Off on my bike : Poitiers to Bordeaux

There are worse riding surfaces than grass.

I depart Poitiers, on my own route along minor roads, it mostly works well although sometimes a minor road on the map turns out to be a dirt track on the ground.  Not terribly exciting mind, although there is exciting weather, it becomes clear I am heading towards a massive thunderstorm.  I manage to skirt the worst of it, and hit some fine scenery at Verteuil-sur-Charente, with its mills and château.  From here it is a short ride down the river to Mansle, where I camp and enjoy a proper four course meal.

Verteuil-sur-Charente.

I decide to stay a day in Mansle, it's a nice spot by the river and I have just done eight days on the trot.  Shame it rains pretty much all day, still I guess hanging around the campsite beats riding through it.

Sadly next day that is what I have to do, the weather is not letting up.  It's nice enough country, I continue along the Charente, crossing it several times - in this area, the river divides into as many as six or more arms, I ride over a lot of bridges.  The water looks high, unsurprising as it just keeps getting wetter, I am soaked by the time I reach Baignes-Sainte-Radegonde, where things just get worse.  My poor old tent pole, repaired many times, just disintegrates, I guess fatigue, or else the sheer weight of water is too much for it.

Mansle.

The campsite warden says I can sleep in the toilet block, yay, well I have slept in worse places.  I find a bar to drown my sorrows in, me and a few elderly French people.  The local paper has 'vineyards count the cost of exceptional storms' on the cover.

At least it is a short way from here to Bordeaux, and by some miracle the rain holds off.  I check into a cheap 'Formule 1' hotel in an industrial estate, it has a somewhat custodial air, but it's a bed at least.  The nearby Decathlon doesn't have a pole of the right size, but they suggest a bigger store near the airport which I'll be passing tomorrow.  If all else fails I will just buy a new tent...

Last pitch of the tent before the pole disintegrated.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Off on my bike : Paris to Poitiers

Orléans Cathedral.

Paris is not an easy city to cycle in.  I struggle a bit with the crazy traffic, regular halts for red lights, steep hills and cobbles.  Nice to see a good slice of the city though, and once I get out of the centre I hit a decent cycle track and things improve.  Still a few hills though, and I'm worried this will be a long day.  In the event though, I hit some nice flat roads and make good time into Toury.

Only now do I remember I couldn't find the location of the campsite here, and marked the train station instead it seems.  I ride in circles a bit then ask in a bar - and not only do they know where it is, the barman even drives me there.  And they look after my bike - and beer - while I'm gone.

Can't find anybody to pay for camping in Toury, ho hum, off I go then.  More flat roads and an easy twenty miles or so into Orléans, nice place with an impressive cathedral.  From here my route follows the Loire, this is a popular route along either well built cycle paths or quiet minor roads, it makes for lovely riding.  The surroundings aren't bad either, the majestic river flanked by châteaux and pretty towns and villages.  I finish up in one such, Chaumont-sur-Loire, where I do have to pay to camp - a whole five euros, given this I feel justified in heading to a restaurant for an excellent meal - the tatin d'endives is just awesome.

Riding along the Loire.

More of the 'Loire à Vélo' route next day, through Amboise and then Tours where I get some shopping.  There is lot to be said for cycle touring I must say, not least compared to walking I can carry more, and don't have to worry about running out of food.  So for instance it is no problem to grab a bottle of wine to drink later - well, I am in France.  Destination today is Rigny-Ussé, home to the Château Ussé which inspired the sleeping beauty story, and most impressive it is.

Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant.

I leave the Loire à Vélo route in the region of Chinon - massive fortress there.  I do rather wish I could spend more time in these towns, but it's hard, where would I put my bike and bags for one.  Ah well... I leave the châteaux behind and ride through typical rural France, vineyards and tiny villages.  Then another cycle route for twenty miles or so, the Ligne Verte is another old railway, this time there is at best a thin line of packed gravel through the grass.  It's better suited to mountain bikes than my laden hybrid, but at least it's flat.

Then a bit more road into Poitiers, where I have a hotel booked, is good to have a shower and a real bed.  There is supposed to be a fête here, I can't find it though, still nice to have a wander around the town, the centre of which is up on a high plateau, must have been pretty defensible back in the day.  I do manage to find a bar at least.

