Category: Bike Tour NZ

BIKE TOUR NZ: Otago Central Rail Trail

3/23/2015

We set out from Oamaru around noon in a heavy rain, headed inland to meet up with Otago Central Rail Trail and get back on course for the West Coast. We tackled a few big hills on the way out of town, but after about an hour the rain and the terrain both eased up significantly. About two hours into the ride we stopped to check out the famous Moeraki boulders, giant rock spheres sitting on the beach like giant's marbles. They formed around 55 million years ago when lime was slowly deposited around a pebble or bit of shell buried on the sea floor to form round boulders. The sea floor was eventually uplifted and the sea eroded nearby cliffs of mudstone to free the boulders onto the beach. We had to walk about a quarter mile down the beach to see them and got thoroughly wet with the incoming tide when we went to explore, so we spent a bit of time drying out and eating lunch before we got back on the road. 80k out of Oamaru we pulled into a free campsite in the town of Dunback and did our best to dry everything out.

Dead pigs tell no tales

It was overcast the next morning when we started out, but we appreciated the cooler weather as we turned towards Hyde and began climbing the first of many enormous hills on the Macraes road. The road was gravel and traction was a bit tricky and we spent several hours climbing towards the clouds in a light fog with huge rocks looming out of the fields beside us. We descended into the small mining town of Macraes around 2:45 after passing a full kilometer of fence covered in wild boar and deer hides. We had lunch in a little historical park and left in a light drizzle which soon turned into a full-fledged downpour. More big hills, both up and down, and we finally arrived in Hyde where we picked up the Central Otago Rail Trail for a wet and muddy hour and a half to Waipiata. Along the trail Steve's bike threw us another curveball when his rear derailleur (which hadn't worked properly from the very start) suddenly got caught up in his spokes dragging it up and around and locking his back wheel. He was able to bend it back and place the chain in his lowest gear but shifting was completely out of the question. We limped into Waipiata at 7:15 and beelined for the only pub in town where we spent almost 2 hours around their woodstove attempting to warm up and dry off. They gave us free soup, toast and coffee and when the rain slowed down they directed us to the free camping area in town where we set up our tent. All our bags were thoroughly soaked, but the tent was just damp and the sleeping bag mercifully dry.

Our only "highpoint" on the trail

Fortunately for us the next day dawned sunny and warm, so we decided to stay a day at the campsite and dry out all of our things while we tried to figure out what to do with Steve's bike. We called the bike shop in Auckland that had sold us the bikes and told them about all the trouble we'd had from the beginning. They agreed to send us a replacement bike that had just been returned to them in Christchurch, but the closest place with a bus station was another 130k away in Cromwell. Since Steve's bike was technically ridable, if not shiftable, we set out on the trail the next day. We left our campsite at 11 and stopped in Ranfurly for lunch. The trail climbed gradually but steadily upward to the highpoint at 618 meters then went gradually but steadily downhill from there, passing through a bunch of really small towns. There was one interesting section through a gorge with a couple of bridges and tunnels, but other than that it was straight and flat through farmland and we found ourselves getting bored.

Pre-patch job

We made it within 10k of Alexandra, the second to last town on the rail trail, but at around 8:15 we had another stroke of bad luck when my back tire blew out. We went to patch it and found that the sidewall of the tire had completely separated from the tread and pinched the tube, causing the flat. It was frustrating but not surprising, considering the tires had been cracked and dry-rotted when the shop sold me the bike, but they assured me they would be fine for a few more months. We put in a new tube and cautiously inflated it enough to be able to push the bike then found a campsite for the night. The next morning I cut a bit of plastic from one of our Tupperware lids and with some duct tape managed to patch the sidewall enough to keep the new tube inside so we could ride to Alexandra. We decided to try and hitchhike the 55k from there to Cromwell since neither of our bikes were fit to ride, but after 2 hours in the hot sun on the side of the road we hadn't had any luck, so I decided to just ride until my tire gave out entirely. Surprisingly after 3 hours of slow cautious riding we pulled into Cromwell with the make-shift patch still intact. We paid to stay at a holiday park so we could take some well-earned hot showers and then moved to a free campground a few K outside of town to await Steve's new bike.

More pictures here!

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BIKE TOUR NZ: Alps 2 Ocean Trail

3/14/2015

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Our plan leaving Christchurch was to head to the West Coast as quickly as possible, but a funny turn of events led us back to the East Coast just a week later, to a cool little town called Oamaru. The road out of Christchurch was fairly easy to find and there was a nice wide cycleway that let us avoid the motorway. We headed down a road that paralleled SH 1, but after a while it turned to gravel so we jumped back on the main road. In Rakaia we had planned to follow Pauline's advice and jump on the Thompson Track inland scenic route to stay off the highway and bypass Ashburton, but the road was closed with no feasible detour.

