wild wild west

oh yes, new zealand has its wild west as well! as soon as i hit the road cycling towards greymouth and the alps, i came upon all those typical signs of godforsaken places in the middle of nowhere...
...that often left me with a feeling of awe as i was moving slowly down the map through valleys with rumbling rivers, gorges, along the rugged coast, up and down the hills until the mountains enclosed me in an icy embrace .
this hidden and still somewhat underdeveloped part of new zealand has many secrets of which a few were revealed to me - its 19th century gold rush left the whole place literally dug through. as one of the locals told me, it's not an uncommon thing to find a tunnel just under your own lawn!
i resisted the temptation to dig looking for my own gold vein :-) and kept on cycling restlessly... until one day i saw this...
this time i could not say 'no' to the craving for getting the feel of the 'glaciered' alps and went on a day trip up fox glacier. the feeling of the rock hard ice and its chilly welcome made me imagine how it must have been a good few thousand years ago during the last ice age...brrr.
after my swift foxy love affair i jumped on the saddle again and pushed the pedals, this time spinning the wheel all the way to wanaka. the weather had spoiled me for too long and so the last two days nature was trying to talk me out of getting through to the mt aspiring national park by the notorious north-westerly wind and endless buckets of water thrown at me from the sky. but I AM BLOODY TOUGH!, i thought, gritting my teeth as i had to pedal even going on a steep hill...down!
and finally i made it to wanaka. cold and wet but now all happy as i'm sitting in the wanaka bakpaka lounge staring at the darkening grey sky over the mountains.
so, check out the latest pics and envy me! huhuhuh!
by the way, happy easter folks!

through bogs and rivers

a shower! a washing machine! a takeaway store and coffee!
this was yesterday, whispering under my breath as i was getting out of the kahuragni national park after six days blessed with cloudless sky, fording numerous streams and rivers, sinking into bogs, sliding in mud. all that topped with nosy possums scratching at the hut's window at night and predatorous (?!?!?!?) sandflies indulging in big bites of myself. but even those evil vampires didn't manage to stop me. i walked and enjoyed my solitude, meeting only a few trampers on my way, splashing in ice cold streams showing off my white bum (!!!?!?) and getting to feel a bit like female version of robinson crusoe. on the fourth day i ran into chris, the scott, who came to nz to catch the fish of his life (he didn't realise how stubborn the local trout can be though...) and joined the three men party of him and two swedish peters (unimaginative mothers...?) one of whom had strained his ankle and was granted the luxury of flying out in a helicopter (while it took us twelve hours to get out :-)))). smelly but happy i finally got back to tapawera, where i left the bike and hit the road again today. this time i'll be pedalling hard to get south before it gets really cold to jump onto more trails and do more treks.
all is good.
by teh way, i updated people around the words, check it out! :-)

a sandfly romance with tasman

my legs are swollen, my eyelids heavy, i've just had my firts shower in four days...
but i'm a happy dirty, bitten, smelly (not anymore) tramper. three and a half days in abel tasman, walking, listening to rain banging on the tent all night, helping out the hut warden with whom i spent a day shovelling one of the tracks, and finally crossing the tidal flat just before dawn just to get on time for the magnificent sunrise backed by seagulls' squeeks. magic. this all filled with the emerald blue water and topped with a cool bus driver that gave me an extra ride around the area telling me all about the history of golden bay.
now i'm back in motueka. tomorrow i'll make up my mind - either to stay and do some fruit picking or moving south...
by the way, some more fresh pics in the gallery. i also started a new project called braceletting new zealand - the outcome you can see for yourselves...

up and down in the sounds

an extremely sunny week this was.
not a single drop of rain. lots of fun and long missed solitude.
i cycled from picton into the sounds, rolling over hills to portage where i based myself for two nights doing a full-on day of mountain biking (with road tyres huhuh), or to be more precise...half day of biking and another half spent on dragging it up and admiring the views over the sounds...
i melted into a quiet evening as i was sitting on a jetty watching the sky say goodninght, devouring solitude and serenity of the place.
my ambitious plan of getting to nelson next day fell through as i lingered in havelock chinwagging with mika and alan, the long termers in beethoven, as i ran into them sipping a latte. i ended up somewhere on the way in a ghostly backpackers with a crazy poodle stalking me for hours, assisting me while i was painting the fence (wooofing stuff).
some 24h later i finally got to nelson, my arms all burnt by ruthless sun as i climbed a few hills. spent the evening drinking chilled white wine, making a bracellet (my new hobby) and chatting with folks at the hostel.
and now, i'm in motueka, just minutes before i set off for abel tasman tramp. and it is going to rain. just when i'm about to get to a place said to have the best weather in nz...
by the way, i've just downloaded some new pics, and rearranged the albums so that it's a bit easier to browse through them.
cheers!