this was the day that I had been looking forward to as I was going to be cycling the Catlins Heritage Trail which is considered to be one of the prettiest coastal rides in the South Island.  With any luck I would come face to face with Penguins and Sea Lions by the end of the day as the trail visited many of the isolated bays which line this section of the coast.

As there was a strong westerly blowing I decided to have breakfast in bed rather than get up and sit at one of the picnic tables which were dotted around the shore of the estuary.

Breakfast was hot porridge washed down with a pan of strong black coffee made from the coffee bags that I had bought the previous day when I was in Invercargill and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised as it tasted like cafetiere coffee.

After breakfast it was time to pack up and head for the hills and follow the route of the Catlin Heritage Trail.  The trail covers a 70km section of the coastline and starts at Fortrose where I had camped.

My first port of call was going to be Curio Bay which lay 45km from where I had camped and on the map it looked like there were a fair few hills to cross before I came to the bay.  The good news was that the westerly wind was blowing so strongly that it literally pushed me up the hills. It was like being back in Asia where kids would run out to push me from behind.  If I was heading the other way I would have just stopped and camped to wait out the wind as there is nothing worse than a strong headwind. As I was heading east with the wind I could easily roll along at nearly 30kmph on the flatter sections of the trail.

The landscape that I was cycling through was cattle and sheep country which looked amazing against the backdrop of dark clouds that I could see building behind me

The rain seemed to come in bands every 30 minutes or so and behind each band was blue sky.

As each shower was not too heavy I didn’t even stop but just cycled through it.

After 20km I came to a gravel section of road and unlike the other gravel roads that I had cycled on the gravel here was over 2 inches thick which made cornering very interesting.

There were some steep downhills on this section and I came down a few of them sideways as the weight on the back end would give it more momentum than the front and swing around.  Strangely, it was actually easier to come down the steep sections sideways as it stopped the front wheel from sliding from underneath me.

The other bonus of their being a gravel section is that many hire companies don’t allow their vehicles to be driven on gravel roads due to a higher incidence of accidents and so the traffic along the Catlin Heritage Trail was nearly nonexistent.

I was going to stop for lunch as I was hungry but having seen photos of Curio Bay I decided to wait until I got there and instead pulled over for a muesli bar which I now have in my panniers since arriving in New Zealand.

The gravel section was only 15km long and ended just before I got to Curio Bay.

The sandy beach was a beautiful crescent and out in the bay there were Hector’s dolphins, which are distinctive by their black and white markings. They are one of the rarest dolphins in the world as they are only found off New Zealand shores. I could see the fins of the dolphins swimming in the bay but when I was watching them they were not jumping out of the water so I couldn’t get a photo of them.

The other thing that Curio Bay is famous for is that it is the site of one of the world’s finest petrified forests. A petrified forest is where trees or plant material have turned into fossils rather than decomposing as most organic life does.  Instead, the plant material is buried by sediment and protected from decay by oxygen and organisms. Then, groundwater rich in dissolved solids flows through the sediment replacing the original plant material with silica, calcite, pyrite or another inorganic material to form the fossilized wood.

The petrified stumps, fallen trees and fern imprints that you can see here have been dated to the Jurassic period from around 180 million years ago. The forest it is easily accessible at low tide but, a bit like the dolphins not jumping out of the water on command, the tides weren’t playing ball as it was high tide when I was there.

As it was nearly lunchtime I decided that the stunning view was as good a place as any for food and so got out the cooker to boil up water for a pot noodle.  As the wind was still blowing I cycled over to what looked like an old concrete shed and set my cooker up inside.

When I walked in I got a bit of a surprise as there was a penguin sheltering inside.

The penguin didn’t seem remotely bothered by me just stood there while I took a photo.

I then set my cooker up at the opposite end of the shed and cooked lunch. All the time the Penguin just stood and watched me. While I was cooking lunch the heavens opened and the heaviest shower of the day so far blew through.  Luckily, I had a roof over my head otherwise I would have been soaked.  It was still raining after I had finished lunch but there was a glimmer of blue on the horizon so I sat and waited it out.