La Ligne Verte.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Off on my bike : London to Paris

Setting off from Stratford.

So, I'm off again, this time on two wheels rather than feet.  Don't know how far I'll get, I do have accommodation booked in the Canary Islands and Rio (!), but I may not manage to cycle all the way there - should be fun trying though.

Rio is of course hosting the Olympics this year, so that's one reason to go there, it also explains why I start from the Olympic park - kind of a symbolic departure from the previous venue for the games.  From there I follow a familiar route through Southeast London and into Sussex - the Downs are as hilly as ever but I manage.  I even do some guiding, another cyclist waves me down and asks if I am going to Newhaven, well funnily enough... His GPS has stopped working, so I lead him as far as Lewes where I have to stop for beer.

Peacock at Dangu camping municipal.

Newhaven is not much further, and once there I get a huge kebab, and then board the ferry to Dieppe.  The overnight crossing departs at 11pm, and takes just five hours, not much sleep in my Pullman seat then... well, 5am local time is certainly an early start, but I am feeling a bit broken after yesterday, and that really was not enough sleep.  Progress is slow, and the rain does not help, can't say this is much fun.

The 'Avenue Verte' from Dieppe towards Paris makes good cycling at least, much of it a tarmac surface on old railway lines.  Eventually it gets late enough for cafes to open, I get a coffee and the rain stops, this is more like it.  I just about get to my campsite at Dangu before it starts again, and the nice lady there shows me to a pitch with a substantial shelter.  I do have to share it with a peacock, but I can live with this.

Chateau de Maisons-Laffitte.

It rains pretty much all night, and is still going the next morning, still, nothing to do but stick the sodden tent on the back of the bike and ride on.  It's a nice route along country lanes, the weather does rather spoil things though... still, always a silver lining, I shelter at a bus stop with some fellow bikers who insist on giving me food.  The rain does ease in the afternoon, but there are sections of the Avenue Verte which are simply impassable, gravel tracks turned into mud baths by the sheer volume of water - I detour around as necessary.

I pedal along the Seine, and into industrial northern Paris, past the Stade de France.  An old lady directs me to follow her, fewer barriers than the official route she says... go on then.  And finally, my hotel, in the Gambetta district, it was cheap of course but I am quite pleased, they let me stick my bike inside, and sell me a phone charger for five euros.  I like the area too, distinctively Parisien, but the bars and restaurants are inexpensive enough.  There is even a cheap, late opening supermarket!

It's the Eiffel Tower!

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Te Araroa : Retrospective

Tree hugging.

So, have had a month to recover from this, some sort of retrospective seems to be in order.  Not least I should pull my finger out and do this before going off on further adventures, which I may start doing shortly.

Well then, positives first.  I certainly don't regret doing Te Araroa, it was an incredible experience.  The landscape of New Zealand is truly awe inspiring, the flora and fauna fascinating, and both the local people, and my various fellow hikers, were friendly.  I became fitter than I have ever been, was able to eat a fantastic amount of food, and generally spend four months doing a fair amount of stuff I enjoy.  It was certainly never boring!

Seemed fun at first.

I do think I made quite a few mistakes... not least, my idea that at 'only' three thousand kilometres, this would be a relatively easy long distance path was, I am pretty certain, completely wrong.  The New Zealand attitude to paths, as in, there is no need to construct them, seems to be quite unique, so, while one of the big American trails might have been longer, it would also have been easier.  Given this, I surely should have allowed more time to do the thing in, it would have been great not to have quite as many really long days, and to have more time to rest up and explore.  I definitely should have done at least some posting of resupply packages - in particular to the mountain resorts such as National Park and St. Arnaud.  And I should have brought four pairs of shoes with me from the UK!

Did I see a Kiwi?  I think so.

Other than shoes my equipment faired pretty well... so my tent pole broke many times, I kept repairing it and it was still going at the end.  Also fair play to the cheap, five year old Decathlon rucksack, got all the way, albeit with a few broken zips.  Also awesome was my Garmin GPS, which allowed me to walk pretty much the whole way without the weight of paper maps.  A bit of a shame that the GPX file from the official Te Araroa site was less than ideal, as indeed were the PDF maps and guide files, still I expect enterprising third parties to address that over the next few years.

