Diamond Harbour to Ashburton

Day 27 - Wednesday 24 March 2010

Dist: 114 km. Av. Speed: 22.6 km/hr. Cal: 2035. Ride Time: 5 hours 03 min

I’m not sure if my alarm woke me or if it was the unfamiliar sound of rain on the roof. I know it was dark and not particularly tropical, and given the chance I’d probably have stayed in bed and rested my quads, still stiff after Richard’s ‘wee’ billy goat run in the Port Hill yesterday.

However Ashburton beckoned and there was re-packing to be done before setting off. And by the time I had my cargo organised the sky had become light and the rain had stopped so I wandered up the path for breakfast with Ann and Jim. From the breakfast table we watched the Diamond Harbour Ferry sneak across from Lyttleton and drop Richard off at the Jetty. It was time to get moving.

We said our goodbyes and thank you to our hosts and pedalled off up the slope to the west. The road from Diamond Harbour to Charteris Bay was slowish going as we struggled to get in to a rhythm due to the rollercoaster profile. Once we hit the flats we gathered speed and motored on to Teddington before being confronted by the infamous Gebbies Pass - another favourite training hill for Christchurch cyclists. After grunting up to the saddle we raced down the other side and conveniently discovered the Blue Duck Café - great berry fruit muffins!

The next stretch was as flat as the Canterbury Plains (because it was the Canterbury Plains) and we weaved our way via back roads towards Leeston. We were confronted with an amazing array of odours over this stretch, from cowshed effluent pond, silage, pig farm, horse stables and finally cauliflower paddock!

We nailed the 30km to Leeston in just over an hour so rewarded ourselves with a hearty lunch before tackling Richard’s final leg to Rakaia. The journey started really well as we kept up a good average speed and then got even better when we were overtaken by a monstrous Canterbury 4x4 tractor cruising along at about 30k… hmmm, what could we do… it was creating just too much vacuum behind it to let a chance like that slip by. So we pedalled hard to catch up, then enjoyed an effortless ‘tow’ for the next 10km - awesome! (next time we bike 90 Mile Beach Shari, we need to borrow a tractor) But we paid. We eventually hit the gravel and it became a bit dodgy at that speed, fully loaded on road tyres so we were forced to back off to a more manageable 18k. Unfortunately I’d made a poor route choice here and although shorter it was definitely slower because of the gravel. It probably wouldn’t have been too bad except that the gravel was brand new and down here they use Rakaia River stones (ie 20mm marbles).

After a bit of a slog - I got my revenge on Richard for the run - we eventually arrived at SH1 and the dreaded Rakaia River Bridge. 1.6km of narrow, fast potential danger! Our strategy was to wait for a long gap in the traffic and go like mad, two abreast so cars wouldn’t try and overtake and squeeze us against the rail. It worked out pretty well and sure got the heart rate up.

We found Richard’s father as planned and after a quick beer together I pedalled off to tackle the final 30k to Ashburton and Rich and his Dad headed back to Christchurch.

I was aware a southerly front was forecast for sometime in the afternoon but there wasn’t any sign of it along the dead straight, dead flat, busy and dead dull stretch of highway to Ashburton. Luckily the light nor-wester was still behind me and I made good speed because after checking in to my cabin and jumping in the shower, the southerly squall hit. It lasted just long enough to allow me time to get organised, then cleared so I could walk across the road to Robbie’s Bar and Bistro for a big old roast dinner.

Thanks for your help and company today Rich. It really does help having someone to talk to, a pacemaker and a drafting partner - as you discovered behind the tractor! You did great mate… C2C 2012... The list is growing… ha!