In the afternoon two things happened – the hills got steeper and the rain got heavier.

I know when I am coming to a steep section when I see a wiggly arrow

What I don’t know is how steep it is going to be and this 3km was steeeeeeeep. It seemed to go on foreveeeeeeeeeeeeer and I’m sure that it was nearer to 4km by the time I crested the top.

It was now raining steadily and I was in full wet weather gear as I don’t mind getting wet but there is nothing worse than cold rain.  Being cold also reminded me that I had not bought petrol for my cooker the day before and had so far not passed a petrol station all day.

As I descended down the other side of the hill that I had just passed I saw a man working in his driveway and next to him was a petrol can.  I decided to chance my arm and doubled back t go ask if I could buy some petrol off him.

He was busy unblocking a drain when I pulled up and over the sound of the pump he could hardly hear me.  When I asked him if I could buy some petrol off him he looked slightly confused and looked from me to my bicycle and back to me.  I explained that I wanted it for my cooker and went to the bike to show him my fuel container.

Now he understood he told me to help myself and when I tried to give him 2 NZD for the petrol he said not to worry and that as a storm was blowing in he wished me luck if I planned to camp out that night.

The campsite that I was heading to that night was another free D.O.C. campsite and was about another 20km ahead.  I set off back down the hill hoping that the rain would ease and the hills would not be too bad.

Neither of these came true and I was soon grinding my way up another hill with the rain lashing down.  I saw a sign for the Whistling Frog Bar and Campsite and pulled in to get out of the rain.

I decided that after cycling through the cold rain for the best part of 3 hours a beer and a hot snack was in order.  When I looked at the menu it was 8 NZD for a plate of chips (how thay can charge that for deep fried potatoes I have no idea) or around 15 NZD for a meal.  As this seemed like better value for money I ordered fish and chips.  When it arrived the portion was huge and it was definitely cooked from fresh and the chef had cooked the fish to perfection.  I was glad that I had opted for the full meal.

The café closed at 7pm which meant that I still had over an hour of daylight to cycle the remaining 12km to the D.O.C. site.  At 6.55 pm the rain was still lashing down and so I decided to stay there at the adjoining campsite instead.

The only problem with my tent is that you have to erect the inner part first and put the fly sheet on afterwards.  This meant that in the lashing rain the inner part would be soaked by the time that I got the fly on.  I cycled round to where the kitchen and lounge area was and used the side of the building to block the worst of the rain while I erected the tent.  Once made I then carried it across to peg it out onto the grass.  The howling wind made this maneuver interesting as I nearly lost the tent a couple of times.

I now had a dry tent but the outside of my panniers and bags were soaking wet and so I cycled to the lounge area and put them in there to dry off.  The heater was on full blast and I just sat in front of it trying to warm up.  I should have gone for a shower but couldn’t tear myself away from the heater and as I was the only person using the lounge I just got changed into dry clothes next to the heater.

It is amazing how much rosier the world looked when I was warm and dry.  I hung my cycling clothes over the backs of chairs, and leaned my cycling shoes against the heater and headed to the kitchen to make a hot drink.  When I came back to the warm lounge there was an elderly Dutch couple sat on one of the sofas and as my drying luggage and clothes was taking up most of the space I apologised and started to tidy up.  They said to leave it all where it was too dry as it wasn’t bothering them.

We got chatting and they said that they had spent a brilliant day walking from the campsite to Maclean Waterfalls and then onto a sea cave. They said that I could access the waterfall by following a 4WD track that ran next to the campsite for a few kilometers and then to get to the sea cave I would need to backtrack and then take a different track down to the coast.   All told it was about 15km and I could cycle it if I didn’t fancy walking.  This sounded like a good way to spend the following morning if the weather played ball.

