24 - 25 January
Insights + Photos by Perry

After the mutiny by the kids, Irene & I pushed on without them. We waved goodbye, then drove from Christchurch over Arthurs Pass to Ross  - right into the storm hammering Westland. After drying off we biked 130km's together via Hokitika along the West Coast Wilderness Trail & up to Greymouth.

There's not too much climbing and the track is very well formed  which makes it easy to concentrate on the scenery & company.

The combination of wild coastal landscapes plus lush bush is beautiful.

The infamous Cowboys Paradise is now out of action. Allegedly due to some difficulties with a large scale dope growing operation. A shame because it sat beautifully at the halfway mark.
We pushed on to the official trail start/finish in Greymouth & then spent the night in Kumara.

The next day we were homeward bound, but a highlight of this leg was our morning tea in Reefton with our remote NZOA staffer Vanya who takes care of infrastructure, communications (like these blogs) & other special projects like the Wishbone Relay.
She's hands-on busy creating a relaxed artistic paradise in the middle of this small quirky town, so if you are ever heading through Reefton I recommend stopping by.

There's only a couple of days at home before heading south again for the Banks Peninsula Walk & soon after that we cross the Cook Strait for all the North Island legs kicking off with 3 different Wellington day events - plus the Wellington Black & White Ball on Saturday the 17th February.
Ball tickets are still available at this link & sign ups for some of the North Island legs are still open HERE.