Lucky for us we found ourselves in Ashburton 6 hours and 105 kilometers after leaving Christchurch, and we stopped at the supermarket to get dinner supplies at just the right time. As we were packing our purchases outside the store I noticed a guy with the Alps2Ocean Tshirt on, and on a whim I decided to ask him about it. I had heard a bit about the trail from various information centers along our route, but we had ultimately dismissed it because it would have taken us in the wrong direction. Jason isn't in charge of marketing for the trail for no reason though, and he soon had us convinced to give it a go, especially after he offered us a ride to the Alternate Start in Tekapo. So in an hour and a half of driving he saved us 2-3 days of biking and by the time he dropped us off we were really excited about our new plans.

Stuck!

DAY 1: TEKAPO to TWIZEL (82k)

We left around 8 in the morning and rode into town for dinner supplies. We had the vague idea that we might ride up to the proper start near Mt. Cook, but the clouds were so low we would have missed out on all the scenery anyway so we decided to stick with the alternate start from Tekapo. It was a fairly easy ride along the canal road, flat with just a windy section and some deep gravel to slow us down. We did have some trouble fitting through the squeeze gates with all of our baggage, but it was more comical than frustrating and with a few good shoves we managed to get through. At the Tekapo Power Station we met up with the road for a brief downhill, then the trail turned onto a gravel track along the bottom of Lake Pukaki. We stopped for lunch at a picnic table with a beautiful view of the lake and mountains, and met up with a group of 7 friends riding on holiday together. We ran into them several more times on the trail, so they invited us to their hotel room for a few beers when we arrived in Twizel. We had some great conversation and stayed long enough to wait out a passing rainstorm, then biked a further 17k to Jason's house to stay the night. He has 10 acres of NZ paradise right at the base of a mountain, and he offered us a real bed in his music studio he built inside a shipping container. We spent the night hanging out, listening to music and I even managed to stay awake through a whole movie..

Earning the view

DAY 2: TWIZEL to OAMARAMA (65k)

We got a later start from Jason's in the morning so we didn't leave until around 11:30, and just as we rejoined the trail we ran into our friends from the day before! The track around Lake Oahu was our favorite part of the trail that day...a nice smooth surface that left us free to focus on the fantastic views. We stopped at the Ohau lodge for lunch and a beer and saw our friends again as we were leaving. The second half of our day wasn't quite as smooth as the first. The trail left the lodge and wound through the Ruataniwha Conservation Park, a nice smooth section of trail through the trees and over several streams. Once we crossed the creek though the trail got pretty rough, narrow with huge stones imbetted in the path and large rocks that made it tough to steer our heavily laden bikes and maintain traction up the hill. Luckily the climb itself wasn't as steep as it seemed on the map and we made it over the highpoint without having to walk. The downhill wasn't much relief though since the rough track made it slow going and bumpy, although the fantastic views of Lake Ohau and the surrounding mountains were totally worth it.

Just as we reached the bottom of the steep descent Steve's rack (already broken because it hadn't been mounted properly at the bike shop) got jammed into his spokes, mangling the rack and tearing his bag. Luckily the wheel wasn't damaged and neither was he, so after some re-arranging we were able to keep riding. Some more bumpy dirt track and two pedal-deep stream crossings and we came out on Quailburn Rd. It was an unsealed road that took a fair amount of concentration because there was no consistent path through the deep gravel and the most rideable spots eventually ended in a pit of rocks 4 inches deep. I hit one of these patches on a downhill and my handlebars jackknifed, sending me over the front. Luckily I escaped with just a bit of road rash and some big bruises and we limped into Oamarama at 7:30 to stay at a free campsite near the Ahuriri River.

Rain moving in

DAY 3: OAMARAMA to OTEMATATA (32.4k)

We had planned on doing 2 sections on day 3, but the previous day was so mentally exhausting that we decided to take a bit of a rest day. We slept in until 11, packed up slowly then biked into town to the Hot Tub place where we soaked in a private wood-fired hot tub with a beautiful view of a pond and the mountains. We stayed for 2 hours and just relaxed, the warm water felt great on our stiff muscles. Leaving town we ran into our friends one last time and stopped to chat about the previous section and say goodbye. They were ending their holiday the next day and flying back to Auckland so we wouldn't be seeing them on the trail anymore. We finally got on the road at 5:30 and it took just over an hour to ride to Otematata. It was another nice smooth section of trail along the lakeside and we finished with an easy climb on the road. Along the road section we saw a dead animal that could only be a wallaby, and we were surprised to learn that the Canterbury region is the only place you can find them in New Zealand. We stayed the night at an $8 campground next to Lake Aviemore, and just after we got settled in it started to rain.

