Hard to write when you’re busy having FUN

Life is calm. Again, I’m long overdue for a post, but I’ve been enjoying myself quite a bit and haven’t felt the need to write for sanity. That’s a lie. It’s been so long since I’ve written I’m going insane thinking about how much catching up I have.

A few weeks ago I drove up to the Nelson Lakes region to poke around. Just an hour and fifteen minutes from Mapua, Lake Rotoiti is right off the highway, delivering stunning views with electric blue water cradled by 5,000 foot peaks. Nelson’s local ski hill is situated on the backside of the mountain flanking the lake. In this part of NZ you can ski, mountain bike, and surf on the same day. Anyways, when I turned up at the lake I elected to go on a little walk to work up a sweat. A track led me clockwise around the water a ways in from the shore. I was lucky with the weather. It was such a peaceful excursion, reminding me of my daily walks around Blue Lake in Rotorua. Before lunch, I took a quick dip in the frigid, choppy water just because I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. My sandwich was enjoyed with a view. I savored the moment. Then, I reapplied with sunblock and settled down on my towel for a read.

Somewhere along the way, Tom and Robyn’s friend Helen called saying she was dropping off a couple 18 year old girls for a ride on Rabbit Island and wanted to see if I’d join them. I had been planning to head over to Golden Bay, but figured it could wait. Why would I turn down a social opportunity?

One girl was a Mot local, and the other was a Dutch backpacker doing much the same thing I am. The Dutch girl didn’t have a license, so she was limited to traveling by bus, which actually sounded better than you might expect. We both have working holiday visas and arrived in October, but our experiences, unsurprisingly, have been quite different. She hasn’t had a job yet and spend more time and money on the typical tourist activities like skydiving and clubbing. Nonetheless, there was a lot we could relate over, and it was encouraging to meet another 18 year old solo backpacker. I didn’t have much in common with the other girl besides age, which makes it easy enough to get along.

We rode around, went for a swim on the beach, and got ice cream in Mapua afterwards. Good day.

I’ve been on some interesting rides recently. Tasman invited me to join him and his friend Daniel on a ride in Stoke near Nelson. The track was called Involution and it was a solid 1,800 foot descent. At the top there were para gliders catching updrafts from the offshore breeze. If you’re friends with someone in the paragliding club who’s nice enough to lend you a key to the gate, you can even shuttle Involution. We climbed of course.

My next ride was an evening cruise at Kaiteriteri with Tasman and his girlfriend Amber. Kaiteri is the local hill that gets dissed for being easy, but in the Bay Area it would be a world class mountain bike park. We took it slow and talked a lot of shit along the way. This was awhile ago now, so I don’t remember much else about it.

After work one day Tasman and I went out to a pine forest in the Motueka Valley to ride and do some trail work. This particular riding zone is very inconspicuous. Few people know about the handful of tracks dropping down onto the highway, and you can tell by the thick layer of undisturbed pine needles carpeting everything.

Our first mission was to remove a tree blocking the track so we could ride a full lap when Amber arrived. We pushed our bikes up the impressively steep terrain, careful where we placed each step on the slippery needles. Tas had ax and machete in his backpack. It was hot and slow going.

The tree was bigger than Tasman remembered. He hadn’t been able to track down a saw back home, so the ax would have to do. We hacked away. Tasman did 80% of the work in half the time (we’re the same age, but even I’m impressed by his intensity). When the cut was finished, the tree didn’t fall the way we expected it to. Amber was running late, so we wiped the sweat from our foreheads and started a second cut. It was worth it for the gratification of clearing the trail. We rode down carefully with the sharp tools.

Once Amber showed up we pedaled to the top of the trail to ride it once through. Afterwards we tried to go for a swim in the Mot river but got shooed away by a guy living in a trailer who said the partying had gotten out of hand. We told him we weren’t there to party. He didn’t care.

Instead, we drove down the road to a different swimming hole. It wasn’t the nicest and it was dark by then but it was still worthwhile. I was standing on a rock in the river, and I looked down at my feet to see them COVERED with sand flies. I had to dive in the water to save myself. Even still, I got a boatload of bites and spent the next few days scratching them in my sleep.

Another day we got Tasman’s mom to shuttle us to the top of the Marahau Hill. The trails there are the backside of Kaiteri park, the steeper, “unmarked” trails. The first trail was a quick lap, but the second one took us all the way to the foot of the hill near Riwaka. Tasman and a friend had built a series of corners so steep and tight I had to walk them. That’s rare for me.

