Okay, it's taken me a little while to get around to it, but I thought I would share my excellent Easter run down in the South Island. We hadn't planned to travel down, but on Good Friday the g/f and I pondered the rest of the long weekend and what we might do with our time. After a while we thought we might head across the strait and visit her parents in Reefton.
Booked the ferry (Lynx) for travel down Saturday, back Monday. Surprisingly many options were available and still good prices to be had.
Travelled from Picton to Reefton via St Arnaud. The roads most of the way to St Arnaud are long, straight and boring. Pulled over in St Arnaud to don the wet weathers and decided to top the tank up. It was before the govt. introduction of the new 5c per litre levy - but the price for a litre of 91 was 137.9c (luckily only needed 8 litres).
On the Sunday I departed solo from Reefton and headed over the Lewis Pass to Canterbury. Stopped in to Hamner Springs for 2nd breakfast and had the biggest damn hot chocolate I've ever seen.
Pushed on to Rangiora, and then over Arthurs Pass. What a magic road and scenery! First time I've been over there and boy was it fantastic!!!
Coming down the Otira Gorge on the west side was an experience, gradient of 16 degrees down for a solid half mile.
Onto Greymouth where I decided I had a few hous left in the day and opted to return to Reefton via Westport.
The coast road from Greymouth to Westport is the best damn road I thnk I've ridden. And the good old West Coast with deers tied to the back of 4x4's and town signs that still have population details on them.
Stopped in at Punakaiki for a look at the Pancake Rocks - they, well, rock frankly.
The road from Westport to Inangahua Junction (Buller Gorge I think) it another piece of magic road!
Surprisingly there wasn't that much traffic on the roads, and the also the weather was awesome the whole way, with only several light drizzle patches in Canterbury.
That day 670km was covered through some quite twisty roads. Got back to Reefton and the g/f's mum had a lovely roast prepared for dinner - great stuff!
On the Monday we travelled back to Picton via Nelson, and then Queen Charlotte Sound. Queen Charlotte Sound is quite a slow twisty road dotted continuously with camper vans and shuttles (that gave heaps of room to get past), and provides lovely views over the sounds at various vantage points.
Over the three days 1283km's were covered at an average consumption of 5.72l/100km's.
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Originally Posted by bear
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