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.

WARNING! NSFW. May cause offence.

Day 36. Seriously, this entry is expletive ridden!!!

Te Anau to Lake Monowai

Daily total: 84.45km Running Total: 1981.45km

Foreword: I thought long and hard about what to include in this entry and whether I should censor the content. I am going with uncensored, there are entries that show the pure joy of this journey so there needs to be the balance. This entry reflects the bad side of the journey. It is not all fun and games on the road. Sometimes it is really, really fucking shit. 

Really shit. Flat roads and start off in sun. The roads remain pretty flat but the weather gets progressively worse. Southerlies sound lovely until you realise they are coming from the Antarctic, so cold. Fucking cold. My clothing is not built for this, just a hoody and poncho as warm top layers and trakkie bottoms bottom layers. As cold at night, have to keep the hoody and trakkie bottoms dry. So just a poncho to protect me from the elements. The bitter cold elements. The other problem with the Southerlies is when cycling South on a straight road, you are unable to escape the unrelenting headwinds. Everything and everyone got their own personal 'fuck' from me. Fuck this, fuck that, just fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FFFFFFUUUUUCK! To the point of my throat becoming raw. I could feel the effects of shouting in my legs. Yep, I was shouting so hard my legs began to hurt. Fuck you legs. Cars going past me saw a mental person in bitter cold rain, wearing a poncho, swimming trunks and sandals screaming fuck in to an unforgiving wind. Fuck you wind. Fuck you bike. Fucking road, fucking hills, fucking nature, fuck, fuck, fuck. No one gives a shit, fuck this. Burn it all. Fuck you warmth. Moral possibly at the nadir of this trip.

What was meant to be a stunning scenic route was masked in fucking clouds and cold. The whole time stuck with the same few albums. Over and over again and over and over again. To add more fucks to the mix, one of the albums was the ill fated robot themed DJ set. A shit day coupled with the sound track of failure! Fuck failure!

I make a detour to a lodge along a shitty gravel road and to pay for the joys of being in doors and warm...all booked out by a school party. Why fucking not put a fucking 'No Vacancy' fucking sign at the fucking info fucking shit booth by the fucking main road? Screamed my internal voice as the lady in charge at the camp broke the devestating news to me. I just glared at her with the full force of all that is wrong with the world.  If there was any hope of sympathy from the lady, it was extinguished by the look I gave her.  There was a campsite 10km down the road. More gravel road. Fucking kids. Fucking gravel...the silence is broken by the repeated fucks coming from my fast becoming sore throat. Each fuck louder than the one before. The last one all too loud as the campsite appears suddenly. Campers looking uncertain. Fuck you campers and your fucking cars. 

I settle in. Ready to walk. Ready to relax.  All is peaceful until a fire engine turns up to do some nosily fire engine stuff. Fuck. Just fuck.  Fuck off. A whole new second wind of fucks readying themselves to be unleashed. I turn. Walk away. Dissappear in to the trees.  Then almost instantly, I became Zen like. The trees having a calming affect. All the fucks of the days, just washed away, with a swoop of a branch. I became fuckless. 
  

I took this as a positive sign. Fuck you rainbow.

Get to fuck firemen.

Calming...

...calmer...

 

 

...calmed...

...Zen. Not a fuck in the world.

The Great Stomp through the Great Walk!

Day 34 and 35. 3 to 4 days walking sounds too long...

The Kepler Track

Walking total: 69.1km Total Hours: 35

Proper shite night of sleep, only managed a couple of hours sleep, I put this down to 3 parts excitement mixed with 1 part nerves. The Kepler will be my first proper tramping experience. I have gone for long walks before, but none that required me to carry my home on my back along with all the trappings of self sufficiency, a tiny little paranoid voice plaguing my subconscious that I have forgotten something essential to this adventure by foot. The other person in the dorm had just completed the track a few days before and was impressed by my packing skills, how every available inch of space was not wasted. My saucepans contained cooking gas, spork, stove, teabags, socks, lighter, washing up liquid and garlic. The reminder of my packing followed suit, water bottle, spare t-shirt and hat, all rolled into the sleeping mat and hung off the bag for easy access. Everyone I would encounter on the walk had 80 liter backpacks, mine, maybe holds around 20 liters. I was traveling light. Although, I was a nosy git, when ever anyone emptied their bag, I would have a sly gander at their contents. I found out two things 1) People bring a lot of crap and 2) people don't pack well. Anyways, I digress. Other people's packing habits are not the most interesting. But why bring two full sized saucepans? Madness. Anyways, focus.

