After a solid nights sleep, it was up to enjoy the breakfast provided by the hotel. It was like being on school camp with a table in the corner with cornflakes, rice crispies and for the more boring, museli and a bowl with tinned fruit.

Then another table with bread, a single toaster, and butter and marmite.

Not to go too crazy on our last ‘proper’ day of riding, I went for the museli and fruit, followed by a slice of toast with marmite.

We only had 20km to ride today from Blackball to Greymouth, so with no hurry about us, we slowly packed up our things and cracked on.

First stop was a trip to the Blackball Salami company to pick up some salami to take home with us, and James was left outside the shop hand pumping up the tyres again ready for road conditions.

All pumped up and ready to go, we set off down through the town. It was sad to see what would have been such a thriving town really struggling. Every other house had weatherboard on the outside missing, and on an absolutely baltic morning out, I can’t imagine it would have been much warmer on the inside.

We had passed by Blackball whilst riding the Tour Aotearoa, but we hadn’t called in as it didn’t fit with our plan for the day which we remember contained lots of farm land and small hills. This time we stopped for a picture with the sign, and as we were pulling up, a lady pulled up in her car. A fellow cyclist, she was planning to ride the paparoa that day, but had spent too long faffing around in the morning so now wouldn’t have enough time to do the whole thing, so she wasn’t too sure what she was going to do, but was more than happy for a chat.

I jumped on the front and we set off, and the roads felt familiar once again.

I was just going at my usual pace, and I turned around to talk to James and he wasn’t there. Shit, had I gone off too hard and dropped him, I turn around and back track on myself

Of course. I found him making friends

After about half an hour of cow pats, he was ready to get back on the bike again.

We pass Brunner, the site of New Zealand’s worst mining disaster, the bridge that was used to ferry coal across still remains, along with chimneys and outhouses, so of course we took the opportunity to ride across the bridge.

Google told us we could either cross the river on the bridge and join the state highway to get to Greymouth with fewer hills, or we would stick the side we came through for a more quiet trip.

We went for the quiet option, which when we started again, we remembered ‘the hill’ on that route from the Tour! Without an extra 120km in our legs, the hill unsurprisingly didn’t feel as bad! (Strava also told us we did it 3 minutes quicker than last time too!!)

Before too long, we were in Greymouth and needed to pop to The Warehouse to pick up James a new pair of civvy shoes as his slider was lost to the trail yesterday as we descended through the Paparoa track.

I was left outside as he went in to find a pair of shoes. It’s always interesting standing outside a shop and watching the world go by. Greymouth is an interesting place, with not much happening and an interesting group of people. Let’s just say, we renamed it grey-meth. (For non NZ readers, meth is the drug of choice for a lot of new Zealander’s, and meth is one hell of a drug if you want to do a ‘don’t do drugs kids’ photoshoot)

James returned with some new shoes and a giant bar of Kit Kat.

With hours to kill before our train, we cruised along the waterfront, where the ‘West Coast Wilderness Trail’ begins and whilst passing families out on a stroll, we also got quite the eye full with a man pissing into a flowerbed. Don’t do meth kids.

We decided to find a cafe and have second breakfast. With a chunk of time still to burn, we got changed out of our biking clothes into our ‘normal’ clothes.

Finally it was time to head over to the train station ready to check in for our next adventure. James had done some googling and said we needed seats on the left side of the train. Luckily when we checked in, the staff kindly pointed out our seats were on the left of the train. Phew!

We had gone full boujie on the next part of our trip and paid for the ‘Scenic Plus’ train tickets. When the train rocked up, it was clear where our money had gone. The ‘plus’ carriage came with two door staff (to keep out the riff-raff) a crisp white tablecloth and glasswear on the table. We also had use of our own private outdoor viewing carriage.

The carriage was mostly empty, with only a few other tables filled, sadly with either oldies, or Americans – worse still… Texans.

There was a plug in headset which explained some of the history and geography of the area as we were cruising through the West Coast. It was quite incredible to hear about the iwi who guided the European settlers around. One particularly harrowing story involved them getting stuck in a valley eating only fern root and to avoid starvation ended up eating one of their dogs!

The scenery was incredible and we were blessed with a clear blue sky day.

Passing through places we had never heard about like Lake Brunner (which looked incredible)

Then being fed gorgeous locally sourced food, it was quite nice to be looked after.

The train then climbed higher up, then to ōtira, an old town set up to house workers of the ōtira tunnel, a 8.5km tunnel through from the west coast to cantabury. All the houses are identical, and were pre-fabricated in Hamilton and brought down to the South Island. Back in the day, over 450 people lived in the town, however these days only 30 people live here. Unsurprising as it sounds like a harsh place to live with a maximum of 2 hours sunlight a day in winter when then sun doesn’t make it over each mountain range.

The train stopped at Arthur’s Pass, where we could get off the train and stretch our legs. We jumped off, had a quick picture, realised how cold it was, and jumped back on the train before you could say boo.

Before too long, we had passed through the Southern Alps and were into the flat of the Canterbury Plains. Sure the cows were cute, but not so cute as you couldn’t cuddle them!

Dinner was then served, James went for the chicken, and I went for the lamb. Followed by cheesecake and a cheeseboard.

The train continued on, and before too long we were at the station in Christchurch.

It was a quick 2km pedal along the glorious painted green strip of road dedicated to Uber drivers to park and cyclists to ride on and we were at our accommodation for the evening. An apartment on the edge of Hayley Park in the centre of Christchurch.

We navigated the series of digital keypads and carrying our bikes up a set of stairs to find our apartment. It was very strange, the lights were all left on, the heat pump blowing out hot air and yet the windows were wide open, almost as if someone had heard us coming and legged it!

Making use of the washing machine, we did a quick wash of everything so we could attempt to look like normal citizens tomorrow on the plane. Unfortunately it was a combo washer drier, so although the clothes were washed well, the machine struggled with the drying part. With an airer placed on top of the dining table, under the heat pump it was time for bed.

Day 10 complete.

It’s good to be adventuring again!