I stayed in the lounge area until about 11pm waiting for the rain to stop but it never did.  My panniers were now dry and so I put on my wet weather gear and flip flops and did two shuttle runs with the gear to my tent. I then dived in and fell asleep listening to the storm outside feeling happy that I had decided to stay at the campsite for the night rather than pushing on the extra 12km to the free site down the road.

In the morning my tent had survived the night and although the sun wasn’t shining at least there was no rain.

The sea caves can only be accessed at low time which I had been told was at midday and so decided to visit the waterfall first and then head to the caves.  I thought that the Dutch couple had told me that there were glow worms in the cave but when I googled it they never came up.

I cycled down the 4WD track as it followed the Tautuku River upstream

After around 3km I came to a steep downhill section that ended in a car parking area.  On the other side there was a walking track that led into an area of woodland.  I decided that as I didn’t know how far it was to walk to the falls that to save time I would cycle down the path as far as I could and then walk in from there.

The path followed the river and even though there were a few steps along the way I was able to cycle all the way to the base of the falls.

I then had to leave my bike behind to climb the stairs up to the main fall area and boy was I glad that I had took the time out of my day to visit the falls and as there had been a lot of rain the day before when I climbed to the top of the falls they were pretty spectacular.

There is something slightly magical about waterfalls and instead of just heading off I sat for a while and read one of the cycle trail magazines that I had brought with me.

Here is a video that I shot along the way that will probably give you a better idea of the scale of the waterfall.

After about 30 minutes it was time to head on and back track the way that I had come.  Apart from the very steep section as I left the car park the ride out was pretty easy and I was soon back at the campsite.  I had been told that I now had to head back to the main road and over the top of the hill before taking a steep track for a few kilometers which would eventually lead me to a car parking area.

The track to the car park area was both steep and rough and as it was still wet from the night before my back tyre was spinning in places which kept nearly knocking me off.  After 3km I came to the car park area and I had to buy a 5 NZD ticket to go down to see the caves.

As I would have to cross a beach I left my bike with the ticket lady and hiked down through the forest to the beach.

Although I had had Maclean falls to myself there were a fair few other people making the hike down to see the caves and when I got to the beach area there were no signs so I followed my nose towards the cliff area.

The cave entrance was huge.  I was expecting it to be limestone formation but the rocks looked like the ones that I had seen in Curio Bay and the cave must have been formed by the erosion of a fault line rather than hydraulic action.

As I walked into the cave I realized that I had not brought a torch with me and once I was 40 m away from the entrance I was walking like a Hollywood Zombie with my hands out in front of me checking that I wasn’t about to walk straight into the cave wall.

After about 30 metres I felt the cave wall turn and I did a 180 and headed down the other arm of the cave.  The sliver of light that I could see in the distance grew until I could now see well enough to stop doing a zombie impression.

The exit to the cave was even more impressive than the entrance.

Low tide had been at just after midday and it was now after 12.30 so the tide had already turned and was making its way back in.  Every third or fourth wave would completely swamp the cave entrance and I jumped onto a ledge to try to keep my feet dry as my trainers are the only shoes that I have with me and if they got wet I would have soggy feet that night.  After standing on the ledge for a couple of minutes it was apparent that I would have to bite the bullet and get wet feet. After one final walk through the caves it was time to hike back up the hill, collect my bike and head back to the campsite to pack my tent up and get on the road.

Here is a video I shot during my visit to the caves:

By the time I got packed up and on the road it was well after 2pm.  I wanted to get to Purakaunui Bay by nightfall as I had met an English couple in Riverton and they said that there was a colony of Sea Lions that lived in the bay.  This would be my last chance of seeing them as the following day I would start the long journey north back into the mountains and would not see the sea again for a few weeks.

I had only been cycling for about 5km when I hit my first hill and this one was steep.

