The hardest part has yet to come...

Life sans Bluffing It, touring and the slow crushing march to reality...

It has been a few days since the journey has ended. The dust is settling and the scale and motivation of the past few months is rapidly being replaced with the need to become housed and employed. Technically homeless and unemployed in a foreign land. The drama of the written word.

Part of the journey was to seek out the 'New Zealand Smile' (and to fund raise and to see a penguin). With people who have spent time in (not prison time) New Zealand, when you utter the words 'New Zealand', a smile spreads across their face. I have seen this on many faces outside of New Zealand. In England, in Australia, in Indonesia. The faces differ but the smile is always the same. The country leaves a mark on you. You cannot help but smile. A smile that I am now a proud owner of.

A part of me wants to continue. Just keep going, exploring this glorious land, just keep going until my money is spent and the cold renders me useless. All my clothes are built for summer, the sleeping bag is in the same boat and my portable room is struggling. Bike has taken a few hits on the gravel roads but is unrelenting. Truly built for this task. And I had my counts my choice of transport to begin with. Sorry bike! (Yes I named my bike 'bike'). In the same way I had doubts about myself. The panic I felt on the very first night to those horrible bouts of self doubt at the beginning and the terrible pangs of loneliness towards the end to the bouts of paranoia to the dark places I found my mind at points after periods of isolation. And the smell. Always a bad smell lingering from some part of me. A different day, a different smell, a different source. All shit covered obstacles that needed to be dealt with. Oh, there was that brief period of time that I was convinced that I was not in full control of my bladder, that something important had been damaged. In the the end it wasn't or I've gone past not noticing. Towards the end, any care to my appearance had completely vanished, replaced by an utilitarian approach to clothing. Aesthetics became a foreign concept, as did fresh clean clothes.

Have noticed that there seems to be a disparity between the signs in Cape Reinga and Bluff. The sign pointing to Bluff reads 1456km whilst the sign pointing to Cape Reinga reads 1401km! Did NZ shrink? Has the crow found a quicker, more direct way? These questions are more pressing than any of those humdrum questions of 'What now?' and 'What am I going to do with myself?'

Distance wise, to put 4797km into perspective, as the crow flies from London, I could have cycled to Canada, Chad or Kazakhstan or from West to East in the US. Just saying.

Compared to other adventures of past, this one has been really uneventful. No run ins with drug dealers, no death threats, no near muggings at knife point, no finding love, no attempted coups, no hospital visits...then I realize, that of all the silly situations I have found myself in, this one trumps them all. Who the fuck decides that trying to run an international fundraising campaign from the back of a bicycle with no experience nor any experience of touring is 'uneventful'? That is one of the drawbacks of spending so much time alone, you find out hard to put things into perspective. There is no yard stick to measure achievements, just you and the bike. The bike doesn't know any better nor has any context to work with.

Physically I have changed. All my clothes now look too big on me. The T-shirts in the photos are a small and they now hang off me. My appetite is never appeased, people seem shocked at the quantity of food that I can consume now. Always hungry. My fitness is at crazy levels at the moment, I went for, what was intended as a small ride turned into a 75km ride. The effects of which were not even felt the next day. Mentally wise, in places, I'm stronger there. I will take on any challenge with conviction and stubbornness. Although there are still some challenges out there that still seem impossible to me. Rejection is a terrible fear and one that I need to destroy.

With gravel roads for those in motorized vehicles, top tip, if you see a person walking, a cyclist, people on horses or etc, slow the fuck down when passing! We don't have that protective veneer of metal to protect us from loose stones!

Still the hardest part was the 90 Mile Beach, in terms of cycling but the hardest part of the whole journey was the fundraising. Trying to keep everything updated, the numerous technological clusterfucks that littered the way was stressful. To the point of nearly quitting the whole fundraising side of things. I don't think the bike ride pulled in any funds but Portraits By Strangers did. You can visit the Portraits by Strangers page by heading over to www.facebook.com/portraitsbystrangers This will be ongoing and still open to donations and submissions. 

I would mention the best parts of the adventure here, but that would take up pages and pages. Everyday, the top moments of the journey changes. So to name the top moments would be impossible for me (indecision is a trait I still have not manged to overcome!) but no worries, just go back through the blog to get a rough idea. All the good and bad of the journey are apart of me and shall remain with me for as long as my mind holds out. This will not be the last journey of its kind, there will be more! Estonia to Turkey anyone?

If you are thinking of doing a fund raising campaign and need advice, just give us a shout. I can tell you the many ways of how not to do things. That I can truly say I am expert at!

Bonus posts part 1

Day 42. The march to Slope Point.

