DAY 14 –Murchison to Big River hut

DAY 14 –Murchison to Big River hut– 149km / 11:45 total

This ended up being the day where I fell behind my rigid TA schedule and never was able to reclaim the lost KMs, ultimately finishing a day later than planned. Basically the real craziness of the tour started now and plenty of “teachable” moments presented themselves as I went into the heart of the south island wilderness where anything could and did happen.

So to start the day I decided to sleep in since I had finished quite late yesterday which meant I left at 8:45 from the lazy cow backpackers which wasn’t ideal considering I had originally planned an extremely long day which ended up being unrealistic for a number of reasons.

It was straight past the Mt Eden cycles guys and into the beautiful Maruia saddle road which wound through a beech forest. This had been the favourite part of the southern brevet for me and it didn’t disappoint although my spirits took a momentary dive when I was cycling along and heard the sound of air escaping from my tyre at a great rate. I checked and found I had ripped the rear tyres sidewall somehow and the stans liquid wouldn’t be able to repair this size a hole. 

I patched the rip and after unsuccessfully trying to remain tubeless I resorted to the fact I needed to put a tube in and then after an unexpected and lengthy break I was off again to catch the Mt Eden cycle guys and have some nosh at the awesome springs junction café. The rain came 10k from the café reminding me that it had been exactly this way when I was last here!

I had fallen an hour behind schedule and my original plan to get to the Blackball Hilton was unrealistic. Plan B was to do less distance and stay at the big river hut instead and break up the technical big river section. Big River is a pretty wild 4WD and walking track which is not ridable in many parts and is extremely difficult if it’s wet. It involves a seriously big climb up to the top of the range, a river to cross and then a technical traverse before descending down through an abandoned mining town. More on this shortly.

So after a wallet empting feed it was back out into the drizzle and I ascended the 9K through the spectacular Victoria state forest park up to the Rahu saddle and then enjoyed the 35k descent through the beech forest noting the appearance of the sun and rolled into Reefton at about 4PM. Today’s cycling had so far being amazing scenery and really the warm-up for the rest of the west coast of the south island.

I checked the river conditions and weather forecast at the info centre and noted that some serious rain was coming later that evening. After dining at probably the worst place I ever ate on the trip (my guts hated me for days afterwards) I headed out to get to the big river hut just as all the other tour riders I had passed were coming in to Reefton.

The 4WD road up to the hut grew steadily worse and worse and the rocks bigger and bigger, however it was all rideable and I slowly and steadily climbed until I was actually in the tree cover and following this 4WD track along the mountainside.

The river was my landmark and it was completely crossable right at this point but likely tomorrow would be a whole different story. From the river I spied the hut at the top of the valley and reached it in failing light. I was the only one there and 30 minutes after reaching the hut, the heavens opened and it started pouring. I was thankful I was not out in the deluge and that I had beaten the expected time to get to the hut by doing it in 2.5 instead of 3.

NOTE – I have had to rewrite this day’s entry as my phone died the next day.