Picton to Nelson (Saxton Island)

It was a beautiful morning and having rested the past week we were finally fully recovered. The day started with a bit of confusing as we couldn't find exactly which road lead along the coast to Nelson. However we eventually found it and started the first climb of the day, our legs felt so strong and kept us moving at the fastest hill speed we've ever had it was great resting them up!

Picton and the sounds was stunning, it really is a wonderful strip of mother natures finest creations and hosts crystal clear waters, branching mountains that rise out from the depths of the sea and a rang of colours that really capture your attention. To put it bluntly it made the whole of the north Island seem pretty bland and raped by dairy and farming industries. In fact its going to stuck having to ride the north Island back to Auckland after having experienced the South! Even places like East cape and the Corromandel in retrospect come across as being really plain and completely lacking any native vegetation! I personally think if your from the north and haven't been south yet, you should just come visit the south to appreciate how much the North Islands environment is screwed! Note our photos don't really do it justice.

Once at the end of the sounds we continued past Havelock and continued inland. Our next stop took place just before the Pelorus bridge at a little turn off into a park area. Pelorus was a beautiful example of a scenic reserve and was host to huge mature native trees. Seeing as it was a hot day we decided to take a swim in the ice cold clear waters..

After our swim we continued onwards and within an hour we reached the first real uphill of the day, this continued for 20 km with a total vertical climb of 600 metres. It's actually kind of funny because we didn't even notice for alot of the climb that we were heading uphill! So we keep trying to keep out flat land speed on the slope!! It didn't take long until we became super exhausted and out of energy, literally we had no food left in our muscles and they refused to move. Good thing we packed pure sugar to get ATP back into our muscles as quickly as possible and a few table spoons instantly did the trick :)

The downhill to this mountain was probably the best tarmac road I've even ridden down! not only was it super steep but the view was incredible, huge hills were on either side of us and native trees clang thickly to there rugged grounds, best of all a huge gorge lay to our left, I imagined it being cut during the ice age from a massive glacier as it made its way down towards the ocean. Its great boosting down big hills that have steep drops to the side because if you cut the road from your vision it feels as if your flying!

Anyhow that hill re-boosted our spirits and the remainder of the journey was done with ease. I should note that Nelson is a very bicycle friendly city and has set up its bike lanes in a very good fashion (Good work Nelson)

Now all we knew was that we where suppose to be staying with our mate Geoff on a random Island off the coast of Nelson. I being me and knowing him I decide to contact him the day prior and we both thought it'd take two days to get to Nelson because of all the hills. However we made it in one and were struggling to contact him!

It was reaching 8 pm and being the south Island it was starting to get cold as we weren't yet use to the colder temperatures. We had been sitting outside the local New world super market for roughly 3 hours at this point and people were starting to give us some pretty funny looks..... Hahah actually they were probably doing that because we thought it would be funny to tuck our shirts into our wharehouse track pants while walking around with our helmets on and giving people weird looks. The things we do when we get bored :p  Anyhow Geoff wasn't getting back to me so I when't on couchsurfer and posted up a request, some of you might have also seen my facebook post on being homeless aswell. It worked great within 10 minutes we had two people offering us a couch. However at the same time Geoff finally looked at his phone and managed to borrow a mates car to pick us up.

So anyway we rock up to this little village just on the edge of Nelson, it was sought of like a waterfront community. Anyhow Geoff's boat ends up being this epic little two seat row boat which somehow all three of us fit onto. Unfortunately our  bikes wouldn't fit so we ended up walking up a random driveway and living them in someone's garage, I figured Geoff knew them but when I asked who's house it was he said "ahhh just these guys place, I had a chat with them once" Hahah gotta love how trusting we were!!

Of course it was dark by the time we jumped into the small row boat and the water raised right up to its edge of it, any bit of weight in the wrong place and we would have tipped so we focused on keeping good balance (Sounds intense but it really wasn't) Hahah it felt good to be back on the water!!

It was close to the strike of 9 o'Clock when we had finally made it to the island.