December 23, 1991
To Greymouth
A shorter, more leisurely day than planned - we had flat roads, blue skies and a tailwind - wonderful weather that is forecast to last out the week! WE left Ross about 9 and pedaled in to Hokitiki for breakfast, enjoying flat, easy riding through farmlands and river valleys. We lounged around in Hokitiki for several hours - had a nice brunch at a sidewalk table of a tea house, then did business errands and chopped: got ferry and train information for the stretch from Picton to the East Cape, exchanged some travelers checks, bout a new book, a tee shirt for me - and then took cans of pop and a few bakery treats to the beach where we at at a picnic bench, watched the breakers and fed crackers to the gulls.
From Hokitiki it is another easy 40k to Greymouth. On the way we stopped for a break by the Taramakau River - we had to climb down a ladder to reach the shore. We spent a lot of time there torning over options for our itinerary from here to Napier. It is really a lot more fun to imagin alternatives when the weather is good.
We reached Greymouth about 4:30, where we went to the information center, got information on the coast ahead and Paparoa National Park, and formed a new plan: eat in Greymouth, bike another 20k and camp by the beach, and then spend most of tomorrow tramping around Paparoa before riding to Westport for a Christmas Eve meal and pit stop.
Our new plan didn't hold for long though. From the informaton center we invaded the Bonzai Pizzeria and had a delicious small pepperoni, salami, mushroom and onion pizza, and then strolled through town looking for an open pharmacy. This was a strategic error - while we had been eating, the parrmacies all closed. We found a supermarket and got food for the next day, but not what we'd been looking for at the pharmacy. Then, I discovered my glasses were missing so we started retracing our steps - they were'nt at the restaurant, and we couldn't check out the information center because it had just closed (our timing is terrible tonight!).
Disgusted, we formed a new new plan - stay in greymoth, find a pharmacy and hopefully my glasses in the morning; and then bike only as far as Charleston tomorrow. We biked to the outskirts of town to the motorcamp, where we pitched our tent in the trees (a first for this trip) and walked down to the beach to read and enjoy the waves until bedtime.
Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 523 miles (842 km)
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