tour aotearoa map

• Official Guides
• GPS Downloads
• Route Circumstances
• Safety Advice
• When to start
• LIVE Tracking
• Trail Surfaces
• Accommodation
• Environmental Care Code
• Photo Checkpoints
• Register for 2024
• Supporting Shops
• Kopiko Aotearoa
• Riders Stories
• Photo Gallery
• Hall of Fame
• In the Media

Route overview

When to start from Cape Reinga

• Route planner

Tour Aotearoa [2024]

116,925  ft

1.1 Cape Reinga to Rangiora Ferry Terminal

1.2 rangiora ferry terminal to rawene boat trip, sign up to discover places like this.

Get recommendations on the best single tracks, peaks, & plenty of other exciting outdoor places.

1.3 Rawene to Dargaville [2023]

1.4 dargaville to pouto point (boat pickup), 1.5 optional kaipara harbour bypass, 1.6 kaipara harbour charter boat trip, 1.7 parakai to auckland, 2.0 auckland to taumaranui, 2.1 hunua traverse weekday entrance, 2.2 clevedon to kaiaua via coast, 2.3 optional 500m side trip to ongarue store 001, hawkes bay trail segment - closed 2022, 3.1 taumaranui to mangaparua landing, 3.2 whanganui jetboat trip, 3.3 optional mangapurua track to raetihi to pikipriki, 3.4 pipiriki to wellington ferry terminal, 3.5 optional durie hill elevator bypass (hill climb), 3.6 optional wgtn ferry to bluebridge ferry terminal, 3.7 cook strait boat trip, 4.1 picton to greymouth, like this collection, questions and comments, collection stats.

• Distance 2,126 mi
• Duration 270:48 h
• Elevation 116,925 ft

You Might Also Like

Cape Reinga to Bluff by Bike - A 3000 km brevet the length of New Zealand

• Official registration at: Tour Aotearoa 2021 , the main event - strictly limited to 700 riders
• Tour Aotearoa 2021 , Limit of 700 riders over 10-30 days
• Replay Tour Aotearoa 2020 , 950 riders over 10-30 days, disrupted by COVID-19
• Replay Tour Aotearoa 2018 , 3000 km, 600 riders, 30 days
• Replay Tour Aotearoa 2016 - the event that started it all
• Read the Blog: www.touraotearoa.nz
• Tour Aotearoa: General Forum , Public Group
• Tour Aotearoa : Community
• Connect my SPOT
• Mobile view
• Extended view
• Legal & privacy
• Creating/editing
• Creating/Editing

Tour Aotearoa, NZ South Island, Te Waipounamu

Leave a review

  Tour Operator   Escape Adventures NZ

    New Zealand

  20   days   (Bike: 16 days)

  1410   km   (~ 88 km  per day)

  Mixed on/off-road , Hilly

Adventure awaits you, biking the Tour Aotearoa, South Island - Te Waipounamu Cycle Tour

This is a stunningly diverse bike ride from the Marlborough Sounds to Bluff in the deep south. The ride takes in the historically mysterious Maungatapu track, Nelson Lakes National Park, and as we ride down the wonderful west coast of New Zealand we encounter a fabulous combination of wild coastlines, rain forest, cows, cowboys and possibly cow seals? The ‘Tour Aotearoa’ South Island – Te Waipounamu is a 1410km cycling route created by the Kennett Brothers exploring the length of the South Island from Picton to Bluff and riding on as many of New Zealand’s off road cycle trails and quiet back roads as possible. We have created a fully supported version of the Tour Aotearoa so that you you can ride a full island or indeed the full length of New Zealand knowing that we have got your back! Our Tour Aotearoa – South Island closely follows this classic route and also includes plenty of quirky extras, stop-overs and special places in the true Escape Adventures’ style.

Whether you choose to ride the full length of New Zealand or just one Island at a time – we’ll sort the nitty gritty. Before your tour begins, we will organise all the logistics and book all accommodation.

We will give you daily digital route maps, that you can follow on your phone or GPS, and route cue notes so that you can ride at your own pace, stop when you like to smell the roses and grab a coffee when the opportunity presents, while always knowing that we are there if you need us.