DAY 4: OTEMATATA to DUNTROON (76.5k)

We both had a tough time getting started in the morning. We had to pack up a very wet tent in a misting rain, and just couldn't wake up for the first 20k. First order of business was the steep climb up to the Benmore Hydro Dam. One of the largest earthen dams in the Southern Hemisphere. The trail crossed over the dam and there was a really beautiful view from the top. From there it was 30k around the other side of the lake to the Aviemore Dam, and along the way we must have seen over 20 dead wallaby. We were hoping to see one not covered in maggots, but apparently they're shy because the live ones eluded us. After Aviemore it was only 8 more kilometers to the Waitaki Dam and a few more minutes to Kurow, where we hit the 2000k mark on our cycle tour. We stopped in town for lunch and then pressed on another 23k to Duntroon. It was a straightforward and fairly easy ride, and we didn't want to pay for a tent site in town so we decided to keep going and get a jump on the next day's distance. 7k out of town we stopped to check out the amazing limestone formations at Elephant Rocks, and met the farmer who owns all the land bordering the trail in that area. He gave us permission to camp in one of his paddocks, so that night we had the coolest campsite in New Zealand. We tucked the tent away in a small limestone canyon just off the trail, surrounded by more fantastic rock formations, huge boulders, caves and arches. The sky was overcast, but the rain held off and we were able to dry out the tent by morning.

Tricky trail

DAY 5: DUNTROON to OAMARU (52k)

We were a bit reluctant to leave our amazing campsite in the morning, but we managed to pack up and get back on the trail by 10:30. We thought the last 55k would be fairly straightforward and easy... but it turned out to be our second toughest day. The trail wound through farmland over hill after hill and the damp clay/rock surface acted like glue, forcing us into our climbing gears even on flat ground. Still the scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed the ride, although having electric fences so close on either side of the trail was a bit nerve-wracking. It felt like a real-life game of Operation, and I was never very good at not touching the sides. The trail went along several gravel roads which were slightly easier going, and just after lunch we passed through the Rakis Railway Tunnel. The afternoon ride was all sealed pavement, although the hills continued to roll beneath us. We made it to Oamaru around 3pm more tired than we had expected to be, but excited to see the ocean. Oamaru is a cute little town with a lot of beautiful old Victorian buildings and its the home of the Steampunk HQ which is an art museum worth every penny of the $10 entry. We camped by the ocean near a colony of Penguins while we tried to find a fix for Steve's broken front racks and planned our next move.

Check out all the pictures here.

Elephant Rocks

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BIKE TOUR NZ: Christchurch

3/13/2015

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The most common lie we've heard in New Zealand is "Yeah, its mostly flat from here to there," So when people told us it would be flat from Kakoura to Christchurch we took it with a grain of salt, and sure enough we found out fairly quickly that it wasn't even remotely flat. After the first few kilometers along the coast the road turned inland and began climbing some of New Zealand's most consistent features... big rolling hills. We spent that night in a turnout at the bottom of one big hill in Oaro with another big hill in store for us first thing the next morning. Luckily the hills only lasted a few more hours the next day, and then the road flattened out considerably after Cheviot where we stopped for lunch. We covered 103, that day, but ran into a decent rainstorm around 6 that had us both thoroughly soaked before we ran across a little campground for $10 a person and decided to call it a night. We've been trying to avoid paying for camping when we can, but it was totally worth the hot shower, and the skies cleared up enough to allow our tent to dry overnight.

The next morning we got on the road around 930, after talking to a nice couple from Denmark who asked us a few questions about our trip for their local newspaper. Around 11 we stopped at the Brew Moon Brewery and Café for some drinks and nachos, and the rest of the ride was fairly uneventful until we hit the motorway outside Christchurch. A divided highway with 2 lanes and heavy traffic, it wasn't really a road meant for cycling. Luckily we exited fairly soon onto a smaller road into Christchurch, and by 6pm we had arrived safely at Clayton and Pauline's house. Steve met them when the were guests on his zip line tour in Skagway, and they've been our lifelines in New Zealand... giving us advice, helping us sort out what to do with our luggage, and opening their beautiful home to us.

Entrance to Cave Stream

We stayed in Christchurch for several days while we waited for our final piece of luggage to arrive from Auckland. Clayton and Pauline showed us around town on Saturday, introduced us to the best Souvlaki in New Zealand and gave us free reign of their kitchen so we could satisfy our craving for homemade enchiladas. Sunday they took us to Cave Stream Reserves to explore the 594 meter long underground stream. We waded through waist-deep water for over an hour exploring all the side passages and tunnels in the cave and marveling at the amazing features the water had carved into the limestone. For dinner they took us to a great little brew-pub where we had the best food we've eaten in New Zealand yet.

On Monday we borrowed their son Patrick's car and drove out to Akaroa, a tiny town about 20k from Christchurch located inside the massive crater of a long-extinct volcano. Part of the crater wall collapsed long ago and filled with water creating a massive harbor leading to the Pacific Ocean. Our friends Lybbie and Hannah, from Skagway, are both living there and working for Black Cat Cruises, so they hooked us up with a free wildlife cruise around the harbor. We saw a bunch of Hector's dolphins, the smallest dolphins in the world at just 4'7 and 100lbs, and we also got to see the worlds smallest penguins and the worlds cutest baby seals. We had dinner at their house overlooking the harbor before heading back to Christchurch.

