What a night. We couldn’t wait to get out of Kaikoura if I’m honest. Not only were we between state highway 1 and the railway line but Top 10 has us packed in like sardines (to be fair it’s the busiest campground we’ve stayed in by far). Someone in a nearby tent snored like a strangled possum, a car alarm went off at one stage, drunk noisy yobbos wandered up the pavement just outside the campground, and people seemed to need to chuck their bottles in the recycling bins about 10 metres away from us in the middle night. Surely that could have waited til morning. Then just as dawn was breaking several camper vans packed up and headed off even more keen to beat the traffic than us! Suffice to say we had a bit of an early start.
Fortunately things went uphill from there and not in the geographical sense. We found the old beach rd at the end of town and had 6 kms of pretty much perfect cycling. Mountains to the left, sea on the right and a sealed road with hardly any traffic. All good things must come to an end, however, as did the old beach road in a steep gravel climb at Hapuku back to the main road.
Millie keeps winning the boat, float, goat game, but this morning I saw a stoat chasing another stoat and I felt I had a strong case for adding a stoat category, unfortunately there was no consensus amongst the team and I lost several more games during the day as the elusive goats (plenty of boats around Kaikoura) proved not to be so elusive to the eagle-eyed Millie.
A little down the road there was a long section of road works where the road was down to a single lane controlled by traffic lights with something like a 6 minute gap (the lights had a countdown timer). The traffic was pretty light but this meant we got a nicely predictable clear road for a while and then a stream of traffic we could pull off for and then six more minutes of peaceful cycling.
With a tailwind (finally!) we made good time and came across Karaka Lobster at Okiwi before we got too desperate for coffee. Although, at one point we passed a house where the entire tandem team noticed a strong coffee smell and we briefly considered whether mugging for coffee would be a crime or understandable.
Fortunately we were just ahead of the queue for coffee as a couple of tour groups pulled in, including an escorted cycling tour who drove up - their schedule only had them cycling 11 km to a winery today - seems a little more sensible than towing a coffin the length of the South Island.
We ended up spending more than an hour there as person after person came to sign the petition and coffin, including the most charming and least intimidating detective we’ve ever met (and we suspect probably very effective as a result).
The tailwind continued to blow us along at a steady pace until we got pulled over by the police. Genuinely pulled over! With flashing lights and everything!! Oh oh what had we done?
Alan was keen to see us being as safe as possible and had a couple of suggestions. He didn’t like Millie holding her arms out to move traffic over and was keen to see me driving as far left as possible. So he agreed Millie should put a stick out instead of her arm and so she snapped off the stalk of a handy flax flower and stuck it out sideways from Hope’s seat.
Alan was friendly and supportive and did sign the petition and coffin but I did feel he was coming from an driver’s perspective putting a lot of the onus for our safety on us. With rumble strips, all the glass and gravel that gets chucked on the should and the fact that the shoulder is often very rough staying left is often not an option. Sometimes there is no shoulder at all so drivers need to be prepared for slow traffic in the way. Also the further left you go the closer they pass. Alan was concerned about minimising the risk of a head on with cars pulling out at inappropriate spots, but because we can’t control the road conditions, drivers need to also take responsibility for slowing down and waiting until it’s safe to pass.
Anyway we parted on good terms which was just as well as we saw him again just around the corner at The Store. We also caught up with the same cycling group again (who had driven there) and felt that, perhaps, we had earned our lunch a little more than they had.
The Store is a very nice cafe at Kekerengu with the most amazing views out over the ocean. They even gave me delicious raspberry cheesecake when our tour group friends pushed our cause for us.
After lunch I relaxed while Millie went to the toilet. Twenty minutes later I went to find her, waylaid at the coffin talking to another couple and she hadn’t even made it to the toilet yet - still she got at least two more signatures.
The wind continued to push us on toward Ward and once again we managed to pedal up the hills once we left the coast (probably helped by the wind).
There’s not a whole lot in Ward but at least there’s a cafe which supplied dinner and the A1 Ward Motel has camping and the best shower of the trip so far. So all sorted for the night.