My next ride was the maiden voyage with my clipless shoes and pedals. I’ve been riding flats forever, and I knew I’d eventually make the transition to clipless. On especially rough sections of trail my feet were tending to shift on the pedals causing an unfavorable loss of control. Being locked in is actually confidence inspiring. The gains on the climbs are the cherry on top. Anyways, Kaiteri made for an excellent testing grounds, as I’m already familiar with the trails and they aren’t super challenging. Tasman, Amber, Daniel and I pedaled for the top. Sadly, I ran over a giant staple on my way down that went through the top of my tire and out the sidewall. The hole was too big to seal up with my tubeless sealant. It took a decent while to walk back down to where my van was parked on the beach.

Yesterday was my most recent ride with new tires and shifter cable/housing. Amber and I met in Nelson to ride Te Ara Koa. The trail itself has a bit of a reputation around Nelson. It’s 1,600 vertical feet of flowy, loose rock and roots that makes for a wicked run. We had to climb a steeper more exposed route to the top due to a fire season closure on the main run. Today was extremely hot, and luckily we finished climbing by 10am before we would have died of heatstroke. Afterwards we met Tasman, working, downtown for ice cream before we went our separate ways. I walked to the local electronics shop for a couple components to finish my leisure battery setup in the van (explained below), and was lured into a bakery advertising gluten free pies on the walk back. Pie and parts in hand, I drove out of Nelson and plotted a course for the Aniseed River on the way home. I went to the bridge I checked out last time and jumped in the warm, clear water. Then I grabbed my steak and mushroom pie from the van along with my camp chair (new buy) and posted up in the shallows for lunch. With no book and hordes of sandflies, I pretty much left as soon as I had finished.

Rex and I have been on a couple adventures together recently.

On one of my days off I set out to fix my windshield washer fluid system. The wipers work, but the fluid has never sprayed. It bugged me (pun) and I knew I could fix it with no expectation of increasing resale value. I found that the pump had busted open and fallen apart, but all the pieces were there. First, I tried putting the brushes back, lining up the shaft, and popping the two halves back together. When I plugged it back in, it would knock but wouldn’t spin. At least I had found the issue. Rex offered to take me down to Repco, the auto parts store in Richmond. There, I bought a universal wiper pump for $35NZ. It didn’t fit in the mount on the back of the fluid reservoir, so I left the old pump in place and used a short piece of tubing to plump the new pump in line. Then I zip tied it out of the way, reassembled everything, and there I had it, a working pump. It did take me a minute to figure out how to prime the pump before it started working, but once I had it primed it was good as gold. There are check valves at the spray nozzles to keep the lines from draining.

I got home from work one evening when Tom and Robyn were away in Christchurch to find the power was out. Good old Rex suggested we go down to Eddlyine for a pizza. We sat at the bar, and cause it was early on a week night we got plenty of attention from the staff. The girl behind the bar was from Colorado and was interested in hearing all about my experience here. Her boyfriend came by for a beer and showed us the custom vans he used to kit out. I ate my favorite salmon salad and chickened out from buying a beer as soon as I saw the price. One of these days I’ll have to bring home a growler for value’s sake. Rex and I had a great time and came home to find we had power again.

Rex has been E-bike crazed the entire time I’ve known him. He used to ride Tom and Robyn’s spare bike but gave it a break when he got banged up in a crash. Now that Tom and Robyn have E-bikes, he’s been thinking about getting one as an incentive to ride again. We had a second hand E-bike for sale at Coppins that hadn’t moved since I started, and I figured I’d mention it to Rex as a potential deal for him. He was so excited he couldn’t wait. After going for a quick and decisive test ride, he told me, “I’m buyin it.” So he put it on layaway and it’ll be his in a matter of weeks.

I already mentioned my washer fluid pump fix, but I’ve actually made a number of improvements to my van in the past few weeks.

My sink setup was a disaster. It came with a POS electric shower as the faucet, stuck loosely into a misshapen hole in the particleboard. To use it, I had to plug in the power cord to my cigarette lighter, switch my key to the accessory position, turn on the pump, then modulate the flow with a little slider on the shower head. Not only was it impossible to use, the nozzle sprayed water outside the rim of the sink bowl, making a mess every time. It had to go. After a little research, I ran down to a marine supply store in Nelson to get a hand pump faucet. It’s stainless steel, fixes sturdily to the counter, and doesn’t require a ridiculous number of steps to operate. I also picked up some food grade tubing in and a non return valve to prevent the water from draining from the tube and causing the sink to lose its prime. On my way back I stopped at Mitre 10 for a sheet of plywood to remake the counter top. It was a 1 day project and a good exercise in suppressing my perfectionism. I have some polyurethane to finish the plywood with, but I haven’t gotten around to brushing it on yet, probably a project for the next couple days.

