on to South Island

Friday December 2...

Onto the ferry on Monday morning for the crossing to Picton on the South Island...

stowing the bikes on the ferry

sister ferry at Wellington...
note the cattle peering out of the top of the of the truck at the bottom left.

Wellington

snow capped Mt Stokes on north end of North Island

entering Queen Charlotte Sound

approaching Picton at end of the Sound

We were in Picton shortly after lunch with a 2 km ride to camp... that made a total of 6 km on the bike... a pretty easy riding day!

 

Good weather at the Picton waterfront

Preserved in Picton is the 'Edwin Fox', the last surviving East Indiamen tall ship, ninth-oldest ship remaining in the world (oldest merchant ship), veteran of the Crimean war. In its time, it transported immigrants from Britain to New Zealand and convicts to Australia and later was used in the frozen meat trade before being laid up in Picton in 1967. It was built in Calcutta in 1853, one of over four thousand East Indiamen. The main type of wood is Burmese teak... a lot of dining room tables here.  

 The next day it was back to serious riding to the very end of Queen Charlotte Sound and then over several hills (serious climbs... all hills here are steep) to Nelson..

just as in Canada, where there are forests, there is logging.

Rural mailboxes.



lunch en route to Nelson

local residents have got used to campers in Nelson



Then on to Murchison - the longest (in distance) riding day of the trip - 153 km with lots of hills.

 



Departing Nelson... this spraying seemed to be over forested land east of town.

common for sheep and cattle to be herded across the road

From Murchison we followed the Buller River to Westport. It's a steep valley so we still had quite a bit of climbing, just not as long as some of the previous days.

On the way into Westport we saw this Weka (also known as a woodhen) scurrying around and the side of the road. Of course we hoped it would be a Kiwi, but that's unlikely as kiwis are generally nocturnal... the Weka is one of New Zealand's endemic flightless birds and they are considered at risk with a declining population.

not much wing on this little guy... no wonder it's flightless

 

That's it for this rest day. Three riding days down the west coast of the South Island before the next rest day at Fox Glacier.