OK, this was fun I have to say.

What of the route itself?  Well, if you've read all my blog entries, you'll have read some fairly detailed complaints about it.  After a month of reflection... well, I guess the whole 'we don't need a path' thing is just the local culture, you kind of have to accept it.  I have to say that the all round horridness of the bush sections, and the large amounts of road walking on North Island, would still lead me to advise people to skip that altogether.  South Island would make a nice three month walk, and sure, go to North Island, travel, do some tramping.  But I would not recommend doing the long path up there.  It will improve of course, new sections continue to open.  But sadly I doubt there will be much motion towards better paths, they will just put more boardwalk and steps in.  The cap-doffing attitude towards private landowners seems embedded in the culture as well, so a huge amount of what is surely great walking in NZ remains sadly out of bounds.

Final thoughts?  Well, this was a great thing to do, and I'm glad I did it.  Maybe one day I will come back and do South Island again... before that though, it is a big world out there, lots more to see.  Bring it on!

Run Timmy run!

Te Araroa : Colac Bay to Bluff

KM this section : 80
KM completed : 2997

Baby seal on Oreti Beach.

So, the last leg.  After getting through the last, long section on schedule, I'm no longer pressed for time.  First day out of Colac Bay is just thirteen kilometres, along beach (good to walk by the sea again) and some easy forest track.  With the short distance and little weight on my back, other than a few cans of beer, this doesn't feel like a long distance trail at all.  Fun though, as is another evening relaxing with a big log fire, I could get used to this.

The beach walking continues, Oreti Beach takes me most of the way to Invercargill, and after an initial shingle section I walk on sand, it's very like Ninety Mile Beach four months ago, the trail ends as it began.  Ahead of me, the hilly near-island of Bluff draws ever closer.  First though, Invercargill, a busy port city, seems like a good place to come for sheet metal.  Not so good for beer, supermarkets are not allowed to sell it, and I end up traipsing to an outskirts of town 'super liquor store'.  Because obviously forcing people to drive out and buy booze in bulk is a smart policy...

Homing in on Bluff.

The last day... a nice walk through wetlands along a cycle trail that one day will extend to Bluff.  I have to clamber over a fence at one point to access a weather damaged bridge, seems fine to me, though I wouldn't fancy cycling the embankment on the other side which is under repair.  Then the track ends and I walk the highway for fifteen kilometres or so, not really a problem.  The last hour or two is a circle around Bluff, firstly through bleak and windswept coastal grassland, and then a well built path through scrub.  I find myself slowing, not from fatigue but rather to draw out the moment.  Can it really be about to end?  Well, it is an anticlimax of course, there is not even any TA sign or monument at the end.  I guess this old whaling station, most southerly town in South Island, settled before NZ was a colony, has been a tourist destination long before the TA has existed.

And that's it... I will write a retrospective at some point, maybe when I have a real keyboard.  For now, time for a rest, I'm in pretty good shape but am so looking forward to just not doing much for a few days.  Oh, one more thing - those fifty dollar Warehouse boots?  Still going after some nine hundred kilometres.

Totally made it the whole way, oh yes.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Te Araroa : Ohai to Colac Bay

KM this section : 88
KM completed : 2917

About time I read some of this.

I've been a bit uncertain about the next bit, the guide has a total of thirty-three and a half hours to Colac Bay, there are lots of warnings about 'no camping', and just one hut.  My original plan calls for three days, the second being thirteen and a half hours to get me to that hut, well let's see.  In the event what I get is a demonstration of the DOC's undue deference to private landowners, hence all the 'no camping', there are also many signs warning to only tramp in daylight hours, in groups no larger than eight, etc.  There is even a section of pine forest that we are supposed to phone the owner and ask permission before entering, presumably tugging on our forelocks while doing so...

Signal masts on Bald Hill.

The walking?  First day turns out to be mostly road or gravel farm track so I rip the guide estimated time apart, end up camped just into a wood, some three hours ahead of plan.  Gravel tracks continue through the forest and up to an array of signal masts on Bald Hill, from here I can see the sea, and oh my that is Bluff, endpoint of the trail, at the end of the bay there.  Can also see Stewart Island, no I'm not going there, the trail stops at Bluff and so will I.  What can the TA throw at me first?  Well, the route down to Martin's Hut is through bog, and some of the worst, muddiest, most horrible forest I've seen for a while, and it's raining.  But so what, it's nearly the end.

