Plan B

Just after midnight on November 14, 2016, the landscape of North Canterbury changed forever. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake took lives, destroyed homes and businesses and forced the massive rebuild of SH1 and the main trunk rail connection between Christchurch and Picton.

Yarn-bombing: rebuilding
Kaikõura one row
at a time!

Like many others, we were keen to travel the new highway south as far as Kaikõura township, to see for ourselves what engineering feats the NCTIR (North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery) team had achieved.  

Bill handled the trip beautifully. Meanwhile, his people were kept busy responding to the army of stop-go sign wielders who grinned and waved at us all the way down the coastline. One now knows how the Queen must feel when out and about.

Kaikõura itself was bustling with an eclectic mix of independent travellers, bus tourists and construction workers. And nosy parkers like us, of course. The pub where we ate our gourmet burgers asked that patrons leave their hi vis gear and work boots in their vehicles. So we did.


After some tootling around town looking for the best spot for the night, we settled on a park next to the beach at South Bay. Cue sunset pic:

The plan for the following day (Plan A, shall we say?) was to fill in some hours as best we could until Coffee o'Clock then to head off into the hills above the town to visit friends.

There's nothing like a good bike ride to take the mind off things. The roads of South Bay and the new cycle path that ran alongside the highway south of the town provided the necessary diversion until the hunt for the elusive flat white and long black. Regular, single shot. Cheers.

Back on the road, Bill and his caffeinated cargo left the main highway north of Kaikõura after crossing the Hapuku River. We'd been told to expect a 40 minute drive; the word "hairy" may also have been bandied about. Google Earth had already led Bruce to expect the tarseal to last approximately half a minute. And so it came to pass.

But things were going swimmingly. We squeezed past vehicles leaving the DOC camp. We negotiated hairpin bends and massive slips. (No NCTIR crews here to repair earthquake damage.) We crossed fords. And then we didn't.

A ford too far

The final ford was too deep and rocky. It could almost be described as a raging wee torrent, if one were feeling poetical. (At the time, one wasn't.)

 The alternative was a rickety bridge designed for vehicles slimmer than Bill.

Time for Plan B.

Lunch was transferred to a chilly bag, the bikes were downloaded and Bill was left behind, with time on his hands (tyres?) to reflect on the consequences of being overweight. And over-wide.

With some 10km of uphill riding to reach our destination, the wheat quickly sorted itself from the chaff. Bruce powered off into the distance. I did what any self-respecting chaff would do. Phone A Friend. Or, more accurately, message a friend in the hope that intermittent cell coverage would work in my favour.

Five dusty kilometres later, our rescue vehicle met us. Mike and Sue, old friends from the North Island, were staying with their son and his family in this remote yet stunningly beautiful spot. To help with the logistics of bikes + babies in the car, Bruce once again powered off into the distance (No, he's not on an e-bike. Yes, he likes going uphill. Yes, we're possibly mismatched but it's taken me 40 years to realise this), leaving me and my bike to hitch a ride to the homestead at road's end.

What could possibly go wrong?

The gearbox, that's what. Situation status report follows: Stationary car takes up most of the narrow road.  Gearbox refuses to leave Park. No phone reception. Two hungry babies on board. It's an hour to the nearest mechanic.

Kiwi kindness and ingenuity saved the day. The passing stranger delivering a trailer load of fenceposts managed to turn back (more than a 3-point turn needed!) and deliver a message to someone who got a message to... well, you can imagine how it unfolded. While we mentally totted up the huge cost of having the dead gearbox replaced, the car's owner (and babies' daddy) arrived and tinkered underneath the car.

We were on our way in minutes.

I began this blog with the vague idea of saying something about the impact of the November 2016 earthquake on more than just the high-profile coastal corridor. And that's certainly the case. The slopes surrounding us were scarred by slips; DOC huts had been swept away; high in the hills above us, a tourism venture was in ruins. The condemned hunting lodge, at the end of a now impassable access road, used to greet its guests at the helicopter pad.

But wait, there's more. This wee jaunt took us to a part of New Zealand that seemed a million miles away from the reconstructed state highway. The sheer scale of high country farming is enough to inspire awe in this townie. The Seaward Kaikõura mountains, clothed in mist that day, towered over the farm, their majesty felt if not seen. Faraway ridge lines marked its boundaries.

We are very fortunate to be able to travel the byways as well as the main highways. It was such a treat to experience this spectacular landscape - just on the other side of the ford too far.