Moulting Bay (St Helen’s) -> Lagoon Beach (Chain of Lagoons)

Distance cycled: 56 km
Ave: 16.2 km/h
Max speed: 57.6 km/h

After breakfasting on granola and yogurt and the remainder of the fresh blueberries, we headed back through town on our way south.

As we returned to our bikes, we were approached by a couple of youths on bikes.

A witness testimony by Jessi:

As our group’s expert about youths (both due to my work at the youth clinic, and my general youthful demeanor), I have been tasked with detailing our encounter with two youths on our way to Scamander. We first encountered them when we had stopped at a lookout where they rode their mountain bikes across the road to specifically tell us that they had biked from St Helens; a 20km ride which we had also done, and thus thought was quite reasonable given their youth and enthusiasm. We later found out that, like youth everywhere, they had LIED to us! We met up with them again 10 minutes later in Scamander where we had all stopped for snacks (my pregnancy craving for popcicles is now seasonally appropriate!). They admitted that they were actually from the next town over (a few km up the road), and seemed absolutely flabbergasted that we were biking so far.

We encountered them again another 15 minutes later when I had to stop to pee at a public bathroom just down the road and they expressed again their shock and awe at our biking prowess. We gave them a motivating pep talk about how they too could bike tour and really, they already have bikes and we had witnessed their snacking skills so they are pretty much set. I am confident that we have inspired a future generation of bike packers.

That is a faithful account of all my dealings with those youths.

Renate was barely gone when Ray, of Oportune Piano tuning van, stopped by. We had seen her van pass us multiple times – she’s mostly on holiday but has several days of work lined up in Hobart and Queenstown. 

Renate came back, interrupting a visit from a guy with a Scottish accent (no photo, so imagine a muscular young man wearing a floral shirt over a singlet with some necklaces, a cowboy hat, and a cigar) who came by and wanted to get some load carrying advice – apparently he’s also travelling by bike, but is using a trailer, which is proving difficult to manage on some of the trails!

Alice (with expert testimony from Dr. Jessica Tamura-Wells)

Derby -> Moulting Bay (St Helens)

Distance cycled: 76.5 km
Ave: 18 km/h
Max speed: 61.8 km/h

Today involved over 800m of climbing up to Weldborough pass.

Would’ve been even more enjoyable without with the irate driver who yelled at each of us in turn that we should be pulling over into the soft shoulder for her to pass. But most drivers have been generous in their passing room, and traffic overall was light.

Felicity was riding caboose, so nobody noticed when she had stopped to add 2kg of potatoes to her load.

Alice

Scottsdale -> Derby

Distance cycled: 40.7 km
Ave: 12.9 km/h
Max speed: 70.9 km/h

We had heavy rain overnight and a racket of birds, but only a couple of unofficial folks told us camping wasn’t allowed, so we had a leisurely start to the day to give the tents time to dry out before we embarked on the North East Rail trail.

I’m a bit skeptical after past experience with rail trails *cough-transcanadatrail-cough*, but there were several options to deek back to the paved A3, so it seemed worth the risk.

There were some grand downhills into Derby (check out that max speed!), and I never used my granny gear (the editors protest that granny gears were, in fact, used).

We decided to call it a short day in Derby because the options to camp closer towards St Helens looked sparse. And Derby has a lake.

We belatedly realized Derby didn’t have a grocery store, so were left to sample the local fare for cyclists (Derby is a serious mtb town).

We’ve pitched on this nice open grassy area where nobody else is… possibly because you can’t get a car over here, or possible because it’s the septic field. When the wind dies down, we’ll find out!

Alice

Launceston -> Scottsdale

Distance cycled: 69.7 km
Ave: 12.8 km/h
Max speed: 66.2 km/h

It was sad to say goodbye to the great Airbnb, but we wanted to make an early start for a fairly ambitious first day.

We were foiled in our attempt to take a riverside trail, but left town and made tracks on a good cycle path heading north east. We switched onto paved road, and kept going.

We made it to the free campsite in Scottsdale, which was the goal – it has lots of awesome covered picnic areas, including one with power and water and bbqs…

The catch was you’re only allowed to camp in slots by the road, which were fairly jammed with camper vans… so we waited until after 8 and pitched as far in the back as possible just as it started raining. It was a bit hard to leave the glorious covered picnic shelter, but we were all pretty tired and ready to call it a night.

A

Today was a buffer day – a day in case the bikes didn’t arrive with us, or in case we needed to sleep for 18h to catch up.
But no, I woke up without an alarm at 7. Who am I? What have I become??

While Felicity slam dunked her prequel blog posts with encouragement from Jessi, I went on a quest for breakfast supplies. Eggs are in short supply after outbreaks of avian flu, so many large grocery store shelves are empty. I found some, and local fresh bread from a basket, and cooked us up some brunch.
This town is a UNESCO city of gastronomy, so I had a high bar, but a hungry,  appreciative audience does wonders for ratings.

We biked into town, through several parks, running errands like visiting the ATM and buying wall plug-in chargers.

When we were unlocking our bikes to head to another part of town, I heard the telltale “phisss” of a fast flat, twice. Both on my rear wheel, and sure enough, when I flipped it over, found a thorn and a piece of glass both embedded in the tire. Of course it happened when we didn’t have all our bike repair supplies with us, so in order to see more of the town, I paid the bike shop around the corner to put a new tube in instead of walking “home” and back.