The next day with our luggage safely stowed and our cycling bags repacked and considerably lighter we headed out of Christchurch for the last leg of our cycle tour, planning to head over to the West Coast and up to Nelson, at least another 1,200k.

For more pictures from Cave Stream and Akaroa check the photo post.

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BIKE TOUR NZ: Kaikoura

2/24/2015

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The view from Mt. Fyffe

Sunset from our beach

The morning after our bus arrived in Wellington we took the 3 hour ferry ride across the Cook Straight to the South Island to start the second half of our adventure. We arrived in Picton just after 1pm, and after a quick look around town we got on the road and headed down the coast. We spent our first night on the South Island camped in a bush on the side of the road just outside of Blenheim, but our second campsite was picture perfect right on the beach. We set up camp around 6, early enough to have a few hours of daylight left, and ate dinner on the black sand beach at sunset. The beach was covered in driftwood so we tried our hand at building a beach hut, which ended with me tripping on a stick and breaking my little toe, so Steve had to give me a piggy back ride back to the tent.

Despite the broken toe we made good progress the next day, and rode the last 65 of the 105 kilometers to Kaikoura in a little over 3 hours. The first half of the ride was right along the ocean and we made a few stops to watch the New Zealand fur seals and hike to a waterfall, then the road turned inland for a while with a backdrop of big beautiful mountains. Kaikoura is a cute little town on a peninsula overlooked by those same mountains and visited by seals, dolphins and whales. We worked out a deal with the holiday park, so we stayed for 4 days and cleaned rooms for a few hours a day in exchange for a free campsite and $15 an hour. We took a walk our first night and ran into Nate and Sara, friends from work in Skagway who are living and working in town for the season.

The weather over the weekend was a bit rainy so we spent most of our time just relaxing in the tent and eating the best fish and chips ever. On Monday the weather started clearing up, so in the afternoon we booked a tour with Seal Swim Kaikoura. They took us out to the seal colonies on a small boat and we snorkeled with the fur seals. A couple of them came quite close, and it was great to see them underwater, they're so much more graceful and agile than on land. We also wanted to swim with the dolphins, but it was so busy in town that they were booked solid, so we figured it would be better to try to do it when we come back on our way to Christchurch in a few months.

The range behind Mt. Fyffe

Tuesday morning dawned without a cloud in the sky, so we packed up and said goodbye to the holiday park and set our sites on Mt. Fyffe, the 1600 meter peak that overlooks the peninsula. We got the idea from Sara and Nate, who had done the hike a few days before we arrived, and they let us borrow a backpack so we could stay the night at the hut a few hundred meters below the summit. The hike was a very steep but well-groomed 4x4 track, and it only took us 3 hours to reach the hut where we enjoyed stir-fry chicken with vegetables for dinner and some good conversation with two girls from Germany, a woman from Christchurch and her son from Slovakia. We turned in early for the night and woke up at 4am to hike to the summit for the sunrise.

Sunrise from the summit

It was pitch black, and somehow both of our headlamps managed to die overnight, so we had to hike in the dark. The stars were just bright enough, and the trail was pretty wide and smooth so we didn't have too much trouble sticking to the trail. We made it to the summit at 530, just in time as the horizon was starting to turn pink by then. I've seen plenty of sunrises, but rarely have I been still to watch the whole thing. It was a grand show, the sky lightening slowly from East to West, the transition from pink to red to orange to light blue, and finally the sun racing over the horizon in less than a minute. The mountains behind us were beautiful as well as they were slowly illuminated by the dawn. The hike down the mountain was quite steep and even more tiring than the hike up, but we made it down by 11:30 and Nate picked us up so we would have time to make some progress on the bikes before the end of the day.

We got on the road around 2pm, and rode just a few hours to get a jump on the distance to Christchurch. We had been told the road was fairly flat from Kaikoura to Christchurch, a lie we've heard all too often and once again proved to be untrue. The first hour of riding was right along the ocean, flat and stunningly scenic, but the road soon turned inland and began climbing the big hills we had seen in the distance from the summit of Mt. Fyffe. After about 35k we reached a turnout at the bottom of one hill, and decided to save the next big climb for the morning and set up the tent for the night.

For more pictures check out the Photo post.

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Bike Tour NZ: Rere

2/8/2015

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Biscuit race!

Today we're traveling in style... I'm writing this post from an Intercity bus on the way to Wellington from Gisborne. This $60 bus ticket is going to save us 9 days of biking, and is helping us avoid a dangerously narrow road with heavy traffic... plus it has free WiFi! We've spent the last few weeks at a farmstay in Rere chasing sheep, and the last few days in Gisborne chasing waves, and now we're ready to head to the South Island and get our butts back on those bikes! We were told to spend 1/3 of our time on the North Island and 2/3 on the South, because somehow New Zealand gets even better than what we've already seen, so we'll be taking the ferry over as soon as possible so that we can have a few months to bike around before we have to interview for ski resort jobs in May.

