South Island tour diary: Part 6 (Final)

[Hitcher]

Day 14, Friday: Kaikoura – Blenheim – St Arnaud – Golden Downs – Tapawera – Motueka – Nelson

<< Part V

This weekend Kaikoura was to host its annual Seafest celebrations. In readiness the Highway Patrol was moving in in force, as we were departing. Their attentions may have been heightened by a fatal car vs truck accident at Clarence the previous day. Great skidmarks, from the truck only. Its driver had clearly done everything he could to get out of the car’s way.

The wind had picked up a bit since the previous evening and there was high overcast cloud for our ride up the coast. This was our first trip on this road in this direction. The run through to Seddon is a wonderful piece of motorcycle highway that has everything: long fast straights, sweeping easy corners, tighter more technical stuff and a mix of flat stretches and ups and downs. Fantastic!

At Seddon we stopped and donned our sunglasses, as the morning’s cloud had now burned off and the day had also warmed up considerably.

One of the best sets of back-to-back corners anywhere has to be the Dashwood Pass. I am sure there are other readers who can vouch for this. Magnificent!

After a kebab in Blenheim, we set off for St Arnaud. We had the assistance of a strong tail wind, which made the very long straights on this road positively fly by! The countryside was looking its best, with spring cultivation well underway.

From St Arnaud, where we refuelled, we headed back to the Top House corner to take the Golden Downs road. Another of the South Island’s great biker journeys! There are some nice, fast windy ascents and descents but I was taken by surprise by one off-camber corner that had me using all of the available tarseal. Apparently this corner has something of a reputation for dealing with unwary bikers…

We headed out to Kohatu Junction on SH6 before taking the highway formerly known as Highway 61 to Tapawera and on to Motueka. Apparently a biker gang of the same name used to nick all the signs, so it is now known as the Tapawera-Motueka Highway.

This road runs along the floor of a fertile horticultural valley used for growing hops, tobacco, raspberries and kiwifruit. It is surrounded by lush hillsides, with glimpses of the snow-capped Kahurangis to the south. Although this is a windy road, it should hold few fears for bikers (apart from the odd patch of ice grit).

Emerging at Motueka we noted that we needed to step on it if we were to make our planned rendezvous with our Nelson friends Chris and Chrissie. The wind had picked up again, as had the weekend traffic heading from Motueka to Nelson. There is only one passing lane and few other opportunities to deal with streams of slow traffic on this road (mumble, mumble). But we made our destination on time, and in time to watch the sun set spectacularly behind the distant Kahurangis, illuminating the vapour trails from Wellington to Australia-bound jets.

Day 15, Saturday: Nelson – St Clair Vineyard – Picton – Ngaio

Our time in the South Island was fast drawing to a close and we were scheduled for a date with destiny (a.k.a. the Bluebridge) at 1:00pm for a 2:00pm sailing. Chris had washed his Goldwing in readiness and he and Chrissy escorted us back over the Whangamoas to St Clair vineyard near Blenheim for a splash of Riesling and a bite of lunch. Magic.

All too soon we were lined up at Picton, sailing back to Wellington in readiness for work on Monday.

In total, 4,080km travelled. Mostly great weather, wonderful roads, friendly natives and magnificent scenery. We’ll be back!

[LB]

Thanks for the writeups Hitcher. Wonderful prose as always, makes me feel like I've just been there (which, in fact, I have, but that's another posting.....)