Day 16 – Let’s Do That Hill Again

Wet wet wet: shitty 1980’s band and nasty way to start a 87km ride between Mossburn and Te Anau, but that’s bike packing for you.

The day was tricky because I’m so close to finishing, it was difficult getting my head into the right place for this ride. That’s my reason for missing the correct turn off, heading back the way I came, and having to do a climb again (but higher) on the highway.

Vic still abused me for shortcutting the ride. She’s such a hard arse!

Despite the day starting wet, it turn sunny, I dried out, and enjoyed the thickly gaveled, corrugated roads, which bogged down my tires and slowing my pace to a crawl.

I weaved around and through many of Manipouri’s back roads, never directly getting where I need to be (Te Anau) but somehow getting there much later, as if being punished by the Road Gods for stealing 2 km from them.

The Statistics

This was supposed to be the ride for today:

This is what I actually did:

The difference is that little loopy bit below where I screwed up my directions and ended up heading backwards, and redoing the hill bit on the main road, which turned out to be higher.

Despite throwing in another go at the hill between Mossburn and Te Anau, I jipped the Road Gods 2 km of distance, and (apparently) some of the worst thickly gravelled corrugated metal roads on the course (so Vic says).

She reckoned I should have redone the bit I missed off if I wanted my gold star: she’s such a hard-arse!

And the Road Gods punished me for my impudence.

The Ride

By day break, the party with Chris and Brent was well and truly over, and I faced the dawn at 6:00am with a 89 km ride to Te Anau in the wet.

I toodled off down this leg of the Around the Mountains ride as the cold rain soaked through my Kathmandu outer layer, creating it’s wet suit effect I got familiar with in Lake Tekapo.

This leg of the Sounds to Sounds is a single hill with the remainder down hill until Te Anau.

Cycling in the rain is tricky because I’m using my cellphone GPS for guidence, and resorting to the pdf version of the guide book.

And you just don’t want to get your phone water damaged.

Above almost everything else, your cellphone is your guide, and your communication for help. You don’t want it bust, so when it rains, I’m very aware my screen has a crack in it which I don’t want water to pass through. So, today, I read the guide book, and and put my phone in my Aeroe bags, wrapped in a cloth.

And of course, I ended up missing the correct turnoff, because I’m old and have the memory of a goldfish.

So I had to go back to about 5-10 kms prior and carry on. 😐

It resulted in another hill climb, this time higher. But I “stole” 2kms from the ride.

And the Road Gods will not be denied their distance!

As punishment, I endured Rampant and Mount York Roads, whose thick gravel sapped the speed from your wheel, creating a biking-in-custard feeling that saps your will to live.

And when not in thick gravel, the road bounces you up and down like you remember as a youngster on your uncle’s knee (who wasn’t really your uncle) shaking you senseless.

The Road Gods will not be denied their distance!

In the process, I came across this sign on a property along the way.

I wondered what “living man Dave in his nature state” smelt like. I’m picking earthy with a strong hint of cannibus.

• 

• 

The People

I stopped at a roadside caravan cafe, mainly to dry out, drink warm coffee and do some urgent work related emails.

An elderly man turned up in his small camper van and sat beside me, hoping to spark up a conversation. I gave him one ear, while the rest of my head focussed on the work-side of achieving a work-life balance.

I didn’t even ask his name – which is most unlike me, as we chatted about what was happening in each other’s world.

Elderly X was off helping his friends in different places doing things they wanted to do. One friend had to go to hospital in Christchurch – he was off to take her. Another was to open a plaque for her dead son: he was too take her. Then he was off to do something else.

Elderly X was obviously without wife and home. He’d sold his home, and was investing in a better campervan than the one he had. He wanted one that he could read a book laying down: such were his materialistic goals.

He didn’t seem poor: he talked about his overseas travels, but he did seem direction-less: guided by the immediate, thinking little of where he wanted to be and why.

He was happy just “being”, but he admitted he got cold in winter, hence the better campervan.

Elderly X wasn’t unhappy, wasn’t unwell, wasn’t sad. But I sensed he was “empty”: a reason for his life now seemed a bit missing. He filled is life, much like a hungry person filling thier stomach gobbling potatoe chips: something that fills an immediate gap, but lacks any real substance or nutrition.

I left wondering how many of our “third age” people live like this.