Invercargill to Slope Point

Daily total: 86.655km Running Total: 2298.39km

Left this morning completely unmotivated, dreading the next few days of riding. The sky is gray, the road is a never ending straight of asphalt! I stop at a beach. I manage to sort out places to crash for a few days time. In the distance a faint slither of blue amidst a sea of gray. I continue, passing the 4500km mark. The blue grows. The deeper into the Catlin's I go, the more the road bends and the landscape starts rolling all over the shop. The blue grows, shadows start forming for the first time. I arrive at the campsite, the sun has broken through. Only a few km from Slope Point. I wish I brought a celebratory beer. Turns out the owner of the campsite sells them cheap. The sun is out, I'm at Slope Point. I break the beer out! I have hit the most Southern part of the South Island!!! Other tourists look bemused at the overly happy cyclist in now I'll fitting clothes plying himself with booze! I get back to the campsite in time to skank a lift to go penguin spotting. An activity I had ruled out due to time and money. We sit around d in the cold, waiting, waiting,waiting. Then there's a cheer. A yellow eyed penguin appears and waddles about as comically as they do on the TV. Just pottering about being all penguin like. Its going to be a pretty,pretty cold night tonight, no worries, I have lent a hardcore winter sleeping bag for the night. Sound as! Today has been quality!

Signs...sometimes I try and work out what was going through my head when taking photos...

In the distance, a future goal: Antarctica. A mere 4800km away. 

Success!

What is missing from this photo?

Tourists are known to frequent the coast lines of NZ, with no natural predators their numbers can be overwhelming...

...here two tourists break away from the pack to gain a better vantage point...

Tourists are rewarded by their patience with a visit from a rare Yellow Eyed Penguin. The tourists let out a collective woop to alert other tourists are aware of their discovery of this tiny stranger coming close to their pack...

The Yellow Eyed Penguin goes through its slapstick routine to amuse the tourists whilst deep down hoping that a big wave will come and wash them away...

Day 43. The march from Slope Point.

Slope Point to Owaka

Daily total: 82.99km Running Total: 2381.38km

The winter sleeping bag proved difficult to escape. The warmth. The near on missed sun rise. What I saw of it from the warmth of the sleeping bag was grand. 

This was the colour of everything during the sunrise. I was just too warm in the sleeping bag to get out of the tent to busk in it's full glory.

I really should have got out of the sleeping bag sooner.

Day 44 and 45.

Owaka to Balclutha and out about in Balclutha

Daily total: 84.86km Running Total: 2466.24km

Catching up with peeps from Wellington in this town whose main source of employment lays within the meat industry. The town itself is nondescript but it borders so much beauty. Empty beaches, jutting rocks. 

Day 46. End of the road

Balclutha to Dunedin

Daily total: 98.24km Running Total: 2564.89m Overall: 4797.61

Took the scenic route along the coast, turning off at Waihola, the town of the mixed message.  You pass the the welcome to Waihola sign with the tagline 'Enjoy our lake' which was then followed by a sign that read "No hospital, no doctor, one cemetery".  I was curious to this strange juxtaposition of signage but I have also seen Deliverance.  

Enjoy.

The landscape of NZ threw in its last hand of hills at me and they did not disappoint. The first, a seemingly innocuous hill that proved to be deceptive, time and time again. The zenith always just out of reach. With the amount of climbing, my imagination told me that the views must be great but everything was obscured by a thick layer of fog. Rendering any views useless and well, seeing the other side of the road. A good time to be wearing a gray T-shirt and owing a gray backpack. 

Foggy...ok I can see the other side of the road.

The second, a misread hill on the outskirts of Dunedin, a long straight road on the map, which I read as 'flat' based on my extensive experience of long, straight roads. This wasn't not to be the case. This was the enemy of flat, a big two fingered salute to the very essence of flat. It was like New Zealand knew my journey was drawing to a close and decided to squeeze one last challenge of a hill in. I did not cave.

The last few days still held surprises, everyday was met with scenic moments that induced smiles and joyus repeated use of 'fucking hell'. This country does not let you down. Constantly bombarding the senses, each area trying to outdo the previous. The last few days have been amazing, the desire to keep going but I need to save my energy. The hardest challenge has yet to come...it will push me, it may break me but I am stubborn. I will conquer!

The end...

Day 39. The scale of what I have achieved has not sunk in yet...

Invercargill to Bluff to Invercargill

Daily total: 71.54km Running Total: 2211.74km Overall Total: 4444.06km

It ends today! The sun is shining (not to be confused with hot) and Bluff is only 30km away. Need to go to the library first to try to get some victory music on the go for the final leg. Unfortunately, I do not have 'You're the best' by Foreigner. Maybe that's a good thing. Instead, I am hoping to fill the mp3 player with McLusky. Just wall to wall McLusky. Fingers crossed.

Library a success, new music, new sense of energy and determination. Bluff bound!