Skurfing

In Rere we stayed with the Hickling family on their sheep and cattle station and had just as much fun working during the week as we did playing on the weekends. Our first weekend there they took us along to Wairoa to a waterski race where we spent more time on a boat in two days than I think I have my entire life. They were volunteering as one of the safety boats, so we got to watch the racing from front-row seats on the river, and we even got to participate in the womens race... Kerry drove, Jazz skied, I observed and Steve dressed up as our mascot! We also got to go out at the end of the day and try our hand at skurfing, getting towed behind the boat on a surfboard which we enjoyed even more than the wakeboarding we did in Taupo. On the second day of the event there was a biscuit race, and I made my racing debut hanging on to an innertube for dear life while we zoomed down the river into second place.

Thousands of sheep waiting for their haircuts

The next week on the farm they were shearing a couple thousand lambs, so we spent three days chasing the sheep from one pen to the other to help Grant and Jazz sort them, give them medicine and cut all the poop off their bums before they went for their haircuts. Sometimes the sheep cooperated, and sometimes they would do the exact opposite of what you wanted them to, but after some trial and error we both figured out the most efficient means of startling them into action. After a few long days of sheep startling we had a day off and ventured out on our bikes to the Rere rockslide, a long steep section of rock that acts as a natural waterslide. We borrowed a boogie board and spent the better part of the day sliding down on our bellies and skimming across the pool at the bottom. The weather wasn't particularly warm so we had the whole thing to ourselves! Our last few days on the farm we got to make use of our Alaska skills and split some wood, and we helped take down an old fence and put up a new one at the back of their property line.

Rere Rock Slide

We had such a good time with the Hicklings that both of us were a bit reluctant to leave, but we're also anxious to continue our adventure on the South Island, so Kerry gave us a ride into Gisborne where we spent the last few days exploring the town. Both of us have been wanting to learn to surf, so we celebrated our anniversary yesterday by taking a lesson from Surf with Frank. Our instructor Matt was from the Czech Republic, and is doing the working holiday scheme here just like we are so it was cool to compare experiences as foreigners in New Zealand. We had a lot of fun with Matt, and after a few tips on the beach he had us standing up on the boards in no time. We were just catching broken waves to get the feel for popping up on the board in the right stance, but now we've got something to practice along the coast on the South Island. We'll probably take another lesson after a few more practice sessions so we can learn to catch unbroken waves.

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Bike Tour NZ: The Motu Trail

2/2/2015

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The view from the Old Motu Rd

Soaking in the hot water stream

After skydiving and volcano hiking we spent another week in Taupo at a free camping spot called Reids Farm, right next to the Waikato river 3km outside of town. We explored town, went out to eat, and reconnected to the outside world at the library. We visited the Anarchy Boarding Park and took wakeboarding lessons, and the next day had a relaxing afternoon floating down the Waikato river on $6 pool toys with a stop off at a natural hot spring emptying into the river. On our last day in Taupo we rented a car and drove 2 hours West to Waitomo to the famous Black Water Rafting Company, and took a three hour excursion through a glow worm cave. They dressed us up in wetsuits, gave us some inner tubes and tools us down into Ruakuri cave where we climbed over rocks, jumped off of underground waterfalls and floated beneath a glowworm studded ceiling that looked like the night sky. So far Taupo is our favorite city on the North Island, and we were a bit reluctant to leave, but we had reached the 7 day camping limit at Reids Farm so it was time to move on.

We had spent a good deal of time at the library researching our route, and after hearing horror stories about big mountains, narrow roads and heavy traffic we decided to take a North Eastern route to Gisborne rather than go South through Napier. Despite having done very little distance on the bikes in the last several weeks we had a much easier time in the saddle than we expected. The weather was hot and the road was hilly, yet we managed our biggest day so far, riding 9 hours and racking up 135.6 kilometers, beating our previous distance record by almost 50k. We started by retracing our route back up the 5 past Reporoa before turning East onto the 38. There was a long steep climb out of Taupo and then rolling terrain after that. At Rotomahana we turned onto a back road that cut through to the 30, but turned onto a private logging road after a lady pulled over to suggest it. It was paved the entire way rather than gravel like the way we would have gone, and she said if security caught us to just say that we were lost. We almost made it, but a security truck pulled us over just 5k from the end of the road. He we friendly enough a let us continue on, and we popped out on the 34 just a few k before the junction with 30. We stopped at a dairy in Te Teko and each downed a whole liter of chocolate milk before continuing on until just after dark, when we came across a holiday park at a natural hot spring and decided to spend the night.

1000 kilometers and counting!

