NZ - Bike Tour Day 2 - Hanmer Springs to Punakaiki

Hanmer Springs – Spring Junction – Westport - 

Punakaiki

308km 

As the new day dawned it was again overcast but at least it wasn't raining (yet).  We were served breakfast in our room which was all very civilised.

Breakfast is served.

I did some research last night to try and discover why my heated gear was not working I found out that the accessory plug on the bike will only power 5 amps and my heated jacket draws about 5.5 amps (bummer) so this morning I went and checked to see if I could run just my gloves. I wired up my single heated controller and yippee they worked.

I added an extra thermal layer to the top since I would not be able to use my heated jacket liner.  So that made 2 merino thermals, t-shirt, heated jacket liner (with no heat) and my riding jacket, hopefully I will be warmer today.

We departed at about 9.30 but had to stop about 5km down the road at the nearest petrol station to refuel. As we left the B&B the fog had started to drop down and it became misty.

Once that was done we set off.  We weren't far down the road when I passed Michael who had been pulled over by the Police, it was nothing serious he had seen a bike wobbling across the road when we left the servo so he decided to stop further up the road to see if we were all going to stop at the stop sign.

The rain didn’t stay away for long but it wasn’t very heavy. We traveled on some lovely roads with some beautiful scenery I have never seen so many rivers and creeks especially ones with such a rapid flow of water.

 

We even went passed some lovely snow dusted mountains. 

We stopped at Spring Junction for morning tea. It had stopped raining and there was even a glimpse of some sun poking through the clouds.

Spring Junction for morning tea.

Those clouds don't look promising.

There are lots of places where the road suddenly changes to a one lane bridge some of them are around corners without much warning that they are there.

The rain had started again we did get a  bit of a ride without any rain which was lovely.

We went to Westport to fuel up and have lunch but the place was like a ghost town with it being Good Friday and all it looked like the only place to eat that was open was subway. After refuelling we decided that we didn’t want subway it was only about 50 km to Punakaiki so we decided to carry on. We actually saw some blue sky at Westport but again it didn't last very long.

Refuelling at Westport.

There were a lot of fallen trees along the roads and we were later to find out that there had been wild storms on this side of the island.

 

Whoops.

I was cruising along at all of a sudden I thought is that the sea? Yes it was there straight in front of me.  I don't know why but I always get a bit excited when I see the ocean, it must be because I am an Aquarius. We followed the coast line and it was beautiful. I am sure on a sunny day it would be spectacular.

We stopped at the Panikaiki Tavern for lunch, we only just made it in time the cook finished at 1500 and we got there at about 1450. By the time we got there we were starving.

At the tavern for lunch.

After lunch we headed to the Pancake Rocks Blowhole, it was a 20 minute walk to see them I decided not to go in my full bike gear especially as it had started raining again. Malcolm and Michael did do the walk. Trish and Gordon decided to wait for them to finish whilst Brian and myself headed down to the resort to book in.

There were a lot of vintage cars on the roads.

The resort is right on the beach and we have ocean views it is beautiful even with the horrible weather. This will have to be a quick blog update as there is only an hour of free wifi with the room.

We had a nice dinner at the resort and then retired to our rooms.

Even with all the rain it was warmer today, (probably in part to the extra thermal) we even reached 20 degrees at one stage. One of the things I am really hating about my bike is the really tiny screen which offers no protection and forces the wind and water directly into my chest, today I could feel the rain creeping up my neck warmer and into my helmet. Also with the rain you need to keep the visor open a smidge and it is extremely noisy I had to take Panadol at Wesport as I had such a headache from the whistling noise in my helmet.

So I will end this post the same as yesterdays. Hopefully the weather will improve tomorrow.