Murky as the river was, there were still cliff jumpers.

We made our way back for a reservation at Stillwater, which is housed in what used to be an 1840s mill.

We rode home fortified for the road ahead.

A

Victoria -> Vancouver -> San Francisco -> Brisbane -> Launceston

Tasmania is 19 hours ahead (or 5 hours behind but a day ahead if you prefer), and we had wisely scheduled an early ferry and long layovers in case things went wrong. 

The extra time was unnecessary until Brisbane where we transferred from our United international flight to our domestic connection with budget airline, Jetstar. 

Upon arriving, we needed to hunt down a couple of carts (endangered species in the baggage claim area), collect our bikes and take them through customs (one person operates each cart, and one goes ahead to talk to officials and move the stanchions for the wide loads).

I will say that biosecurity was MUCH less strict here than in NZ, so this portion could have required a lot more time. 

We abandoned our carts and barricaded in the other passengers of the shuttle from the international to the domestic terminal with 3 bike boxes.

We rustled up another cart, and released our hostages. Then were promptly held up by the Jetstar check-in staff whose baggage team won’t touch anything more than 32kg.

After repacking A and F’s bikes (down from 50kg and 38kg that United has accepted to Jetstar’s maximum allowable 32kg), we were then told we’d need to pay $20 per kg over 23kg each for our checked baggage. $20 per kg! That would be hundreds of dollars each.

Fortunately, the eventual arrangement we came to was a mysterious $61 total, which is fine. Honestly, I had been surprised that United accepted my 100lb box of bike and related gear without batting an eye, but dealing with multiple reconfigurations at this exhausted juncture was… not super fun.

It was a short leg to our wonderful Airbnb, and we stayed upright on the left side of the road the whole way. Go us.

Distance cycled: 13.76 km

Ave: 18.0 km/h

Max speed: 42.9 km/h

Alice

Since my flight wasn’t till the evening, in the morning I made a quick visit to the botanical gardens, a local chocolate shop, and a hot chocolate cafe.

Departing from Quito was smooth, but I missed my flight connection in Toronto – because you have to pickup your checked baggage and bring it through customs at your first point of arrival into Canada, even if you’re just connecting to another airport. Happily, the airline folk easily rerouted me and I arrived in Victoria only a few hours later than planned. My bike didn’t arrive with me, but it did arrive later the same day. I would really like to come back to Ecuador.  There’s so much to see and do, and I found the people to be kind and patient. This trip was too short and too rushed.

The end! For this. More soon.

F

Coasting down from such a height was pretty darn fun. Large trucks must go slowly for safety reasons, so I got to pass a few. And the grade was reasonable and the turns not too sharp, so it was brake-free let ‘er rip!

Then I had to return to Quito and to put my bike back in the box. Getting to the city turned out to be a lot harder than I anticipated. Unfortunately the buses I found that were going to Quito from Pifo did not have room for a bicycle. The buses with room for a bicycle were not going to Quito. I thought I was getting help from a friendly fella at the bus stop, but he just kept telling me which buses were going to Quito and ignoring the problem of the bicycle. He was very keen to show me his social media accounts, with his zillions of followers. Humans puzzle me sometimes.

I was annoyed and decided just to bike the last part. Which turned out to be a rough rough go. I do not recommend this. It got dark and I was on the freeway, and my bike light ran out of battery. About halfway into the city I realized that the most direct route was going to take me through a long no-biking-possible tunnel, so I asked a cabbie for some navigation help (and for a ride, but he explained there are zones for cabs and he’s not allowed to take me where I want to go. Damn.) Off the freeway, it was steep steep cobblestones. And traffic. Too much traffic to be able to make switchbacks, so I was walking and pushing my bike. And having to rest a lot. I also ran out of water but didn’t want to stop as it was dark and getting darker. All in all that 25 kms took about 4 hours. I was totally exhausted by the time I got to the hotel. I wolfed down some Indian food with a friendly tourist from England, dismantled my bicycle, and sorted out logistics with the helpful hotel folks.

F

Spent time in the thermal baths, napped, and went on a small hike along a mountain stream. I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to get a chocolate massage (or any other sort of massage)… But next time I’m here I might.

F

Fresh laundry, a solid sleep, and breakfast with blackberry juice. The fresh juices here are thick, delicious and diverse. On my way out of Baeza there was a police checkpoint – I think they were looking for drugs. Didn’t find any on me though!

I also found a rear spoke broken and my back tire flat. And upon getting out my patch kit, my glue was congealed and useless. Fortunately there happened to be a “vulcanizadora” just down the road from the dairy. Unfortunately the patch isn’t holding 100% but it’s a slow leak and I can just pump it up every few hours.

I arrived at Papallacta and realized that the hotel I’d booked was up another couple kms on a very steep side road. I did some walking. The hotel is pretty amazing, and was worth the extra effort. I chose a place where the hot springs are in the hotel, and there’s a stone thermal water bathtub in my bathroom, and someone came in the evening to light a fire in my fireplace! There’s a couple options of thermal pools inside the hotel courtyard, which are also really clean and delightful, and there aren’t many other guests here. Which seems weird, but I’ll take it! What a glorious reward for my tired legs.

F