On tour, your awesome Escape Adventures support crew will have your breakfast ready for an early start and provide snacks for you to carry with you. They will provide daily ride information and ride sweep with first aid and mechanical support. Our support vehicle will carry your luggage, and on most days set up a ‘floating picnic lunch’ on route so that you can dine’n’dash and top up on water and snacks. The support vehicle is also there if you need first aid or mechanical support, or if you need a break from the saddle.

31-124km riding per day on wonderfully remote and scenic riding route. Approximately 64% sealed roads / 21% quiet gravel roads and 15% cycle trails. There are some big climbs, big downs, undulating coastal terrain and of course there is also some flat terrain. Cycle trails have variable terrain and generally slow riding speed. Dirt/gravel road biking experience will add to the enjoyment of your tour.

Tour Information

Guided     NZ$   8950

Departure(s)

January 28, 2024 February 27, 2025

Single Supplement

$1600 NZD (If you do not wish to share)

• 19 nights Accommodation
• Meals as per tour itinerary
• Two Escape Adventures tour leaders
• Support vehicle & Bike Trailer
• 1x Boat Transfer
• Airfares, visas, or airport taxes
• Optional activities and excursions
• Some meals as per the detailed itinerary
• Personal equipment
• Getting to Picton and from Invercargill
• Bike Hire: If required hire fee is NZD $600 (Pedal Bike)
• E Bike Hire: If required hire fee is NZD $1600

There are currently no reviews for this tour.

Write a Review

Sign in  to leave a review. Not a member and want to enjoy our great benefits?  Join here!

Share this page

While great care has been taken to show full and correct tour details, unfortunately transcription errors do occur and, although we continually seek to eliminate these, we apologise for any mistakes. Plans or bookings should not be made exclusively based on information shown on this website but must be confirmed with the tour operator.

Brian's Routes

Exploring good routes and bad ones to help you decide where to go

• Bicycling / Bike Packing / Bike Touring / Routes

Our Own Tour Aotearoa

by Brian · Published May 22, 2023 · Updated July 13, 2023

Suggested 3wk Itinerary | List of all NZ GREAT RIDES | Our Photos | NZ Likes/Dislikes

I had been toying with the idea of bikepacking New Zealand for many years; ever since I heard of the Tour Aotearoa Route . I figured that the best time of year to experience this land would be to start in the South in mid-February and work your way North to arrive in mid May. Since you’d be heading North, this would “follow the seasons” so you would always have the best weather of each region during a 90 day stay (the maximum allowed without a special visa). Normally, Janet and I are finishing up Latin America travels at this time of year and getting ready to plant our garden in April/May – which means we’ve never bothered to make this trip happen. This year, though, Janet broke her collarbone in the late fall – meaning we spent the early winter at home instead – opening up an opportunity to put New Zealand on the calendar.

This is the map for the entire route discussed in this post.  To Export GPX files, click on the three horizontal bars in the upper right hand corner of the map and select Export selected map data... To see full screen, click here (opens in new window)

I had long heard about New Zealand being a great place for outdoor activities, so it seemed like a no-brainer that we would enjoy it. One hesitation had been that New Zealand is relatively expensive compared to some of the other countries that we have been to, but we found that our bikepacking living expenses were about 90% of what they are in the US. We noted that anything related to tourism such as tours, boat rides, etc. was HIGLHY inflated. As bike packers, we don’t usually do as much of the tourist-trap stuff unless it looks really cool.

We quickly learned that New Zealand is an excellent locale for mountain biking – and a despicable location for road cycling. I’ll warn you right away that as a whole, the roads in NZ felt less safe than any of the 38 other countries we have cycled . Seriously. The reason for that are three-fold:

• The roads are narrow, and almost none of them have a shoulder.
• The people drive two lane roads at speeds normally reserved for motorways/freeways.
• The law states that cyclists should receive 1.5 meters of clearance, but that is not observed.

If you decide to follow any part of our route, please take that into account. We endeavored to ride “mostly trail” – and succeeded a lot of the time… but we did have to make necessary connections in places where no trail existed. In the process, we used our Google Satellite skills to find twistier roads that were dirt (thus forcing vehicles to drive more slowly)… and in some cases we found better riding. If in doubt, though, you could just hire transport to help you connect between the good riding areas. I’ll discuss which were our favorite sections later in this post.

