Sarah and I began our New Zealand on January 1st. We decided to cycle down the West coast of the North Island in order to get to the South Island as quickly as possible. Some Kiwis and some Dutch travellers recommended that we spend 80% of our time on the South Island and 20% on the North.

We had just spent a full day relaxing at our camp site so we were both excited to begin bicycling. At the camp near Auckland, we met some Dutch and Australian travelers and a couple of Kiwis as well. The Dutch immediately asked us what we thought of President Bush and then burst out laughing. The Kiwis didn’t discuss politics, but they loved to make fun of the Australians because they said you can meet a beautiful blonde in Sydney and then be immediately repulsed when she greats you with a gravely “G’day mate!” We also sampled the famous New Zealand meat pies which were actually really good.

We got on the road early on the 1st and started to head South on the Great South Road. It was a pretty easy road and traffic was light, so we were happy after being warned by multiple people that the drivers in New Zealand are not friendly to bicyclists. After riding about 20kms we stopped for an ice cream and then we had to get on SH1. Peddler’s Paradise recommended taking SH1 most of the way from Auckland to Wellington so we were a little dismayed when we realized it was a 4-lane divided highway with a speed limit of 100km/h and a 3 foot bike lane with a lot of debris and no separation from the road. Yikes! After a couple of on-ramp and off-ramp crossings, we both decided we would like to have mirrors on our bikes. At about 30kms, Sarah got a flat in the rear. We examined and patched it and were about to start off again when we realized that she had a decent side gash in the tire.

Only 30kms into the trip and Sarah’s tire was already trashed! We decided to continue on down the road and swap out the tire with our spare folding tire when we camped for the night. We rode a little ways on and met some local children during a water break. It is really funny to hear kids with a New Zealand accent. This one exclaimed, “Yous fellas rode all the way from Auckland?!” and then decided he was going to ride the rest of the way with us. We convinced him not to, but he wouldn’t let us leave until I agreed to “make a muscle with him.”

The rest of the day was uneventful until about 60kms when Sarah cracked. I did my best Phil Ligget impersonation telling her “she was a shell of the woman she once was” and “all she could do no was limit her losses and live to ride another day.” That cheered her up a bit and she ate a neat little snack bar we found here called “One Square Meal” that has 33% of basically everything you need to eat in a day. That held us over until we made it to Te Kauwhata were we decided to camp for the night. We rolled into the village centre and a senior citizen on the city council welcomed us to the town and told us where the Domain camp site was. Domain camp sites are areas in the town where you can camp for free (we think) and he also let us know that the town was going to double in size soon because they are building a prison here and the senior center is also building several more housing developments. We purchased some middle bacon for our evening meal and got our tent up just in time before a nasty thunderstorm came through. We waited out the storm in our tent and then cooked up a pretty tasty dinner of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and some fried middle bacon.

We were about ready to go to bed when Sarah started to feel sick. She had a sore throat and was sneezing and then got some horrible diarrhea to go along with it. She spent the rest of the night getting up every 20 minutes to run to the toilet. When we woke up in the morning, she was still feeling very weak and sick, so we decided to rest there for the day. I rode into town to get some toilet paper, orange juice, and yoghurt for breakfast and as we were eating we heard Sarah’s front tire explode. Her tires must be cursed! (The only other explanation we could think of is that we didn’t deflate her tire on the airplane and that somehow affected it.) Sarah spent most of the day sleeping in the tent and I fixed up her tires and a couple of other things that were broken.

We traveled 62.11kms at an average speed of 14.5km/h on our first day. Slow, but a little further than we expected.

After a day of rest, we were ready to get on the road again, so we hopped back on the bikes and rode down SH1 to Hamilton where we are right now. Nothing else broke today but the road was the same busy highway for most of the way, so the riding wasn’t very relaxing. About 2/3rd of the way through, we discovered a much quieter side road which we took. We were both happy to be off the highway, but the tradeoff was this road was rolling hills the entire way. The trip today was 65km and it took us about three hours.

In Hamilton, we stopped at a bike shop to get a new tire for Sarah (Vittoria Randonneur) and I got a new cycling cap that says New Zealand in three different places on it so people will really know I’m a tourist now. (I had to get a cap because the top of my head was burning – like father, like son.) Sarah and I are about to go have dinner now. There are a lot of Indian restaurants in this town, so we are going to try one. Happy New Year!

We’ve made it to New Zealand! As Jamie mentioned it took 4 flights & 36 hours (23 flying, 13 layover) to get here. We arrived in Auckland at 2:30pm on Dec 30th, got through customs, then put our bikes back together, strapped on our 8 panniers, 2 handlebar bags, and 2 frame bags, and rode to our first campsite.

For your entertainment here are some highlights from the past two days:

• We acquired bike boxes fairly eaily thanks to the nice people at Bike Cycles in Wilmington. Jamie thought it’d be a good idea for us to ‘test’ fit the bikes in the box. Thank goodness he did, because it took multiple hours of bike disassembly to cram them into the boxes. We both worked ourselves into quite a frenzy in my mom’s garage: Jamie was running around in a sweating fit & I was taping up boxes with wild abandon & much excess tape.
• Momentary panic attack when we realized the bikes, their giant boxes, and all our panniers were not going to fit in the two small cars we’d planned to drive to the airport in the morning. Aunt Beverly saved the day by letting us use her SUV – everything fit in perfectly.
• Wilmington to LAX went smoothly. Upon checking in at the international desk we were informed we’d need Australian visas for our 3 hour layover in Sydney. WHAT?! Just the day before United had told me we wouldn’t need visas… We applied for them at the United ticket desk and thankfully they were approved. The lady helping us really freaked us out when she said “Sometimes last minute visas are denied, I really don’t know why and there is nothing I can do about it. So if that happens, you two are on your own.” Ack!!
• Got to Sydney. Our longest leg (14 hour flight) went very smoothly. We slept for a few hours, woke up & took Benadryl, then slept again. Thanks Mom for the Benadryl!
• Had to go through security again in Sydney. Our allen wrenches & socket set, which we’d been carrying with us since Wilmington, were confiscated as ‘banned items’. Much panic ensued again – we needed those tools to put our bikes back together in Auckland! We begged and bargained and the very nice people at New Zealand Air finally agreed to take one of our carry-ons, stick the bikes tools in it, and process it as checked baggage.
• During customs in Auckland we were stopped because one of the trained dogs smelled something illegal in one of our bags. NZ is extremely strict about bringing fruit, vegetables, meat, and milk products into the country. The dog was apparently smelling the apples we’d had in our carryon but had eating before landing. They searched the bag to make sure there were no more illegal apples, then let us pass through.
• Customs also took away our tent and sent it for inspection in the ‘BioHazard Protection’ room (or something like that). They were inspecting it for seeds & foreign plant material. We passed the test and our tent was returned in a giant messy heap. ugh! So I got the lovely job of re-rolling and re-stuffing our tent into its bag on the sidewalk outside the airport.

The Auckland airport has a very nice area with bike work stands where we put our bikes back together. Everything came through just fine with only a few minor scrapes & we successfully reassembled everything. Hurray! We then rolled out of the airport – on the LEFT side of the road, very tricky – towards our first camp site. Only 13 km on a not-too-scary road. We set up the tent, ate a little bit, chatted with some fellow campers and went to bed at 9:30pm. We both slept through the night just fine, woke up in the morning at a decent time, and today we have been feeling normal. Is it possible to adjust to jet lag that quickly? I hope so!

Here’s me with our bikes & baggage feeling very relieved that everything made it:

Putting bikes back together in Auckland airport:

Campsite: