Nelson arrival and a trip with the small one

I made it to Nelson, the sun capital of the south island of New Zealand. Along with both bikes. A big waddup to DHL.

I arrived in Nelson to this crazy girl on this funny looking mountain bike sprinting up to me. She turned out to be my sister so it was ok. I apologised for not getting her a housewarming gift. I had been eyeing the "cute kiwis" being sold in the giftshop, but I really only wanted to get her an ugly kiwi. Which they didn't offer. So I was emptyhanded.

I settled myself into her flat, only to be told that we were leaving. Yes. A biking/backpacking extravaganza. Now, if we learned anything from the beginning weeks in New Zealand, it was that biking+backpacking=really dumb idea and lo, should not be attempted again. But it still ranks above the driving-the-car-at-risk-for-explosion idea, and since we had no other way to get to the trailhead, we took off. Heading straight for the massive hills and very dark rain clouds.

Yeah. That was a mood killer.

After a double-defeat on the final ascent, my young sister and I staggared with our bikes up to look out over the Marlborough Sounds. We descended to our campsite for the night where we got the tent up just before the downpour. We huddled together eating cheese and crackers and passing a cuecumber back and forth, and my worry of starving on this trip began to set in. I realize it's impossible to starve to death in three days. But that does not make the fear any less real.

In answer to your question, yes. It was a Chase family vacation in the truest sense.

But we woke up the next morning to a sunny and beautiful day. After some cereal and hot chocolate, we rode to the trailhead, dumped the bikes, and set off on the Nydia Track. We hiked to a beach and set up camp, then lunch, where we ran out of gas. So we enjoyed what would be the first of many meals of cold soup, and set out to hike the rest of the track packless. We came back and made a dinner of more cold soup.

The beauty of backpacking is all food is good. You can't lose. You find yourself talking about how you should buy this food and eat it all the time at home. How it would be graet to have cold red currey instant soup everyday! And how you need to try all the other flavors! But no, no you really shouldn't. Cold cream of pumpkin soup is really not good, unless your alternative is dirt. Other then that, stick to the pringles and diet coke.

The next morning we hiked out of the track. We got back to the bikes and rode to the campground, where we had the idea of, "ride the bikes up the hill, without the packs, then take the trail down and go get the bikes tomorrow!" Brilliant. Can still ride, but without the weight. Allowed us to conquer our demons from earlier in the trip. We rode up to the Ophouri saddle and looked out over Duncan Bay where we finished our cheese and crackers along with half a snickers. Yes, a feast.

New Zealand is famous for its odd creatures, and we were lucky enough up on the saddle to come across a family of flightless birds. Now these birds were interesting in that they were birds. But they had no wings. The young one was convinced we had stumbled upon the significant connection between dinosaurs and birds. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the chances of the two of us making a real live scientific discovery are...well...bad. But still. Birds without wings. They exist. You read it here first.

We took the trail back down to the campsite, where the campground hosts asked us to stop throwing the water bottle at Lucky, the campground cat, after the 18th time he tried to get in our tent and take a nap. Turns out lucky just recently had a broken back. We complied, and marvaled and Lucky's resilience. Here is a cat that is recovering from a broken back and we had thrown things at it, chased it, kicked it, and thrown it, and still he seemed perfectly fine and lucky that we had no means of lighting it on fire, as the campers at the next site over threatened to do.

Our final day we hiked back to the bikes and enjoyed an easy ride to the town of Rai valley, where we broke the record for longest amount of time spent hanging out in Rai Valley (2 hours). The bus ticket said we would be picked up in front of the Rai valley shops, and it was hard to distinguish if that meant the cafe on one side of the street or the gas station on the other.

It was the gas station.