Our big ride the day before put just shy of the 1000 kilometer mark on Steve's odometer, so the next morning we reached that milestone a little over 30 minutes into our ride, shortly before we arrived in Whakatane at noon. We made it just in time for the end of their Sunday farmers market and picked up some veggies for dinner along with a bag of fresh cherries and two delicious tangelos. Leaving town there was a HUGE hill on the way to Ohope, and several more big climbs after that, and although we only covered 71k that day we both agreed it was more exhausting than the 135 the day before. We rolled through Opotiki in the evening just in time to buy some spam for dinner from a convenience store and found a spot to hide our tent in the bushes of a pull-out next to a beautiful beach before jumping in the ocean to cool down.

Jennies bike in front of the fountain of life.

From Opotiki we turned off the main highway and headed down the Moto Road Trail, a 67k cycleway that follows the historic coach road from Matawai to the coast, which was the first road between Gisbourne and the Bay of Plenty. It opened in 1915, and was originally only passable in the summer with the aid of planks and ropes to get the cars through. It was a beautifully scenic ride through gorges and over farmland, but the incredibly steep hills and rough gravel made it pretty slow going under the intense New Zealand sun. The description of the trail said it would only take 5 hours, but when we looked again we realized that we were going the opposite direction of the way most people ride and so would be going uphill pretty much the entire way, effectively doubling the time it would take. On the second big mountain we began running short of water and I was just starting to get worried when we came upon a little stream trickling down the side of the mountain, with a handwritten sign that said we could drink the water. We were so excited that we both drank ourselves sick and refilled every water bottle we had before we moved on. We spent the night close to the summit of the third big climb, clocking in at only 51k in almost 7 hours of riding.

Motu Falls

Our long uphill battle the day before paid off in the morning when we were able to start our day with a gentle ride along the ridgeline, with only a few more moderate climbs between us and a 3k stretch of downhill into the tiny farming community of Motu. As we came into town a man traveling down the road on a lawnmower pointed us in the direction of a community rowboat on a tiny pond, so we rowed out onto the water to eat our lunch before taking a 10k detour to visit Motu falls. From there it was an easy 14k on a flat, paved road to Matawai where we stopped to have a beer at their historic pub that is famous for its 2-headed sheep. We left town on the main road but soon turned onto another gravel road to head towards Rere Falls, and we set up our tent in a small turnout on the side of the road just as a big rainstorm rolled in.

The next morning we step off on our shortest ride of this leg of the trip, just 38k to the farm we were planning on staying at, but it seemed to take forever. A few more long uphill stretches in the morning and a long stretch of downhill just before we arrived, and a few surprises along the way. We had rain off and on as we got underway, and two rogue sheep led us down the road for several kilometers before a pair of bulls startled as we road by and jumped the fence into the road in front of us. We arrived at the farm just in time for lunch and then got to work helping around the farm. The current plan is to stay here in Rere for a little while and then head to Gisborne.

For more pictures from the Motu Trail check out the photo post.

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Bike Tour NZ: Taupo

1/11/2015

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Steve

We didn't wake up last Wednesday morning planning on jumping out of an airplane, but when we got to town at noon we learned Taupo Tandem Skydiving had an opening, so 5 hours later we were enjoying a birds eye view of town. They picked us up from our campground and drove us to the airport, and everything happened so fast neither of us had time to be nervous. It was just us and one other guy jumping from 15,000ft so it didn't take long to get geared up and onto the plane. It was about a 15 minute flight up, and on the way our instructors pointed out some of the mountains in the area, and the wreckage of another skydiving plane that had crashed into the lake a few hours before. Lucky for us the it was the other company, and the odds of that happening twice in one day are pretty slim so we weren't worried about it. Besides, if a plane is going to go down it might as well be one where everyone is wearing a parachute... everyone made it out just fine including the pilot.

Jennie

Since I was in the back of the plane I was the first to jump. We had to wear oxygen masks right up until the door opened, and then we didn't waste any time getting to the opening and hanging our feet over the edge. We paused for a second to take in the view and then leaned forward out of the plane. The free fall lasted almost a full minute, and although I didn't feel the typical falling sensation you would expect, it was so windy up there it literally took my breath away. Once we pulled the chute everything became incredibly peaceful, and we floated down over the lake swinging from one side to the other and taking in the scenery. My instructor even let me steer the chute for a while, and let me do a few tight spirals that brought my stomach into my throat. Before I knew it we were touching down lightly on the ground... it was definitely over way too soon. I could have stayed up there all day. Steve was the last on the plane to jump, but he touched down less than a minute after I did.

Emerald Lakes

We could only afford to stay at the campground in town for two nights, so we arranged for a bus to pick us up at 6am the next morning to take us to the trail head for the Tongariro Crossing. We drove about 45 minutes to the trail head at Mangatepopo car park, and we were told to be at the end of the trail by 430 to catch the bus back to Taupo. There were a lot of bigger busses there as well, and the first part of the hike was very crowded. Constantly passing people and being passed on the narrow trail definitely took away a bit from the experience, we're not used to hiking with such crowds. Eventually the masses thinned out a bit, although there were always loads of people at the best viewpoints.