You can see Bluff from here!

The tiny four bunk hut is a squeeze for me, Dragos and French Tim, plus Germans Carl and Jonas, but at least that keeps it warm.  I feel rather guilty about poor Kiwi Bob who arrives late and camps outside, he seems OK though.  This is the last hut, feels weird to leave it.  But I have more awful mud to wade through... today the route is along a water race from the old gold mining days, at least it follows a contour line, but of course has not been maintained as a path since the miners left in 1920 or whatever.  At regular intervals I clamber over trees, down into eroded ravines, all with the rain coming down... on at least two occasions I slip into deep holes or the old race itself, neither this, nor banging my head against trees repeatedly, is much fun.  Believe it or not, the DOC has the gall to suggest any TA thru-hiker should give them a (quite substantial) cash donation in return for hiking the trail.  Well it is while walking this 'path' that I finally decide they're not getting a cent from me.  Seems that in any case their priority is to provide huts for their rangers to stay in while out on 'conservation', i.e. hunting, trips...

For all that, I make good time to Colac Bay, where there is, oh yes, a pub.  Also does camping, that is me set for a day or two, doing that last bit in three days means I have time to spare.  I buy a burger and much beer... so nice to have a day of not walking, though after a lie in, cleaning of self and clothes, what shall I do in the afternoon?  Oh, there is a big wood burning stove that I can sit feeding logs to you say?  Go on then :)

Back in the woods.  But not for long :)

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Te Araroa : Mavora Lakes to Ohai

KM this section : 109
KM completed : 2831

Is it too high?

Hard to believe there are only ten days or so of walking left... when the going is hard I tell myself, 'not long to go', but really I am going to miss this.  Well, not there yet... indeed there is another Mavora Lake, the south one if anything more beautiful than the north.  Then I walk along the Mavora river, the couples said something about taking the road rather than a terrible river trail, surely not this though, it's a lovely walk.  Then I reach a bit of DOC idiocy, a sign says 'don't stay on this path if the river is high, cross here (there is a bridge) and follow the left bank instead'.  Is the river 'high'?  I don't think so... across the bridge, there is no path on the left bank... well I stay on the path, which is good, but that's because it's part of a loop track back to the lake, whereas I have to ford the river.  Well that is easy enough, it is indeed not high... but sadly, clearly pretty much every TA walker has taken the road, all I find on the far bank are pole markers, too far apart to even guess at a path.  I struggle on, but hacking along through bog, over fences and so forth is not much fun, this is the terrible river trail I guess.  In the end I give up and make my way to the road.

The Aparima River.

Well, makes for easier walking, though I briefly revisit the 'trail', to camp on it.  Much further ahead than planned too, this is in a section that the guide helpfully suggests two to three days for, well, turns out to mean around fifteen hours as per signs on the ground, less in fact when I come to walking it.  Does seem to be a thing that the oh-so-macho 'I don't need a path, I'll just walk down the river' DOC people nonetheless think five hours is a fair day's walking.  But anyway... what the guide gives with one hand, it takes away with the other, the next section, five hours in the guide, is signed as eight on the ground :(  I make it six and a half hours of hard slog through forest, am glad to reach a hut, get a fire going and relax.

On Telford Tops.

And then, a good day again... more forest, but easy enough, much of it the mossy high altitude woodland.  Then open hills, well, at just over one thousand metres I guess Telford Tops includes a mountain... the last time I'll climb one here maybe?  And then a nice walk down a ridge line to camp.  I've made good time, some 4 hours ahead of plan now, this is good as I can get to Ohai early.  And so it proves, after a nice day of walking over farm tracks I get to town, what there is of it, Ohai, an old coal mining community, has clearly seen better days.  All the shops are shut, as is the pub in which I stay the night - they still do accommodation, nice place to stay and I manage not to be tempted by the many bottles of spirits hanging about.  For lo, my resupply box is here, I have two cans of beer and also two tins of STAG CHILLI, together with some two hundred and fifty grams dry weight of rice this makes one hell of a meal.

Bustling Ohai.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.