Day 35 Greymouth to Charleston

Journal for 2014-11-24 | Published on 2014-11-27 00:32:53

Took a moment this morning for Pam to Skype with Penny before we figured out where we were headed. We have been trying to decide on what route to take and where to end this adventure, Greymouth was a forking point and we had to choose today. The weather was supposed to be sunny in the morning switching to clouds then light rain in the afternoon.

After some debate and looking at maps/weather details we decided to head straight North from Greymouth towards Westport. This was the way Matt intended for us to go, however it adds over 1,000m of climbing and about 20km to our journey towards Picton. We made great time on the way to Greymouth though and actually have some extra time, so we decided to do the extra distance and elevation.

Greymouth itself is proudly proclaimed as the biggest city on the West Coast. I guess we had a misconception on how big it was, because after a visit to the Supermarket, we went about 1km before hitting the Greymouth River and about another 1km blocks we were on the bridge out of town. If we had known it was so small and we weren’t in a hurry to get North before the bad weather arrived we may have explored it a bit more.

Heading North we ran into a bit more traffic than we have recently, but it was still light. After a few small towns and hills we hit the coast and it was amazing. It was sunny with a few clouds, the Tasman Sea was teal green, blue, grey all mixed together, and the New Zealand coast line was rugged and dotted with small rock islands. This was going to be a good day.

We meandered along the coast, climbing hills, going down the other side, around bluffs, and just enjoying the beauty of it. The road was well graded, the drivers were giving us space, and it was just gorgeous. As the km ticked away we wound away from the coast a little ways and enjoyed some flatter hills.

Finally we made it to Pulkakkak??? Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. We paused for some lunch and then did the walk around the pancake rocks. There are these great limestone formations that are jutting out of the sea which are layers of limestone separated by softer layers forming these unique rock formations. During high tide the waves crash into the rocks and shoot water out through various spouts and holes, unfortunately we were not there at the right time.

During this time it cooled down and clouds started coming in, however shortly after we started riding again the sun came out and warmed us up. Our bike computers read 32C in the sun, the highest temperature we have seen yet. It was very warm and humid, not a bad day to be riding on the coast.

More scenic coast, including the home of the world smallest penguins, the blue penguin. (We didn’t see any) And two large hills of ~200m, we were starting to drag and the km were going very slowly. However the weather was holding up, there were a few threating clouds but never the rain which was expected. We made our way in to Charleston, which proudly proclaims that you can do “underworld rafting.” We decided to pass on the devil rafting and moved on through town.

A few km later we ran in to an unexpected campground / pizza restaurant in the middle of nowhere. We decided to check it out and are staying the night after enjoying a very nice homemade pizza. While the writing about today may not be very exciting hopefully the pictures can convey how great of a day it was.

Distance: 85.24km

Time: 6:00

Average: 14.21kmh

Max: 48.47kmh

Climb: 1078m