New Zealand has a number of “Great Walks” and “Great Rides.” An easy way to find them is to use the Great Rides App . The Great Rides and Great Walks are definitely the best outdoor aspect of New Zealand. In fact, I think the Great Walks may be the crowning asset of New Zealand because of the fantastic scenery they expose you to. Here is a list of the rides on the Great Rides app ( I have highlighted in red the rides that we did .  Routes that haven’t been built yet are in green. Routes we didn’t do are black.)

List of all GREAT RIDES in New Zealand

• Lake 2 Lake (bonus ride) ( link )
• Around the Mountains ( link )
• Welcome Rock Trails (bonus ride) (we only did Nevis Road Portion – but rest looks fun) ( link )
• Queenstown Trails ( link )
• Coronet Loop Trail (bonus ride) ( link )
• Kawarau Gorge Trail (planned; we did by boat)
• Upper Clutha Trail (planned) ( link )
• Lake Dunstan Trail ( link )
• Clutha Gold Trail ( link )
• Roxburgh Gorge Trail ( link )
• Otago Central Rail Trail ( link )
• Alps 2 Ocean ( link )
• West Coast Wilderness Trail ( link )
• Paparoa Track (bonus ride) ( link )
• St James Cycle Trail ( link )
• The Whale Trail (planned)
• Kawatiri Coastal Trail (This trail is not complete, but we rode from Okari to Wesport) ( link )
• The Old Ghost Road ( link )
• Heaphy Track (bonus ride) (This trail is only open seasonally – otherwise we would have LOVED to ride it).
• Great Taste Trail ( link )
• Coppermine Trail (this is a loop, not a thru-ride near Nelson)
• Link Pathway ( link )
• Queen Charlotte Track ( link )
• Remutaka Cycle Trail ( link )
• Mountains To Sea ( link )
• Hawke’s Bay Trail
• Timber Trail ( link )
• Taupo Trails (bonus ride; we rode what we could – much was closed due to Cyclone Gabrielle ) ( link )
• Great Lakes Trails ( link ) Rides around Lake Taupo
• Whakarewarewa Loop (We only rode part of this coming into Rotorua)
• Motu Trails ( link )
• Waikato River Trails ( link )
• Te Awa (bonus ride) ( link ) * We transected this paved bike trail going to Kawhia
• Hauraki Rail Trail ( link )
• Twin Coast Cycle Trail ( link )

Out of all the trails mentioned above, Janet and I easily agree that our two favorites were the Paparoa Track, the Old Ghost Road, and the Coronet Loop Trail (with Paparoa being our favorite of the three). The rest of the trails on this list were more like single-and-a-half tracks. Of the remaining tracks, we really enjoyed: The Timber Trail, West Coast Wilderness Trail, Waikato Trails, Queen Charlotte Track, Dunstan/Roxburgh Gorge Trail/Clutha Gold.

TSA got into our bike – that long slit they cut. Luckily, we were prepared for them and taped everything down inside of the package – including water bottles filled with stuff you can’t take in the cabin such as tent stakes, lube, tire sealant, and knives. They just cut it open and move on. (And leave you a friendly note reminding you they are allowed to do this). Reminds me of a video I saw about border security looking for contraband in shipping containers at port. They would cut the locks off the shipping containers, probe bags with long swords 🗡️ as beans or rice or tea came spilling out. “No drugs here” they would say, as the merchandise spilled to the ground. They just moved on to the next container – leaving a broken lock and perfectly good food spilled all over the floor.

