Category: New Zealand
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Last 2 days into Christchurch
Perhaps it was that I wanted to drag out the last 2 days coming to my departure point. Or maybe it was that the rain and cold was pointing out that staying put for a couple days was a good idea. In any case, from a distance perspective I could have easily ridden faster and…
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Mt Somers and Glentunnel: Fall is coming!
Since I took a bus to Geraldine from Queenstown following my adventure ending in the helicopter evacuation, I had about 200 miles less riding to get to Christchurch compared with my original plan. And so, I’ve been going slower – riding about 40 miles every other day and staying a couple days in small towns…
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Onwards towards Christchurch…slowly.
After spending a night with Chris and Jay in Queenstown, we all left for our respective destinations the following day: Chris to Brisbane, Jay back to Boulder and me to Geraldine, a town that we had stayed in once before by car, and also on the Sounds to Sounds route that I was following back…
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Final thoughts on getting stranded and evacuated
I posted to the Sounds to Sounds Facebook group about my experience as soon as the helicopter dropped me in Wanaka. I wanted to warn others that rain could make the stream crossings impassable and dangerous. I wasn’t sure if others would all know something I didn’t, but I figured it would be helpful. It…
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Evacuation by helicopter: what a day!
While Chris goes to Australia and Jay goes home, I planned to ride from Alexandra, south of Queenstown, to Christchurch before flying back to Brisbane for Easter with Katherine, Andrew and Chris. And so, I planned to ride the Sound to Sound route, planned by the same people who planned and mapped the TA which…
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SailGP – Yacht Racing in Christchurch!
Jay found this event he wanted to see in Christchurch, and we happily went with him! It was called SailGP, and it’s an event held in several locations where 9 teams from different countries compete using identical boats on specified courses. The boats don’t look like anything we’ve ever seen! They are F50 boats, created…
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Road trip! We’ve got a car
The distance constraints of traveling by bike have been lifted since we connected with Jay in Invercargill! It’s sort of amazing that we were able to travel to destinations to see specific things and not worry about wind, or trucks or gravel roads. And so, after Lake Dunstan we went to Te Anau and then…
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Milford Sound, and a winery on the way out
Leaving Cromwell, we took the opportunity to stop at Cloudy Bay winery and do some tasting and a lunch. It was fabulous….like being invited to a very rich friend’s house with an army of gardeners and an awesome cellar. Honestly, the wine was not all that special but the experience was great. We had everything…
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Lake Dunstan Bike Trail
Since way before we came to NZ, I ran across a video of the Lake Dunstan Bike trail. It is part of the “Great Rides” of NZ, and it’s gotten a lot of press since being finished a couple years ago. Last year, 7,500 people were expected to ride it. 87,000 did. So, it’s a…
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Invercargill Transport Museum
Before leaving Invercargill, we spent the morning at the famous Phil Richardson transport museum there, which has an AMAZING collection of cars, trucks, gas pumps, and other memorabilia related to cars and trucks. Jay is a big car fan, but we also enjoyed the amazing collection. It’s hard to really focus on anything specific there,…