Mt. Doom

The hike was 19.4k and took us just under 8 hours. We had a pretty gentle walk the first few kilometers to Soda Springs, and then a steep climb up to the South Crater between Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro. Ngauruhoe is the mountain they used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies, and we were tempted to climb it, but we just didn't have the time. From there we crossed the South Crater and climbed up to Red Crater which is still an active steaming vent. From that highpoint we could see for miles across the central plateau and had great views of the Emerald Lakes and Blue Lake. We descended from there down a steep scree field, across the rim of the Te Maari Crater and up another short ascent past Blue Lake before skirting around the edge of the mountain and steadily descending 12k down to Ketetahi Car Park where ether bus picked us up just after 4:30.

The next morning we woke up a bit stiff from our long walk and packed everything up at the campground in town to move to Reids Farm, a free camping area about 3k outside of town. We are tucked away in a nice shady spot well away from the crowds and have been enjoying daily swims in the beautiful blue Waikato River. Yesterday we rode into town to see the final Hobbit movie and eat at the "Worlds Coolest McDonald's," which is inside an airplane. We plan on staying in town for a few more days, and then heading out towards Gisbourne.

To watch us jump out of an airplane, head over to the Movies page, and check out the photos too!

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Bike Tour NZ: Reporoa

1/8/2015

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Frank and Joannas little slice of heaven

Inferno Crater at Waimangu

We left Rotorua by way of the Te Ara Ahi, a 66k bike route that takes riders past four different geothermal fields. We had a bit of trouble finding the start of the trail, and once we found it we only went a little way before we came upon a trail closed sign. We weren't sure what else to do, but we weren't too keen on riding on the highway again so we just ignored it and made the best out of the section that was under construction. It was a lot of soft dirt, narrow paths with steep drops and exposed roots that might have been fun on a mountain bike but was quite a challenge on our junk bikes loaded down with stuff. Luckily it didn't last too long and the trail was pretty straight forward after that. We paralleled the main road for a while before turning down a side road and then onto a gravel path through rolling farmland.

Champagne Pool at Wai-O-Tapu

We had plans to go about halfway to Reporoa, our next destination, and visit Waimangu Volcanic Valley before camping for the night at Lake Okaro. Because of our earlier delays on the trail we didn't arrive at Waimangu until around 3, but we managed to see quite a bit of the trail before they closed at 5 and then they signed our tickets so we could come back the next morning and finish the walk. Its the worlds youngest geothermal system, and everything we saw was brand-new after a massive eruption in the late 1800s destroyed the entire area. Apparently before the eruption it was home to the worlds largest geyser, and was a big tourist attraction even back then. There were a lot of really cool thermal pools, hot lakes (up to 200 degrees!) and steam vents shooting out the side of the mountain.

Orakei Korako

The next day on the way to Reporoa we had the first flat tire of our trip when my back tube got a puncture. We were able to re-inflate the tire most of the way before our pump broke so we decided to try and make it as far as we could, and with another top off at a gas station I was able to ride about 15k before I lost too much air. We were planning on doing a farm stay with Frank and Joanna, whom we contacted through a farmhelpers program, so Steve rode on to their place while I walked my bike along the road. About an hour later and just a few more kilometers down the road Frank pulled up in his truck to give me a ride, and we made it home just in time for dinner.

Huka Falls

Frank and Joanna have about 20 acres of rolling hills with gardens, fruit trees, goat, chickens, donkeys and ducks, and they live in an adorable little straw bale house that they built themselves. We planned to stay with them over the holidays to avoid crowded campsites and heavy road traffic, and they gave us room and board (and so much more!) in exchange for around 4 hours of work a day. We were spoiled with a real bed and Joannas excellent cooking, and we had a lot of fun trimming hedges, picking cherries and working in the gardens. They also took us with them on trips into Taupo and showed us all of the great things to do in the area.

Aratiatia Rapids

We visited Wai-O-Tapu and Orakei Korako, two of the geothermal parks nearby, and got to see all kinds of unique craters, colorful lakes, steaming rivers and crazy mineral deposits. We also got to visit Huka Falls, a waterfall so powerful it can fill an Olympic size swimming pool in 4 seconds, first from the walkway above and later from the deck of a boat that cruised up the Wairakei River. One day Frank and Joanna dropped us off and we hiked the 10k pathway from the Aratitatia rapids, where scenes from the Hobbit were filmed, all the way to Taupo along the riverside on a beautifully sunny day. We also had an adventure rescuing three baby mice whose nest we accidentally destroyed as we were weeding in the garden. When we found them they didn't even have their eyes open yet, so we fed them with milk and q-tips for a few days before they opened their eyes and were ready for solid food. We've had them with us since then, although they're getting pretty active so they'll probably be ready to go out on their own soon.

We stayed in Reporoa for almost two full weeks, and didn't get on our bikes once the entire time. Needless to say when it was time to pack up our things and ride to Taupo we were a bit nervous about our fitness. Fortunately it was a relatively easy 62k and we made it into town in the early afternoon without any trouble.

