Chris beat me to it, so we published his blog post as soon as we received it. I had finished my write up, but not yet the pictures by then.
2 weeks approximately. A rented Honda CRV, 4 bikes on the roof, and enough space for the 4 of us. Not enough time to write regular notes, or upload and comment pictures, but lots of laughter, fun, a bottle of wine a night, home made food (except for the pies Chris or Craig might write about). Chocolate for me, and often biscuits (cookies) for K&C for dessert, with Craig making sure he got his fair share of everything.
The first 3 pictures in the link are from Craig’s and my return trip to Christchurch after dropping June off.
Link to NZ with Kim and Chris
We have shared Airbnb houses, and I cannot keep them straight now. Christchurch, The Banks Peninsula & Okains Bay, Fairlie, Twizel, Castle Rock, TeAnau, Dunedin, Methven, and we are now on our way to Christchurch for one more night. Some houses were on sheep farms, all were clean and nice, one was entirely off the grid, the beds were unfortunately often too soft, but the kitchens totally adequate for making our meals. One hostess included a good bottle of NZ wine, and encouraged us to pick organic veggies from her garden, which we did! These houses were by far the least expensive option when we looked back in October/November. February is the driest, and sunniest month in Southland, a popular tourist destination. We were repeatedly warned about certain Asian drivers - especially when people heard we would be biking, and also when we traveled in touristy areas. Saw no ‘vacancy’ signs anywhere.
The weather has probably been better than average for here - gorgeous sunny days, cool nights, the temperatures seem to fluctuate a lot, a few rainy days.
The Botanical Gardens are located in a public park in Christchurch; we found a fun bike shop with a huge selection of touring equipment, and I still have not found us bike jerseys. We haven’t biked as much as we had hoped since leaving home, but this is one souvenir I would like to buy. One problem is that the NZ colors seem to be black and white, which I don’t want in a bike jersey.
We saw damage, and restoration work due to the 2011 earthquakes in many places in the city. The country side outside Christchurch is very flat, and there are lots of big hedges to help with the winds.
Okains Bay on the Banks Peninsula - a very different landscape than what we had seen our first week here with June. We did one very hilly ride partially along a beautiful ridge, after we climbed up from the bay; dramatic skies everywhere, and mostly we lucked out and had great views
Mt. Cook National Park: Craig and I climbed the 1968 steps to Sealy Tarn, but did not get to see Mt. Aoraki again.
We encountered unexpected dirt roads the rental car contract doesn’t allow, but otherwise all has been fine with sheep, mountains, beautiful skies, turquoise lakes, nice easy roads to bike on, except the gravel on the bike trails here is often not safe for our road bikes.
Saw the Southern Cross for the first time, and the Milky Way with the help of Chris.
We saw, and photographed (ad nauseum) a relaxed, endangered Kea bird in a parking lot on the way back from Milford Sound. Craig has a video. These birds like to peck away at rubber, as in parts of the cars parked in scenic pull outs.
We did a brief, challenging hike in the rainforest while K&C cruised Milford Sound. Our wettest (the ground we stepped on) jungle experience so far, despite a gorgeous, sunny day.
We drove to The Bluff outside of Invercargill, and this will be the southernmost point of Our Big Adventure. Then to the Otago Peninsula outside of Dunedin, where we had a nice and different bike ride, but didn’t get to see either albatross, or penguins. We would have needed to go back in the evening for a paid tour, and were not confident we could see adult albatross. We hope to get to see penguins in South Africa (I didn’t know there are so many different types of penguins).
Craig and I did our longest ride of the entire trip from Methven. A whopping 62miles (100km), and despite this being a sad comment of my current abilities, I was very happy, because my body mostly behaved. It was another 10/10 day weather-wise, and the last 8 miles or so were a cyclist’s dream - we dropped 500’ (~170m) so gradually, that I thought it only was the tailwind which pushed us long.
We ate our lunch sandwiches in a tiny village, essentially one road, and were offered emergency food (tasty energy bars, with chocolate), when I asked a man (40s) if there was a store. He had never left NZ, had no interest in doing so, felt people should mind their own business. The fact that his neighbor, aged 12, drives a car at some 60km/h (or he might well have said 60 mph), on the public road is just fine with him, ‘as he is careful’, despite barely being visible above the steering wheel.
Kim likes large rocks, and we lucked out twice, and she got to see big boulders when we were enroute from one place to another. Too bad we can’t do it all - it would have been really nice to go to Arthur’s Pass National Park to hike - seems gorgeous there.
Am finishing this after Kim & Chris hopefully have arrived home safely, to no house disasters from the many storms they missed when here.
It was lots of fun to see friends from home, and we certainly have seen quite a bit of the South Island now.
Craig and I will stay in NZ until later in April, and will focus more on hiking next, to be in shape for The Himalaya.
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