The road is not challenging, nor is the wind today. I hit Bluff in good time after a brief pit stop to try some oysters that the town is famous for. They are good! I also get distracted a big hill with a look out point across the area and then I make it down to Stirling Point, the final destination. The start and finish of so many journies. I am underwhelmed. It has been so long leading up to this, with so many hurdles and high points and I am here. Staring at this sign marking the end point of my journey. I halfheartedly get people to take a photo of me by the sign. I mention my achievement, people seem indifferent. It is the same feeling as i had when I handed in my final assignment at uni.No streamers, no bells, no whistle, just a gentle thud of the essay hitting the shelf, an empty feeling and the long ignored question 'What now?' As a parting fuck you from technology, my network service cuts out so I cannot text, call or internet anyone. No one to tell of my achievement.  Full deflation at this point. Just pub and that long awaited beer(s).

In the distance, Slope Point, the most Southern Part of the South Island...you know what this is leading to...

The cycle back to Invercargill, the sense of achievement kicks in, as does the phone service and a flurry of texts appear. I bomb it back in no time, covering the 30km in less than an hour.  I made it! The scale of what I have done has not sunk in yet. This is the end of Bluffing It! 

Face!

Last tent day.

Day 38. So close...

Tuatapere to Invercargill

Daily total: 94.60km Running Total: 2140.20km

Today is the last tent day for Bluffing It. Decided to spend the next few days indoors as the weather is getting colder and colder and it is becoming harder and harder to dry off the tent. There is nothing more depressing at this stage than the idea of setting up a wet tent and then climbing into the moist centre.

In tents...

After two days of shite weather, I get a break! Sunshine and no Southerlies! So I had a choice, go the flatter, shorter and duller way or go the longer, undulating more interesting way. Yep, I went for the latter. Continuing along the Coastal Highway was a good plan. Cycling was fun again! Although the way from Thronbury to the Invercargill turn off was dull. Long straights through flat farm land, with the occasional smell of cow's arse. 

I thought the battles with the winds was over. After the Southerlies after the past few days, I thought I was home free until later in the day when I was flanked by some Easterlies! Nature reminding me whose boss. These last few days of constant wind have drained me physically. Numerous stop points towards the end of the day, every peddle feeling like a massive effort. Keep going, keep going.

Those mountains in the distance should have been my view the other day.

Invercargill gets a bad rap from many. The road into town is ugly but the park is cool and there are a number of old brick buildings larking about the town. It could be a town of contrasts, an idea that needs to explore to form an opinion. 

Have noticed a few changes in myself in these closing days. Any care I had for my appearance has gone to shit. My choice of clothing is making me look borderline mental. Just a strange mix of clothes thrown together. A mixture of handouts and a t-shirt that shows signs of cleanliness neglect. Is it becoming solidified in places. To build upon my newly crafted mental appearence have found myself being more vocal to myself than usual in public spaces. Espeacially super markets. Me woundering around the aisles repeating the names of random food stuffs that catch my eye.  I may have finally broken.

No idea to why I'm single...

Clifden suspension bridge

Day 37. Hmm...giving up on headings...

Lake Monowai to Tuatapere

Daily total: 64.46km Running Total: 2045.60km

It was such a cold night. 2 T-shirts, 2 pairs of socks, trakkie bottoms, gloves and another T-shirt wrapped around my head, all as sleeping gear. The summer sleeping bag is just not cutting it anymore. The final days are going to be hard. The drizzle is making itself known, the prospect of the same short playlist to get me through the day fills me with a hate filled dread. All this topped with preparing myself for the big anticlimax of hitting Bluff. No balloons, no banners, no roaring crowds, not even a pat on the back. It will be just me, the bike and the weather.  A solitary one man party with no one around to share this long awaited moment.

Despite the moments of negativity, NZ stills throws in the oddities that make it all worth while. There's a break in the weather as I stop in a place that is smaller than a hamlet called Clifden and they have a suspension bridge. The longest wooden suspension bridge in NZ none the less. Arriving at the bridge, the words 'No fucking way!', escape my lips (possibly a bit too loudly as the couple at the bridge managed to create the maximum amount of distance between me and them as physically possible), the bridge looking like a mini, wooden, sort of version of the Clifton Suspension bridge in Bristol. It does to me anyway, time may have created a layer of haze on the memories. 

Also, there is a small patch of grass with a toilet and drinking water where you can camp for free. There is not much in the way of entertainment in the area, or shops or much. Just a free place to lay your head for the night.

The weather is in flux the whole day, going freezing rain to hot spells but always with the Southerlies.  Hard to judge the clothing combination, soon as the poncho comes on the sun makes an appearance and bakes me. By the time I cop out with the baking and remove the sweet soaked poncho, the sun taps out and the rain jumps in to resume the assault.  By previous standards,the distance covered on the relatively flat terrain was a short one but the head winds made it feel that I was going uphill the whole day. Just got to keep on ploughing on. The end is nigh.