To see more pictures from our time in Reporoa, check out the Photos post.

Wai-O-Tapu

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Bike Tour NZ: Rotorua

1/7/2015

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Pukeko

The 87k from Matamata to Rotorua was our most difficult ride yet in terms of traffic. We went most of the way on the 5 which was incredibly busy with almost no shoulder and uphill for ages. We both got run off the road several times by big trucks, and there was a particularly narrow section where I walked in the ditch for almost a full kilometer to avoid being hit, and Steve kept his GoPro running for evidence just in case. We made it to Rotorua around 3pm physically and mentally exhausted, but in one piece. After a stop at the information center we decided to stay at the Cozy Cottage motor park right on the lake, since it was fairly central to town and had its own hot pools to soak our legs.

Rotorua is located in a really geothermally active part of New Zealand, and the town has a ton of boiling mud holes and hot springs, rivers, pools and ponds, and there is a definite hint of sulfur in the air. We spent 4 nights in Rotorua, the longest time we had spent anywhere since Auckland, and we found plenty to keep us busy. On Friday we biked out to Rainbow Springs, a small wildlife preserve where we got to see a bunch of native reptiles and birds, including the adorable Kiwi.

Saturday we spent the day with Kaitiaki Rafting on the Kaituna river. They picked us up from our campground at noon and drove us out to their base where we got outfitted in wetsuits, PFDs, booties and helmets before driving us further down the road to the river. The section of the Kaituna we rafted was a range of class III to class V rapids, and the best part was the 21ft waterfall that we dropped over, fully submerging the raft before popping back to the surface. Apparently that's the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world.

After an hour on the river we headed back up to their base and got fitted for a pair of flippers to go sledging. We went a little further down the road this time and hiked down past some caves to put in just below the big waterfall. The sledges are a kind of a cross between a boogie board and the front of a kayak. You lay on your stomach with your arms at about 90 degrees and run the rapids head first. It was a lot more physically demanding than rafting because we had to constantly kick to move through the currents and fight to stay in the right spot over the rapids. We had a lot of fun, but both of us had sore ankles and were definitely out of breath by the end. I guess biking around the country can't get us in shape for everything!

On Sunday we rode our bikes to Ogo to go Zorbing on the longest tracks in New Zealand. We arrived shortly after a tour bus group, but after waiting for a few rounds we were driven up to the top of the hill with our Ogos in tow. We climbed together into what amounts to an enormous hamster ball and they dumped in enough water to make everything good and slippery before sealing it up. Once the track was clear we walked towards the edge of the hill to get the ball rolling, and then slid and spun around inside as we zig-zagged down the track.

We had really settled into our campsite and so we were a bit sad to leave town on Monday morning, but we had plans to stop and check out some of the more stunning geothermal features on our way to Reporoa, so we were excited to get on our way.

For more pictures from our adventures in Rotorua, check out the photo post!

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Bike Tour NZ: Hobbitton

1/7/2015

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We had only planned on spending one night at Te Aroha Landing, but some bad weather blew in overnight, and when we woke up in the morning it was clear it wouldn't be safe for us to ride. It was pouring down rain and the wind was gusting at around 60mph, so we decided to spend another night in our River Chalet and hope the storm would blow itself out by the next day. We were grateful we hadn't been in the tent the night before, because with that wind there probably wouldn't have been much left of it. We spent the day relaxing in bed, watching the second Hobbit movie and eating more delicious food. The hurricane force gusts died down overnight, but there was still a fairly strong wind to fight the next day as we rode towards Matamata.

We covered the 36k in a little over 2 hours, despite the consistent headwind, but when we got to the visitors center we got the bad news that the Hobbitton movie set was still another 16k out of town. We only had another hour before our tour, so we hopped back on the bikes and tried to pick up the pace. We made it to the ticket office at the top of a long steep climb with just a few minutes to spare.

From there we hopped on a bus and were driven over a few more hills and to the beginning of the movie set where we got to get out and walk around. It was really neat to stroll through the Shire and see all of the intricate details from the movies up close. Unfortunately there were quite a few other people in our group and a lot of other groups around, so it was a challenge to get pictures without a bunch of strangers in them. At the end of the tour we stopped at the Green Dragon for a complimentary beer before heading back to the ticket office and hopping back on our bikes to start making our way towards our next stop; Rotorua.

For more pictures, see the photo post.

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BIKE TOUR NZ: Otago Central Rail Trail

BIKE TOUR NZ: Alps 2 Ocean Trail

BIKE TOUR NZ: Christchurch

BIKE TOUR NZ: Kaikoura

Bike Tour NZ: Rere

Bike Tour NZ: The Motu Trail

Bike Tour NZ: Taupo

Bike Tour NZ: Reporoa

Bike Tour NZ: Rotorua

Bike Tour NZ: Hobbitton

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