Roadtrip New Zealand

We had our final Bluff breakfast this morning, slightly after nine. The food was again great, and the French music was still playing in the dining room. Scooter the cat seemed to know something was up as he came to get a good old smooch before we departed. We have formed quite an attachment to Bluff so it was sad to go.

First on the agenda was to post some purchased items home at the Bluff Post Office. We checked the sign on the door yesterday and it said they were reopening today at 9am, but when we turned up at 10am I guess they’d decided to ditch that plan. Everyone in Bluff I think has followed suit, so there was no local gas and no post office. We had enough in the tank to make Invercargill though, and crammed the items in the rear pannier somehow and headed north.

The ride between Bluff and Invercargill is majestic, made up of long sweeping bends with little traffic and a backdrop to admire all the way. This was our fourth trip on these roads and I’d still like to turn around and do them again.

This was not to be another perfect day to write about though, and it was after we refueled in Invercargill and turned west, to take in the scenic route along State Highway 99 through Te Anau to Queenstown, that our problems began.

It wasn’t so apparent until then, but today has had some extraordinary southerlies blowing, and once exposed on the plains along the base of Southland, we had real problems. This was the windiest I have ever been on a bike by a very long margin, and even the fully laden Sprint would not sit still in these crosswinds. At times we were reduced to 40km/h at pronounced lean to stay on our side of the road. It was quite frightening! All credit to Myra, her hay fever was terrible today and I could hear frequent helmet bound sneezing fits and knew she would be terrified of the way the bike was behaving, but she didn’t voice a single complaint. I cannot describe the way the wind threw the bike around; we felt like kites the whole western leg. We stopped close to Orepuki, and took what shelter we could find in a road side information stand that looked like it was about to blow down. It was at times during the 20 minutes we spent there, difficult to stand up without staggering, and I had to re park the bike to point it into the wind, because it looked like it was about to be blown over it’s stand! Another biker stopped and told us it wasn’t so bad up the road, so we decided to press on.

Once we pointed north and had the wind behind us, things did improve. The hills did funny things though, so now we were battling random crosswind gusts that would shift us a few metres either way. I spent the whole north leg watching the reeds on the side of the road to try and predict the spots I needed to lean us into. My wrists gave me no problems today but my hands were aching from white knuckling the grips and fighting the bike the whole way. It was a very tough ride, by far the least enjoyable so far and extremely taxing on the body. Things got decidedly problematic when we turned back east at Manapouri, the crosswinds were worse if anything and at one stage we were blown onto the wrong side of the road, regardless of the fact we were significantly leaned into it. We could feel the tyres scrubbing sideways as the bike was just lifted up. Scarey stuff! We stopped for a cup of tea along the way and met another motorcycling couple who were looking to park the bike up and rent a car for the day, that’s how bad it was.

Things did improve though as we started to scout through some mountains, as they provided some relief from the wind. By the time we pointed north for the final leg to Queenstown, we were deep in the heart of the hills and could once again hit 100km/h without having feet lifting gusts rock us around like leaves. I really started to enjoy the ride at this stage, coming up past Cecil peak and along the Lochy River to Lake Wakatipu. Unfortunately I think Myra was well gone by this stage, too tired from the constant buffeting and hay fever attacks to enjoy much at all, so we missed some fantastic photo opportunities and pressed on to our hotel. I have run out of superlatives for these roads in the South Island. If the wind had not been up today I think this could have been a joyous ride. As it is, after such a miserable trek five hour trek, the fact that I enjoyed the last hour immensely is testament to just how good it is. It is stunning, simple as that. Every New Zealander should see this road, and every motorcyclist must.

We arrived at our hotel the Sherwood Manor at about 4pm, pretty exhausted. I had a quick shower and tried to book a flight on a Cessna to do a flyover of the Milford Sounds, but missed out, it was too windy for comfortable flights and no pilot was willing to take me! Tell me about it. Our room here is nice; it’s a stock standard hotel. No small town charm here, but just what we needed, comfy beds, a hot shower, a spa pool with pool towels, and a restaurant with gorgeous views over the lake and Remarkables, where we’ll have some dinner soon.

Looking through the brochures in our room and in the lobby, you can tell Queenstown is a mega tourist metropolis. There is just a million things to do. We would love to spend some more time here and get into some of the activities, but this journey was never about the major New Zealand visitor spots. We always planned to spend more time off the beaten track, so will press on tomorrow to Haast. Myra has booked us into a small place for two nights tomorrow, and the leg up to Haast is only three hours, so we should have plenty of time to look around. The forecast down here is not great for tomorrow, but fining up around lunch time I hope. We’ve booked a late check out so can hopefully sit out any morning rain, and fingers crossed we won’t get any wind like today.

All in all, a very tough day and we were ecstatic to ride into Queenstown.