Thursday, April 10, 2014

Day 34: Murchison to Maruia

April 5th 2014
Distance cycled: 54 km
Total distance to date: 2020 km

Another milestone reached. 2000 km!

Today I only managed to ride 54 km because I left Murchison after 1pm. I left the campground around 10:30 but went into town for coffee and stayed for a while because I had wifi. As is typical for New Zealand (or at least small-town New Zealand, which is most of New Zealand), there was a fee. The barista said 15 minutes would cost a dollar, which I agreed to. He gave me the password (beer o'clock, without spaces or apostrophe). I checked my email, Facebook, Tumblr, then decided to look at flights on Skyscanner. The internet never shut off, so I kept going. I had a hunch that it wouldn't, since it was just a normal password-protected network, and not one of those single-use passwords. Then I started to worry that this was like bread baskets in Europe - if you consume more than is included in the price, they charge you for it afterwards. But that didn't happen. 

Since I apparently had unlimited internet, I decided to rebook my flights out of here, which has been hanging over my head lately. Of course this took several minutes of wait time on the phone with Qantas and Jetstar, and much searching on the Internet for fares and such. By the time I was done with all that, it was after 1pm. I bought a steak pie and an ice cream to celebrate the rebooking of my flights, and also because I was hungry again. 

Finally I set out on the open road, simultaneously relieved and annoyed with myself. The scenery put me in a better mood. 




This road was so beautiful and so quiet, I knew that the sealed road was doomed to end. And end it did. Here you can see the gravel that replaced it, not even 10km outside of town:


I still hate gravel. So much that I considered going back to Murchison, from where I could go along the highway and try to get as far as I could for the day, or I could check back in to the campground and stay another night and try again tomorrow. I liked the second option as it would allow me another nice night at that campground, and really most of the day was already gone. But ultimately I did not turn back. I just kept on riding. 

After several kilometers of dusty riding, I came to Glenroy River. The guidebook said this spot would be perfect for swimming. I changed into my togs (a Kiwi word for swimwear) and hopped in.  



Beautiful place for a swim, but BRRR was it cold! I didn't go in past my knees. But it was a good place to cool off a bit from the ride. (Except for the sandflies.)

This road, despite being gravel, was fairly manageable. The sign at the start of it stated that 4WD was recommended since there would be 6 stream crossings. I crossed several small bridges and thought that those were the streams. Oh no. All six came after a sign stating that I had 7km to go until the summit of the Maruia Saddle. They were pretty small but still difficult to cross without getting my feet wet. In the end, my right foot ended up getting completely submerged and was drenched for the rest of the ride. I came to dislike any bit of downhill, knowing that it meant a stream would quickly follow. 

Other than that, the ride to the summit was pleasant, passing through beech forest that looked surprisingly like the PNW:


Finally I summited the saddle and had 3km of downhill to navigate. By the time I hit the highway, I was glad (as I always am) to find sealed road again. 

This highway was very quiet and lovely.  





I could have taken this highway most of the way from Murchison and significantly  increased my distance for the day! Oh well. I had no idea it would be such a quiet highway. I'll just have to redouble my efforts tomorrow and aim for 100km. (And I won't take the guidebook-recommended 14km gravel detour, either.)

When I arrived in Maruia I had already been scouting the last 12km of highway for good freedom camping spots. I had stopped at a few potential sites but had determined they were too close to the highway for my liking. So I kept going to Maruia, a tiny settlement with a school, a cafe and a motel. I was close to walking into the motel and booking a room for lack of camping options, but then I realized tomorrow is Sunday and that I could probably camp on the school grounds without issue. So I pitched my tent next to the tennis court and cooked my dinner on the court itself. The cafe is just around the corner for tomorrow morning if I decide I want some coffee there (answer: definitely yes). 

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