NZ - Bike Tour Day 3 - Punakaiki to Franz Josef Glacier

Punakaiki - Franz Josef Glacier

216 km

 


And I awoke to the sounds of the ocean.

I looked out the window to see how the morning was and saw these asians posing with the bikes it was quiet funny to watch they kept changing where they stood for the photos. I wonder what story they will tell when they get home.

There were patches of blue sky, there were also some fairly dark clouds but so we were all hopeful of a nice day.

Nice breakfast views.

More ocean side riding, beautiful.

Two days before there had been a huge storm in Greymouth we were very lucky we missed it. There was a lot of damage.
Greymouth Storm Article

This is a motor home on its side. It was knocked over by the storm.

We stopped at Hokitika for morning tea.

The Hokitika Ticka

Of course it started to rain as we were leaving.

 And the rain got heavier.

There were power lines down all over the place. 

 Michael turned down a road and four of us followed him only to discover he needed a comfort stop.

 

The weather got worse. It was very miserable riding in this as a result we didn't make any detours or stop to look at anything the goal was to get to Franz Josef as quickly as possible. 

We arrived at Franz Josef to discover that they had no power and they hadn't had it for days, we were dripping wet and there was no where else for us to go so we had to make the most of it. We arrived around lunch time so before getting out of our wet gear Trish, Malcolm and myself walked into town to the supermarket to get some supplies. Whilst in the shop the generator went out but the tills and eftpos machines were still working. We got our supplies and were about to head back as was the lady from the motel (58 On Cron) so we got a lift with her.

Upon returning we had showers, the hot water was supplied by generators), we hung our wet gear around our rooms in the hopes that it would dry at least a little bit, we then all went to Michael & Brians room to have our lunch which was accompanied by wine and whiskey. It was just getting dark when the lady came and told us that the power was back. Yippee we straight away went and put the heaters on to dry out our gear.

We went a couple of doors up the road to the King Tiger Asian restaurant for dinner, there was a limited menu as they had not power for a few days but the means were very good.