The Best Therapy Has Two Wheels And A Set Of Trails

March 29

Ah sunshine. A perfect day for our bike ride on the West Coast Wilderness Trail.

The trail is 89 miles long, from Ross to Greymouth, and goes through rimu forests, wetlands, over former railway bridges and along the Tasman Sea. We only biked a portion of the trail though, not the whole thing!

We rented bikes with Kiwi Journeys and they were awesome to work with and very organized. They shuttled us to the former gold mining town of Ross, so we only had to bike one way back to Hokitika, a very easy 21 miles on an e-bike!

From Ross we biked to the Hokitika Treetop Walk, a 65 foot high canopy walk over podocarp trees in the rainforest. Podocarp trees are a type of conifer tree that have cones and fruit; they are not a flowering tree. Rimus are one of the most widespread podocarps in NZ and my new favorite tree. Many trees rely on birds like the wood pigeon to eat the seeds and distribute them around the forest.

We started our walk on the skywalk and if you’re afraid of heights, well this would not be your cup of tea.

The Hokitika Tower sits 150 feet above the forest floor and up 107 steps to the top of the tower. Not for the faint of heart, which is usually me, I somehow managed and enjoyed the view of the Southern Alps, Lake Mahinapua, the glaciers and the Tasman Sea.

The entire structure was designed and made in Australia and then transported in pieces to NZ, where construction started in July 2012 and finished only six months later. The canopy has over 13,000 bolts that hold it together. There’s also a suspension bridge, where we walked to the end of the wobbly structure for some views of the lake.

Here’s one of these Rimu trees and you can get an idea of how massive these trees grow to help create a canopy in the NZ forest.

After the walk and lunch, we hopped back on our bikes and continued on towards Hokitika.

My favorite part of the trail was biking through the sun dappled rainforest.

It was well shaded and really peaceful, but there were a few times I almost wiped out, so I really had to concentrate.

After the ride, we treated ourselves to some real NZ boysenberry ice cream, the first cones we’ve had since Nelson. It was a great payoff.

We checked into our Airbnb for the next two nights. The first thing I thought when I walked in was, “What is that smell?”

I couldn’t figure it out. First, I thought it was garbage left behind, but the place was spotless. Mitch thought it was a mold smell due to the lack of ventilation in the bathroom and only one window in the entire house. Granted it’s a small house, but only one window?

We opened the door, turned the fan on and hoped the smell would dissipate. An hour or so later, it was still pretty pungent. We texted the host to inquire about the odor and she sent her mother over who lives in the main house next door. She stepped inside, denied smelling any odor, said the cleaners had just been there, left a bottle of pomegranate and lime Air Wick and walked out. Nice.

We went for dinner at Korath, a great Thai place in town. It was nice to have something different (no fish!). After dinner, we popped down to the beach for a beautiful sunset over the Tasman Sea.

Back at the smelly apartment behind the main house, we got in bed.

I had a hard time falling asleep as did Mitch. We almost went to sleep in the car, but we thought that would be even less comfortable.

Mitch opened the window in the living room and tried to fall asleep with some fresher air blowing in. I finally fell asleep buried under the blankets to hide from the smell.

Thank goodness we have only one more night here. We plan to leave the window open and the fan going all day.