Whanganui River Trip - 80km by canoe in three days. Lots of rainforest scenery, steep gorge sides, waterfalls, scary fast flowing bits of river and rocks. This snack stop (one of many) is down a small side stream which had a waterfall at the end. All the stuff needed (tent, stove, food, dry clothes etc) was packed into the dry barrels you can see in the photo below. These were then tied to the canoe - the River was so fast and high if there had been a capsize it probably would have been a good few kilometres of floating before we caught up with the canoe!
Not the real one! Along the Whanganui River Road there's also Atene (Athens) and Ranana (London, bizarrely). Western settlers in the area reused place names they already knew - local Maori couldn't pronounce some of the syllables, so a second local name was used for each place.
Kaiteriteri Beach, Tasman, South Island - great ice creams where fresh fruit was mixed with mr whippy type ice cream, mmmmm!
The first 100km+ day. Spot the bike is very lightly loaded though. At the campsite in Murchison there was a country music festival so it was busy. One of the ladies there was driving back home to Westport - where we were heading - and she offered to put the panniers in her car for a luggage free cycle! Awesome! It is a little nerve wracking handing over everything you own to a stranger, but she seemed nice enough and gave me her address. Sure enough, rolling into Westport, Carol's house was easy to find and she even had a cup of tea waiting! Brilliant!
West Coast riding on 30/01 - amazing blue skies, sunshine and coastal scenery all day. Didn't even mind the hills because the views from the top were so good!
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