We’re zigging and zagging our way out of Christchurch. Left, then right, then right again as we navigate the marvelous cycle paths. If you were watching from above it must look like the jagged hemline of a school sewing project. Leaving suburbia we track the motorway (still on a cycle path) randomly crossing sides. This continues all the way to Rolleston like the straight line and excited child would draw when drawing for their grandparent.

The weather can’t decide what to do. To the right of me is rain, and to the left more rain. I’m riding through the middle feeling a little like Moses walking through the parted Red Sea. Occasionally I get spits but it never amounts to anything. Looking around, it’s as if there’s an undone jacket. The left and the right of me are brooding dark clouds holding lots of moisture. Then suddenly rolling thunder claps and travels alongside me like an audible Mexican wave. Occasionally the zip of the jacket is done up and the two sides of rain come together making me a little wet. Then the jacket is unzipped as if the raid had decided it is too warm for a jacket and I’m in sunshine again.

As I swing around a been to begin the drop to the Rakaia Gorge a hail storm commences. I’m racing downhill getting attacked by tiny projectile missiles that sting when they make contact. Like kamikaze pilots they melt on impact then my speed and physics leave them unable to hold on. I pause at the gorge to take in the descent and prepare for the climb when the sun comes out. The day is not done though, and I will need my rain jacket before I stop for the night in Geraldine.

The light is stunning as we gently roll out of Hurunui. The pace is lumbering and somewhat stop-motion’esque. Enjoying the peace we say little as the birds call out to us the cows and calves talk among themselves.

My ears are tuned to the sound of vehicles approaching on quiet country roads and I hold my line as they approach then move in hoping they’re giving me lots of space. As I’m about to move in a voice calls out,”jump on the train!” It is a group of five riders that appear to be on the same schedule. They’re keen to ride the roads faster than we have but when you’re tucked in behind it is fine. We take turns through to Hawarden where my plan is to get a bacon & egg pie or sausage roll. We’re 12 minutes before opening time but listen to our stomachs and wait. Disappointment. There is no hot food so I mope around not sure what to do now.

The country is gentle and rolling here without mini climbs to text the body. Coming around a bend. There are two rather large hills where the road snakes between. It makes me think of a giant piece of cake cut in two large slices by a child. The trees look like the icing is dripping down the side which makes me longingly reminisce about my earlier loss. The reality is most of the country here is more like an unbaked apple pie sitting on the bench. Soft lumpy no great rises or peaks. The latticed pastry hugs the form of the apples gradually rising and falling like the road although it is not straight. Much like an uncooked pie, it is rather flat like the rippled of sand beneath the high water mark on the beach.

The train has separated at the first shop but stays in touch until the hills. Just like that pie will puff up in the oven this is what we head into. Our body temperatures rise as if it is us in the oven and the train blows apart. Some appear to be fighting to be the caboose. Not sure if they want to, or don’t want to, I ride my own pace before sitting up and relaxing on the down to Amberley. Here, part of the train (Marty and Brandon) catch me. They seem to want to push harder on the road than I naturally do but I jump on the back and we race away. At a corner we stop to chat while we wait for our respective groups. All together again the train pulls out and we ride in the mid-thirties through to Amberley. It is a pace I would be pleased to commute at and here I am on a fully loaded bike having ridden 400km in the 3 previous days.

Amberley was supposed to be lunch done tone after 12:30 but we’re here and eating at 11am. I’ve come through the hills of Canterbury I never knew. I always just knew the plains and in the distance three mountains. I didn’t realize there was such rolling and remote roads on what I thought were the sprawling Canterbury Plains. One hillside has boulders just popping up through the surface. It is like they’re laying in bed still dozing and thinking about whether they will get up. It reminds me of a kindergarten at nap time with parts of bodies protruding from a tightly gripped blanket.

Days like today it feels like I could ride forever. The climbing was little and much of the ride went gradually down. I feel like a clockwork wind up toy pedaling away occasionally slowing before the tail wind winds me up perpetually allowing me to move without running out of energy.

The day ends early at 3:30pm after I have pulled off the route and made my way to Shaun & Michelle, Aria and Honor’s. I’d normally want to push on but am looking forward to an evening with them before heading onwards in the morning.

It is cold and for the first time ever while on a bikepacking trip I use my thermals. I even keep the merino hat on under my helmet despite starting with a climb. I’d forgotten that I’m a slow starter and it takes a decent climb, a descent, then a long stretch of flat before I start taking layers off.