The road kept climbing and I wasn’t sure if it would end as I went higher and higher.  I passed a sign which signaled that the end should be near

When I eventually crawled into the lookout point the view of the bay below was worth the effort that it had taken to get there

Worryingly, the effort that it took to get up the hill seemed to bring my right hamstring out in sympathy with my left as I now had a pain in both ankles. The left one seemed to be getting better so I just hope that the right one would come right again in a few days time and pushed on.

The descent from the hill rolled me into the village of Papatowai where I had planned to camp the night before but had been beaten by the rain.  Given the hill that I had just climbed over I ws glad that I hadn’t set out in the lashing rain as it would have been no fun.

On the far side of the village the road split but the sign post was of little use to help me choose which road to take.

I was heading to Purakaunui Bay which I knew was by the waterfalls. I had the choice of staying on the sealed road or heading down a gravel track.  I had no idea which was shorter as only one of the signs gave a distance so went for the gravel track as the sign said that it was 9km to the falls and gravel roads tend to be quieter and more interesting.

After a couple of kilometers I was questioning my choice as the gravel track went up the side of the hill in a series of hairpin bends.

The road kept climbing for nearly all of the 9km that I cycled to the falls.  As I had already been to one set of waterfalls that day I passed them by and took the next right turn which would take me to Purakaunui Bay.  As this is on the coast it was an easy final downhill section from the turnoff.

As I cycled around the final corner a beautiful sandy bay opened up in front of me

What caught my eye next though was a huge Sea Lion sat bathing on the beach so I parked my bike and headed onto the beach to get a closer look.

The Sea Lion was sat in a stream that ran across the beach and into the sea.

As I was taking photographs it crossed the stream and stopped just in front of where I was stood.  I had no idea how fast they could move so backed up as he was much bigger than I was expecting to sea.

What a fantastic end to my cycle ride – seeing a wild Sea Lion just sat on the beach.

As it was getting late I collected my bike and headed to find somewhere to camp.  With huge Sea Lions wandering around I didn’t want to put it on the beach so instead pitched it in a sheep field.

The fence would hopefully keep the Sea Lions out and the trees would protect me from the wind and rain if a storm hit.

Here is a video I shot during my ride through the Catlins:

In the morning I went to the beach expecting to see loads of Sea Lions but the beach seemed empty.

I walked along the shoreline and in the far corner I found a couple that were lay sunbathing at the edge of the sea.

A third Sea Lion came waddling down the beach and he seemed to take exception to me being on his beach and started barking at me so I left

As this was probably my last chance to see wild Sea Lins in New Zealand I walked to the other end of the bay and headed across the rocks to see if I could find some more.  The seaweed that grew on the rock was huge

I couldn’t see any Sea Lions on the rocks and was about to give up when I saw movement in the distance and went to take a closer look.  I was now off the rocks and walking through tall grass.  As I was walking I nearly trod on a mother and her pup who were sleeping in the grass

They were beautiful and didn’t seem bothered that I was stood there.  No wonder that by the mid 20^th century they had been nearly hunted to extinction as they were not afraid of me at all.

I continued my walk around the headland and found more of the colony sleeping in the grass. This part of the headland stank of fish so this must be where they lived.

These ones seemed fairly aggressive so I kept my distance.  I had seen a large one about 20 meters away to my right but had lost sight of him in the long grass.

When the Sea Lions don’t move they are very hard to spot.  In the picture below there are two Sea Lions – can you spot them?

Not wanting to take a chance with the one that I had lost sight of I left them be after 5 minutes and retraced my steps back through the long grass.  When I walked past the mum and pup the pup lunged and gave a loud bark which didn’t half make me jump. (watch the video below and you will see just how far I jumped)

Here is a video that I shot of the Sea Lions:

That day marked the end of my journey along the south coast as I would now turn north and head back into the mountains. I fancied a bit of a challenge and instead of following the National Cycle Network which went around the mountains I had decided that I would go over the top of them.

I had looked on the map and although there were no roads there were farm tracks and sheep runs that would take me over the tops of most of them.  The next couple of weeks were going to be hard work on the bike but the pay off would be that I would have the mountains to myself.

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