Time for a slightly longer update as we may be stuck here for a while, and having the Leeebretto allows me to type while offline and then copy-paste into LJ.

So gummihuhn has a flat tire. In fact it was more than just flat: there is a series of short cuts or tears in the side of his rear tire, looking by their angle as if they occurred while riding, but how... we don't know. Frankly I've never seen anything like it. The AA has picked up the bike but the hard part may be finding a replacement tire, especially as this is Easter. Looks like our route plans may have just gone down the drain.
We're in a nice spot (Haast, on the west coast) and right now the weather is lovely so I'm not complaining too much (it's not like it's going to help anyway) but it would be a shame having to wait here while our scarce days here glide past and there are so many gorgeous roads out there left to be discovered.


Arthur's Pass seems about a week ago, since we see so much on a single day, yet it's only been a few days. The Sanctuary, the honesty box based bunk house, was a wonderful surprise and a great spot to spend a rainy evening and morging. We both had a hot bath under the leaky glass roof of the artistically painted bathroom; strange mixture of luxury and shoddiness. We lit a lovely fire in the living room, but then spent a lot of time in the public internet 'cafe' (more like a computer shed, open on one side, with 6 computers for any passers-by to use, again with the honesty box.)

We left the Sanctuary at the end of the morning when the rain stopped, and had a fairly dry ride through the mountains, stopping along the way to admire the Otira viaduct, and in our turn be admired by the unavoidable busload of Japanese tourists. I had a conversation with a friendly looking gentleman in which we came to the conclusion that Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki were all very good brands of motorcycles, and all from Japan, like he was. I don't think he had more than five words of English. But he had a nice smile.
Following the main road down from the mountains was a great pleasure. In New Zealand, the main roads are neither busy nor boring; they're just nice and wide, which allows you to look at the scenery as you're gliding along. We were presented with one magnificent view after another and almost got tirede of looking after a while.
Soon we hit the coast and turned left onto the 6, a major road that runs down the west coast. The weather was still a bit iffy but the white clouds in front of us looked promising. We stopped in Hokitika for a lunch and some shopping. After tea, sandwiches and a muffin we bought a plastic bottle of rum (you could buy hard liquor in bulk in the shop we found), some plastic bags to wrap our luggage in (since the plastic panniers on the bike aren't completely waterproof) and 15 minutes on the Internet that told us the weather looked better down south, as we had been suspecting. So down south we went.

The road and the scenery became increasingly interesting, as we were heading into the rain forest. Seen from a distance, the tree-covered hills and mountains looked familiar; not all that much different from the south of Germany really. But seen up close, it all looks quite different in lovely ways. Most of the trees and plants we only know from greenhouses in the zoo, or as potted plants; here, they reach their full size and loomed over us like giants. We especially loved the tree ferns which we'd never seen anywhere before.
We stopped at Lake Ianthe for a short break and the water that had looked so blue from the road looked clear as glass seen up close.

Further down the coast we saw a sign that pointed to an accomodation with rooms and a camping ground, and as the weather had taken a turn for the worse, we decided to give that a try. Riding through rain first, and lots of hail after that, we finally reached Okarito Lagoon (and beach) while the skies were getting clear again. Since that looked promising, and the forecasts were good, we put up our tents, which we had borrowed from Futurecat and hadn't bothered to look at before now. Luckily there was still daylight and we had no trouble building a nice little camp. There was no place where one could get a meal, but there was a room with chairs and tables, so we made some tea there and ate a simple meal of bread, cheese and peanut butter we'd bought in Arthur's Pass.

We both slept really well (the tents are great!) and woke up to the brightest of blue skies, tiny birds twittering in the palm trees overhead and the sun slowly coming over the hills to warm our bones. We ate the rest of the bread and then walked to the ocean beach to say good morning to the ocean, the beach was made of black sand and light grey flat round pebbles. Perfect spot to brush your teeth in the morning sun, and then try to rinse your toothbrush out in the sea without getting water inside your boots.
While packing we found that the luggage rack on my bike was broken; since we were in a very remote spot, we decided to prop it up with a luggage strap and head on to Franz Joseph, and then phone the bike rental place and find someone to weld the rack.

The bike shop folks were very sympathetic, and happy about us calling them before we had anything done, and even happier because we told them we'd be able to get it fixed ourselves. Sure enough we'd seen a mechanic's workshop 5 kilometres outside the town, indicated by a sign made from a bright yellow car door.
The mechanic was as friendly as he was competent, and ended up welding the rack in three places for 45 dollars. He gave us a receipt to pass on to the bike shop in Christchurch and we were back on the road.

Heading further down the coast, we stopped at Bruce Bay because we just had to. It was such a strange and beautiful place I'm not sure I can describe it. The beach started right near the road, the sand was coarse and grey; but the beach mainly consisted of flat pebbles. Almost all of those were striped. Along the road, people had made stacks of these pebbles; it seemed like some sort of game or ritual. Of course, I had to build a pebble stack of my own.
There was lots of wood, washed onto the beach; it looked bleached and worn very smooth. People had also been building structures, or rather sculptures, with the wood; it seemed they had just put nice shapes together for their own amusement. There was one particularly large piece of driftwood that had been adorned with smooth rocks and sticks and looked like a Dali painting. I can't remember the title but it has the word 'sleep' in it. I'll have to look it up so I can compare it to the pictures we took.
The rocks had silvery flakes in them, that glittered brightly in the sun; I believe they were mica.
All in all it was a magical spot and it took us a while to realise that part of the magic was the fact that it was very clean and there wasn't a bit of rubbish to be seen on the entire beach.

Riding on again down the coast road we got a bit tired from the sun and the lovely, twisty roads which required a lot of concentration, but we pushed on until we got to Haast where the travel guide promised us we'd find camping sites. Sure enough, we found the Haast Lodge Highway Accomodation, which is where we are now, waiting for a new rear tire for Gummihuhn's bike, which takes us back to the beginning of this story.
And if you've actually read through all of that, I salute you!