Spending the night at the hostel was a good idea, given my ineptness of packing up camp quickly. Also meant I left the hostel 5.30am. It was dark. Very dark. Head torch dark. So the first few hours of the day was spent walking in total darkness. No street lights or ambient background light or moon light. That sort of dark. I somehow manage to reach the Kepler Track with out getting lost in darkness and start it in darkness. Best. Plan. Ever!

That dark!

Getting there...

...nearly there...

...good morning, morning!

Careering through the woods in the dark, the head torch struggling to light the way, a crazed man on a mission. My campsite, a mere 30 odd km away. With a mountain to navigate and the threat of rain kicking in mid afternoon. As always, a nice easy first time experience I have set myself. As stomped through the forest the sun is slowly rising. My first full on sun rise in years and it was a corker watching the sun rise through the trees. Golden rays slowly bursting their way through the trees and hitting the dense, mossy undergrowth. Everything was bathed in warm morning light. Everyone at the campsite I passed through seemed very happy because of it. I stomp on. Safe in the knowledge that I won't be catching up with anyone for a long time. I'm essentially, the first person heading in that direction for the day. 

I felt like curling up in a beam of light on a bed of moss. It was as warm as it looks.

It has been awhile since a bench appearance.

  It was a long slog up the hill, walking past bluffs, knowing the top was coming soon as the forest was becoming less dense. I eventually break through the tree line into a wide open space, surrounded by mountains. 

Just wall...

...to wall...

...views.

The way ahead.

Whist going along the ridges, I see a familiar shape in the distance. A lone figure making it's way towards me. It is Helmet again!  So we both stomp up to Mt. Luxmore just as the weather looking like it is ready to change into something nasty. From this view point can see and feel the battle between the sun and the rain clouds. 

Tea break.

At the top of Mt. Luxmore

In the bottom left is the path leading to Mt. Luxmore.

So much beauty in the world...ruined time and time again...fecking mountains!

Helmet has to head back, as he was committed to just a days jaunt, we part ways (again), for the final time (again) this time (again). Both heading in different directions. I press on, with the weather looking like it is going to go downhill fast, along the snaking paths that follow the line of the ridges. Its windy, cold and wet at points. I'm glad to have heeded the advice of the DOC office. I am to have hired the coat now, cocooned in all it;s wind and rain proof goodness.

Come on sun!

It wouldn't be New Zealand without a toilet in a far flung remote place!

At one of the rest stops, I saw a mountain parrot, known as a Kea. I have been warned about them. They are very inquisitive and will chew the shit out of anything! 

Kea. Not to be confused with Kia!

Then I chilled out at a look out point, taking in the full glory of the area whilst listening to Fear Factory and GLC. Not the classeyest of tunes, but I have to make do. I was getting bored of my own company. 

This is now associated with Fear Factory and Goldy Lookin Chain!

I hit the campsite in the misty rain. It is not a friendly campsite. The threat of rain (and sand flies) seems to have made everyone antisocial to people they don't know. Then it rained all night. As it does these days. Next to the campsite is a hut for the people with money. They get beds and walls and flush toilets, stoves, loo roll. Basically a hostel. But without power. We has a fire pit and a wall less shelter. Proper hardcore us.

To the left: how the other half live!

Sensible tramping attire. Nowt but the best for me!

In the morning, it was still raining a light rain, so I had to pack up camp in this wet. Never a fun task. The second part of the track was mostly through the forest, which was great in the rain as everything seemed more green. So much moss and mushrooms! Purple ones! Can the purple ones be eaten? Looks like they should. I can imagine them tasting sweet.

In all, I walked 69.1km (including the crappy trail that leads to the beginning of the Kepler) in just under 36hours. It was hard. The guide suggests 3-4 days. 

I get back to the hostel feeling destroyed and daunted by the fact I would need to set up camp. I arrive,the girls behind the counter ply me with tea and informed me that because of a severe infestation of school kids in the backpackers, I could get myself a single room to myself for the price of a dorm room! More than camping but fuck it. I earned that treat. Also, good to dry my tent. The room looked ransacked after about 5 minutes of me entering the room.