Saturday November 3, 2012, 90 miles (145 km) – Total so far: 699 miles (1,125 km)

Friday night a full gale blew through and by Saturday morning the wind switched from the northeast to the southwest. The rain finally let up around 10am but the wind was still blowing hard for our two mile ride into downtown Hokitika. Since the bus wasn’t scheduled to leave until 3pm we spent several hours at the local library reading and snoozing.

I have read and heard stories about how InterCity Bus lines doesn’t like to take bikes and we were no exception. Our reservations were made for 2 people and 2 bikes. The bus driver ignored us until I said we had reservations. He then went into a rant and rave about how he had no notification on the manifest for bikes. And that was true because he showed us the manifest. So the bikes somehow were dropped. He went on and on about how there was no room until I looked inside and there might have been 15 people on the 54 passenger bus. Then he said we had to completely take the bikes apart so I just took the front wheels off and lowered the saddles and they fit right in. I guess he has had bad experiences with cyclists. I then paid him $20 for the bikes as the bus company said to pay the driver for the bikes. I guess it is a “tip” for him. Except for a few locals at a pub the previous afternoon calling us names until another local stepped in and told them to shut the #@$% up this has been our only bad experience. Enough said on that subject. We were really glad to take the bus as the weather had deteriorated and the road past Franz Josef was very winding with steep hills and no shoulders.

We are in Fox Glacier at the Ivory Towers Backpackers and scheduled for an all day ice climbing instructional trip tomorrow. We tried to get in today but there are only 4 students and one instructor in the class. Tuesday we will start riding the 112 km to Haast Pass then on to Queenstown.