The landscape is crazy and appears to have black freckles. They’re just cows dotted over a mottled complexion on the face of mother earth. I look ahead and notice I’m surrounded by jagged mountains like grumpy old men and rolling hills like gentle, soft spoken grandmothers. The mountains have scree slopes that look like a scar running down the head of a bald man and the occasional scattered growth of fauna give the appearance of a grandfather without much hair who let is 4 year old niece give him a haircut.

On this half of the Molesworth the terrain is rough. Water ruts and corrugations make it feel like I’m in a can of paint on the mixing machine at times. You can’t hold your speed and the brakes get used a lot more. For the first time ever I use them as I approach a vehicle, it is rather unusual though. It isn’t the motorbike with a sidecar, nor is it the geriatric could in a proper 4×4 motorhome. Rather it is a unimog. Carrying horses! They stand up top 3 or 4 abreast jostling for position to see the cyclists coming their way.

The descent into Hanmer is fast and furious. The steepness demands I hold my brakes as I bounce my way down the track losing more than 400m from the final pass before riding into town and direct to a rubbish bin. I can’t believe that since Blenheim I’ve ended up with my food bag now half full with rubbish! I guess the packs from the two freeze dry dinners, wrappers from 3 McDonald’s Chicken and Bacon muffins, an empty packet of biscuits, breakfast this morning, empty chocolate milk bottle, electrolyte drink mix and a fair amount of additional papers from the census! It remains empty momentarily as I’m straight into the supermarket for some lunch and more snacks. The next few days we’re in and out of towns so I should be able to carry less food and ditch rubbish more regularly.

The ride from Hanmer to Culverdon is fast and I mostly ride at 32km thanks to a trail wind and a gradual decline. I pull in and look to see my average speed, 28km on a fully loaded bike. Remembering I didn’t get soap in Hanmer I quickly grab a new bar here. Last night I was robbed while cleaning up in the creek. The current snatched my soap then ran away faster than I was willing to chase given my pants were around my ankles at the moment of the crime.

Continuing I have my first trail angel encounter on Sounds to Sounds a sign announces chocolates and water are waiting but it is the shade the beckons. I grab a chocolate and await for Keith who was getting picked on by a headwind when a school bus pulls up. The lady hops out to chat and mentions the insane cyclists she saw the other day who are riding from Marlborough Sounds to Milford Sounds. She laughs at me and herself and takes a moment to tell me about her new bus and the kids she drives.

Then we press on and let the gentle downhill pull me towards Hurunui. The wind jobs in this game and gently pushes me as if wanting me to clean myself up before eating an enormous burger, a full plate of fries and some onion rings on the side. Other cyclists arrive and we compare plans between mouthfuls, then tell stories from our ride on the track, washing them down with our drinks.

It feels as though I’m riding through thousands of different landscapes that have been shaped by mother nature and millennia of Human history. Scree slopes fall into the river below gently pushed by mother nature like a baby bird is pushed from is nest. In other places large chimney shaped shafts of rock shoot skywards up above me.

The gravel is smooth and when careering downhill you glide effortlessly leaning left then right as if riding a waterslide rather than a bike. We come in and out of riders all day and when riding upwards I can’t work out if I’m riding my own pace or matching the person in front. He keeps flashing over his shoulder as if it were a race and he is nervous I might attack at any moment. In reality he is watching is riding companion drop further and further back. I only realize this when I turn to look for Keith. He has dropped back riding his own pace and rhythm up the hill.

There is one horrible climb awaiting but I don’t realize it. The day has been fairly easy given the amount of climbing and I’m feeling good despite there being another 1000m to the Molesworth DOC campsite. We pause under some trees in the shade surrounded by cows who seem to be chatting rather loudly to each other about the days business and how many cyclists they’ve seen. Perhaps they’re arguing about the number that have passed by or laying bets as to whether we will ride the next section. I had seen it coming from a distance and thought it was simply an access path to a pylon. I was wrong.

We come 240m in the space of maybe 1.5km and it is so ugly I’m breathless. The first time on this ride. But that is it and we continue after that still climbing until the day ends washing off on a creek that runs beside the DOC campsite. The ranger greets us and hands us our census papers. So I sit at a picnic table in the last sunlight completing it while some cycle tourists from the Netherlands – Anna and Guun – chat away about bikes and travel and politics and just how beautiful they think NZ is.