Woke up about 7:30am and packed up the tent and loaded up bike. Fuelled up at Haast Beach Mobil station. The petrol was about 30 cents per litre more expensive than usual.
Rode out to Jackson Bay. The road was sealed all the way. There was not too much going on at Jackson Bay.
A couple of burned down houses, a "Talley's" cray/fish factory, a lot of cray pots stacked up, and the "Cray Pot" restaurant. Clearly the wharf here is the main functioning part of Jackson Bay. It seems like a lot of crayfish are caught around here. There was some sort of marine farm out in the bay as well. Oysters maybe?
Then rode about 5 km back toward Haast and turned right into Jackson River Rd (20km gravel) [ Greenstone, Red Hills]
The Jackson River road was almost a 4WD track in places. It came to an end at a private gate. It is possible to contact the owner and travel on almost to the coast, but the track becomes very difficult and I doubt my bike would get through. The Mobil petrol station man had been along it. He told me that it is very boggy with lots of cording across the bogs. A mission for another day perhaps.
On the way back to the sealed road I was tempted to walk the track to Lake Ellery. Someone had scratched into the DOC sign that it was 40minutes one way. This was just a bit too much time so I continued on.
Then back to Haast.
Got weather report and decided to make a bit of an endurance event of getting home. Heavy rain was forecast over much of the South Island for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I figured I could probably get home in 2 days and beat the rain.
Bought possum/merino socks at Haast Visitor Centre. (great socks!) ($32)
Rode up west coast to Greytown then across to Blenheim and Picton.
I had to stop in Blenhiem to clean the visor on my helmet. The number of insects that I killed travelling into Blenhiem from St Anaud was unbelievable. At times it seemed like about 10 per second.
Caught the 10:35 pm ferry to Wellington.
Crashed out on Pete's couch in Thorndon approx. 2:00am.
Here is a googlemap of the trip. Note it talkes about 20 seconds for the route to show.
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Haast+Beach&daddr=Jackson+bay,+West+Coast+to:Jackson+River+Rd+to:Taylorville+Rd+to:Atarau+Rd+to:Nelson+St+to:SH+1&hl=en&geocode=%3B%3BFazeXv0ddK0LCg%3BFWNUeP0dizY1Cg%3BFXwZev0dihU5Cg%3BFTijhv0dDGheCg%3BFdIKiv0dNhpfCg&mra=ls&via=3&sll=-42.956423,171.419678&sspn=4.719955,6.196289&ie=UTF8&ll=-42.70666,171.276855&spn=4.739044,6.196289&z=7
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