During the weeks coming up to this epic journey I began to
get many doubts about the trip. Would I find a suitable bike in time? Could I
afford do it? Was I in shape enough in for this undertaking? It had gotten to
the point where I was looking at changing my flights home to just go straight
from Queenstown. With the coming of our first big milestone I find myself thinking
back on these moments of weakness and also with the recent holiday of Canadian thanksgiving
I realise I haven’t taken any time to thank people for where I am today. All
those doubts I had at the very start of the trip were very real but the fist
way I started to get past those doubts and believe in myself was all the people
who seemed to think that this journey was too much for me and I would not make
it. Well to those people I would like to say thank you, because whether you
meant or not some of the driving force behind this journey has been my desire
to prove you wrong. The next people I am thankful for this year are my friends.
I know I am slightly distant person and I don’t talk as much as I should but
throughout the year when I needed someone to talk to or even some help, you had
my back. So please know that I appreciate everything you do for me, be you a
new or old friend, you have been a key part in making this year turn out to be
one of the best. The next is Brian, who I believe deserves a special shout out
for all the time he has had to spend with me and put up with me. I tend to run
my life very different than I run a kitchen. In the kitchen I enjoy structure
and planning; lately my life has been lived on the wind allowing it to go as it
will. Brian during this has provided me the parachute and controls I needed to
guide myself through the wind. Last and certainly not least, I am thankful for
my family. I have been abroad for a year now and I did not leave home on the
best terms yet whenever I needed anything whether it be someone to talk to or
some ‘help’ they were always willing to help me out and offer some helpful
insight to my dilemmas. It is too often that we push aside advice based on our own
personal pride, sorry Brian. But if there is one thing I leaned on his journey,
that advice, though not what we want to hear at the time, is going to save you
the pain and the suffering down the road. So to all of you, thank you for
everything.
As we
reluctantly left the awesome hospitality of our gracious hosts Sue and Dennis
this morning, we were also embarking on our last bike ride in the south island.
It was bittersweet riding through the Marlborough Valleys. In one part the
south island had been our home for the last five months and given us a great
ski season some of the most stunning views I have ever laid eyes on, while on
the other had we were getting very eager to leave the long endless hills and
blood thirsty sandflies. But as the cliché goes, “All good things must come to
an end,” so we pushed hard through the valleys excited for a new adventure… and
a rest day. The journey of 28kms took us only an hour and a half so before we
knew what happened we had climbed our last south island hill and were darting
downhill into the port town of Picton. As I started to coast into the town
centre of Picton a man on the side of the road yelled at me, “You made it man!”
I couldn’t help but smile.
Having
arrived an hour before our check in time for the ferry, Brian and I decided to
kill some time in the town centre. For those back home Picton is a lot like
White Rock, but with a little Horseshoe Bay aspects. As we sat on the
waterfront, bikes perched beside us, we couldn’t help but be proud of
ourselves. Two guys who had never done any cycle touring had ridden up an
entire island with no training, improper gear, and pretty disorganised. But
every night we made it to at least to our planned destination, neither of us
tried to kill the other, and most importantly we had great time doing it. Not
long after we went to the ferry terminal, checked-in and were soon rolling our
bikes on to this huge boat. The ferry from Picton would take us out of the
Marlborough Sound and across the open water to the small gulf where Wellington
sat. The journey would be around three hours long and we were expecting two and
a half meter swells out in the open channel. The boat was very similar, on the
inside, to the ferries back home so we grabbed a sofa with our friend Natalie
and her friend from Queenstown. The journey through the sound was really
beautiful with the turquoise green water matching really well with the lush
green islands and rolling hills. When we exited the sound the journey started
to get a lot worse. The swells were coming against the side of the ship causing
it to roll considerably. It was near this time even my usual iron stomach was
starting to feel a little queasy and the rest of the more unseasoned passengers
started grabbing ‘barf bags’ in preparation for the worst. Luckily we all made
it without being sick and Brian and I got our first view of a big city since
leaving Melbourne back in May.
Unlike
our ferries in BC, which are multi-directional the ferries that do the cook
crossing are unidirectional, so after a slightly lengthy backing up procedure
we were docked and off into the big city. As dangerous as it already was riding
fully encumbered on normal roads it was even scarier on the big city streets. Giving
up and frankly scared, we walked the bikes the last bit of the journey through
town to the backpackers where you find me now, in bed finishing off this entry.
Day 13, 28km down and thankful.
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