Easy

Ikamatua to Kumara
84.6km (or thereabouts)
Self-serve Weetbix, toast, tea for breakfast courtesy of the hotel. On the road at 7:45; we're getting better at this. Feels like a big day ahead but from here to Greymouth is all seal. Onto the back road, no traffic, easy riding, just get into a cadence and you feel like you can go all day. You can't of course, we're all delusional! Using power on the steeper bits as we're no longer victims of range anxiety. Many  photos taken of the distant snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps. About 15km in, and the Pike River mine memorial is on the right. We stopped of course, for a while, trying to make sense of some of the information about the disaster. The memorial? skip this bit if you don't like controversy,: the concept and generosity of the donors is stunning. IMO it's just a shame that it's so tacky: tinsel and gaudy plastic 'sunflowers' and beer cans and bottles surrounding the 29 carefully placed rocks. Nuff said.
Up and down a couple of times, then a gradual descent where Marg doesn't hear my call that I'll stop for a photo and she disappears into the distance. Took a bit longer than I expected, and she'd got further than I expected, but on the other side of a one lane bridge at the bottom of an exhilarating 50kph+ descent was an irately concerned wife riding back toward me!
As we climb we discuss the value or otherwise of the sidetrack to Blackball, to see the world-famous-in-New Zealand 'Formerly the Blackball Hilton' pub. We decide the extra 3.4km on our day's tally is too much effort. Then we get to the turn-off at which Marg says 'Let's do it anyway'. She thinks it's a loop road, while my mind is on the possibility of a coffee! We're both disappointed. Pub not open till noon. I re-read the directions and we ride back down the way we came, me praying that we don't see a second road off to Blackball. We don't. BUT Blackball IS added to our list of places to visit 'next time': once thriving mining town, birthplace of NZ's Labour movement, early hippy hangout; so much history and a neat container-box museum to tell it!
Onward through dead Taylorville, onto SH6, and our first 'fingerable' driver: right on the bumper of the car in front, hoots aggressively before sliding past on a solid yellow line with a vehicle coming the other way... Perhaps unsurprisingly, a beat-up, jacked-up 4x4 with fishing gear on the roof (I couldn't see if there was a gun-rack in the back).
Crossing the Grey river, we realise just how the Easterly tailwind has been building, gusts almost pushing us out into the passing traffic.
We join the West Coast Wilderness Trail, and I'm surprised by the route instructions that we follow the trail signs for the next 130km! Except for the detour to the bar lookout for our 'checkpoint' photo, where the swell looks almost benign on the falling tide.
On the cycle trail we stop for lunch in brilliant sunshine, with a view over the beach and crashing surf to Mt. Cook (we think) to the South. The WCWT has markers every kilometer, which is a bit annoying when you don't feel like they are ticking by quickly enough. Eventually we cross the Taramakau river and shortly after turn inland for Kumara, following (roughly) the line of the old wooden tramway between Kumara and Greytown. One bit of excitement: the swingbridge over the jaw-dropping Kumara Chasm is hit by a gust as I cross, causing me wobble and stop. I'd swear the gusts are exciting a resonant oscillation in the bridge; has no-one at DOC seen the Tacoma Narrows newsreel?
Finally roll into town on Greenstone Road, looking for the Greenstone Retreat accommodation. So we roll up to the town store to ask for directions, where our eyes light upon an ad for Deep South icecream. Sorry, do not have, you can buy a ready-made Magnum for an exhorbitent price. Somehow this local town store is the antithesis of yesterday's.
Greenstone Rereat is back on Greenstone Road (well, duh...!), it's continuation not the bit we just rode up. Dinner at the extravagantly named Theatre Royal Hotel was pretty good, though not as good as last night's. Kumara also very historic, with lots of information on display, so added to the list of future places to visit. Greenstone Retreat itself is a very new-agey backpackery place, offering rooms, camping, a villa, yoga, massage, home-grown produce and a very warm welcome from Kate. We have a comfy five bed family room again, complete with one cicada until it was evicted at bedtime.

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