Day 18 - Kawatiri River Trail - 36 km, 117 m

 






A decision was made to explore some more of the West Coast rather than ride the road through to Greymouth. Originally I had planned our journey through to Greymouth as that has the option of relcoating to CHC aboard the Tranz Alpine however as John join us as a rider in Picton and Ian has once again volunteered to come along as our driver our options opened up for us.

The need for coffee is very strong within the group (I am not one of those addicted I must add) and from the day before much of the conversation appears to centre around where's the first coffee stop going to be,  does it do good coffee, how long is it before we get the coffee etc. then on the day any likely place that does coffee is quickly pointed out to Ian and once again the whole conversation around coffee repeats itself! Like I say for a man who does not need a cup of tea I find it very strange that these otherwise in control blokes allow an addiction to become a large part of their lives.

Fortunately none of them will read this blog (I hope).

As there was a little rain on our way in to Westport the Coffee stop was extended to a two cuppa for some and I took the opportunity to drop in the Mayor and have a chat about the work they have asked me to do for the Council. While it was only a quick chat on my part the boys were still at the Cafe drinking coffee when I returned.

With the rain came cooler temperatures and it took quite a bit for Peter and myself to find our bags (both at the bottoom of the the luggage in the back of the car) to then ger a warm top to put on. Our Aussie mates were feeling the cool summers day and so we went to the Motel to see if a unit was available where we could off load our gear, get changed in to riding gear and warm up. Fortunately it was.

Once we had warmed up and got ourselves organised we got Ian to drop us off 21 km"s out of town at the current end of the Kawatiri River Trail - this way we could ride back in to town and a warm shower at the end of the ride. While we all started out with several layers on it quickly stopped raining and began to warm up so jackets were taken off before Tauranga Bay and more layers not long after that. The trail is relatively new and still be extended and is an excellent flat easy ride with lovely coastal views along the way. We stopped and walked out to the seal colony and saw quite a few pups and adult seals laying on the rocks below the viewing paltform.

An ice cream stop was called for at Carter's Beach and after that is was an easy run on to Westport and a ride out to the mouth of the Buller (a first for me). As with the Grey River mouth there were many plaques there remebering the folk who have lost their lives at sea or attempting to cross the bar and navigate up the Buller River.

It was now after 2:30 PM so a call was made to find a bakery as a pie was being called  for, they are not big on baerkies in Westport we found however did come across a Cafe that still had some pies in its cabinet.

All in all another good day especially as the weather God/s was looking after us and turned on another okay day for biking.









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