Many freedom campers use large, deep cycle leisure batteries to power electronic appliances in their vans. I don’t have an electric fridge, so there’s really no need for a big, heavy, and expensive second battery and inverter. However, when I’m stationary for days at a time I have a hard time keeping my phone, speaker, Garmin, and powerbank charged up. Tasman had told me he had a couple old batteries lying around and offered to help install them in my van. We finally got around to it earlier this week. He works with electronics for some startup in Nelson on the days he’s not in the bike shop, so he knows what he’s doing. We hooked up his batteries to the main battery in the van and installed a relay running to the cigarette lighter, so the loop closes and batteries charge when the key is in the on position. He had all the necessary materials on hand to complete the project, at least the first part. I picked up a digital voltmeter and 12V USB adapter that I plan to cleanly integrate into a case I’ll build to secure the batteries.

Besides these few improvements on the van, I’ve also done a thorough cleaning and started putting stickers on the side of the counter to add a personal touch.

I reached out to mom for a few recipes, mostly stuff that can be made in a big batch and kept in the fridge for a couple days. The biggest hit with Tom and Robyn was the quinoa salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, chickpeas, olives, goat feta, almonds, parsley, mint, red onion and a lemon citronette. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Maybe time to make another.

Last week I went over to Golden Bay while Tom and Robyn had other guests. I’ll dedicate the entire next post to my trip. Stay tuned

This week a kid from Vancouver Washington stumbled into the shop looking for a bike. We exchanged stories and contact numbers, and just like that, friends. Lance, 20, is staying long term at a hostel in Motueka, picking apples 40 hours a week at a nearby orchard. He’s been in Australia and New Zealand for the past year and a half and is a pro backpacker at this point. He may not have a car, but he does have a type a personality, boundless energy, and no fear. Yesterday we met up for the first time and went to the Riwaka resurgence where fresh water reemerges from the ground after a long journey underneath the Takaka hill. If you need help waking up in the morning, try taking a dip in this freezing cold perfectly clear pool hidden in the Riwaka valley. It will either liven you up or make your heart stop. After a cold swim we went back to the hostel where Lance made us scrambled egg burritos with jalapenos and hot salsa, some of the first spicy food I’ve had in a long time. Kiwi’s aren’t particularly big fans of spicy food.

Speaking of hot, we’ve had a heat wave here the past week. Australia just had a record breaking heat wave that has made its way over to NZ. There were a few days a row in the high 80s, maybe touching the 90s. With the humidity and solar intensity it feels hotter than anything back home. Monday at work was absolutely miserable. I was sloth like moving around and couldn’t help but sweat through my work shirt. Today is a little cooler, and by Saturday temps will be back in the low 70s.

Time is flying by now that I’m groovin’ here on the South Island. My life has been pretty nonstop lately, but I have to start thinking about what comes next for me. There’s still a lot left for me to do before my March 19th Crankworx Rotorua deadline, like traveling to Australia, having my sister’s friend Lydia join me for adventures here, staying with contacts in Christchurch and Wanaka, exploring the entire South Island, being a bike bum in Queenstown etc. I’ve worked backwards from my North Island deadline trying to piece together how the rest of my travels could work, and so far it seems like I should be leaving here mid-late February, about 3 weeks from now. It feels like there’s still a lot for me to do here, and I’m going to have a hard time letting go of what I have which is really working for me.

My original plan was to spend a good chunk of time in Queenstown, like a month. A customer from Queenstown put me in touch with his friend who owns a bike shop there. I gave him a call for the hell of it but found that it didn’t make sense to employ me for such a short time, something I got lucky with at Coppins. Queenstown is super expensive, and jobs and accommodation are in high demand. If you don’t get there at the start of the season, your odds of finding your way are pretty slim. I have scrapped that plan and decided to spend a week there as a tourist instead, especially given how much else I still have to do!

My aim is to figure out a departure date by work on Saturday so I can pass on the info to Lenny the manager.

I woke up at 5am this morning to drop Tom and Robyn at the airport. I’ll be looking after the house while they’re in New Caledonia for the next 10 days. Need to stay busy to keep from getting lonely!

Posting this will be a big weight off my shoulders. Once I finish writing about Golden Bay I can really relax.

Oh, and the plums are finally ripe!

Anders