BONUS! A Recommended ~3 week itinerary based on us cycling most of both islands

While I’m really glad we went to New Zealand, 3 months was plenty long enough to see what we wanted to see.  I realize that not everyone has this amount of time available to visit NZ. If you’re an intermediate to advanced mountain biker, and you only had ~3 weeks to explore NZ, I’d consider only visiting the South Island.  Probably the best “bang for your buck” route would be as follows : Fly to Wellington and take the ferry to Picton .  Jump on a small boat and take it to “Ship Cove” where you can start the Queen Charlotte Track .  From there, follow our tracks along the link-pathway backwards to Havelock. Don’t forget to follow our track over the Pelorus Bridge to avoid the HWY. Next take the Maungatapu track (a bit of effort, but saves hwy riding) over to Nelson and along the Great Taste Trail to Motueka.  If the Heaphy Track is open (May 1 thru November 30 as of this writing), see if you can do that! We didn’t do this because it was closed during the time we were visiting, but if you can do it, this makes for a great segue into the next track we recommend: The Old Ghost Road .  If Heaphy Track is closed, just follow our tracks backwards along the Great Taste Trail, and then begin the Old Ghost Road.  South of Westport, continue along our route backwards and then jump on the Paparoa Track .  After the Paparoa, you can follow our tracks backwards to get onto the West Coast Wilderness Trail , ending in Hokitika.  At this point, you have a decision to make: If you want to avoid long sections of pavement, I’d suggest hiring a vehicle or taking a bus to Wanaka.  The West Coast would be a really nice drive – like California’s HWY 1.. but if you only have 3 weeks, why spend it driving the road?  From Wanaka, I’d recommend the out-and-back that we did to Mount Aspiring National Park.  Also, if it is open by the time you visit, I’d recommend taking the Upper Clutha River Trail and finding a way to connect to Thompson Gorge – riding our route backwards once again to Omakau.  From Omakau, you could follow our route backwards all the way to Cromwell.  This gives you exposure to the Otago Rail Trail (not too interesting, but safe riding)… and then later you would get to do the Clutha Gold Trail , Roxburgh Gorge Trail , and Lake Dunstan Trail – all of which are awesome.  From Cromwell, it’s a great ride along the Nevis Road to Garston.  Once in Garston, I would suggest that you figure out a safe way to make the short distance to Queenstown where you can ride the Coronet Loop and maybe out to Skipper’s Canyon before flying from Queenstown to Auckland.  If you had enough time, you could follow our tracks backwards to Queenstown the long way on the “Around the Mountain Trail,” but that trail wasn’t special enough for me to recommend it.

Photos from our 3 month ride across NZ

Riding up to “The Remarkables” – an out-and-back trip.

Our planned ride for today was to visit the Remarkables Ski Area: start the trip with a monolithic climb. From below, the top was enshrouded in clouds. We discussed only going part way up, but the clouds seemed to be ascending just as slowly as us – meaning that there were periods of clear skies and even some sun!

Can you see the tandem riding along?

It’s only our second day here, but today was amazing! After riding in the canyon, we went back on another single track trail called the “Coronet Loop Trail”. It was buff single track with lots of switchbacks that were just wide enough for the tandem. We haven’t ridden trails this fun on the tandem in a long time!

Today Janet and I rode out to Skipper’s canyon. It was described as a scenic route, but what we didn’t know is that we’d be doing miles of exquisite mountain biking!

We descended the single track on the far right, and hours later came up this dirt road in the foreground.

Janet and I took the ferry from Queenstown to Mount Nicholas Bay with Southern Adventure Tour Company. Most people use the TSS Earnslaw to Walter Peak. The boat we took was a less expensive ride and it actually allowed us to avoid a few miles of boring riding.

Janet and I met Dicky and Meg. They are riding around the world in one year! They travel like we used to – fast and heavy. They even have an orange tandem like our old one! They have already ridden from the UK to Turkey and across parts of Asia where they could (they experienced some entry blockages due to COVID and such). They are here for 5 weeks and next plan to go to Australia and then to South America. It sounds like it has already been a great adventure with plenty more to come. I wish that our itineraries overlapped more so we could get more stories out of them… Here are links to their instagrams: https://www.instagram.com/meghibbs/ https://www.instagram.com/dicky_hibbert/

I washed my jersey last night to get out the salt. It didn’t dry because it was a foggy night, but the candles inside of the cabin helped provide just the right warmth to help dry it quickly.

The climb that greeted us was very difficult. Some stretches ascended 1,200’ per mile, which would be outrageous if it were paved… let alone loose rock. Janet took the bag to alleviate some of my suffering as we toiled this way for a couple of hours… …we carried on when suddenly the gravel road ended abruptly in some trees. My GPS course continued into the trees. There was a sign indicating this was a “expert mountain bike route. 5/5”. If you know me by now, you know that I push on like a stubborn bull through pretty much anything – often claiming “this isn’t impossible; it’s just difficult.” I still believe that, but I decided to scout ahead – ditching the bike and climbing up using my arms to ascend the boulders sandwiched between the trees – only to find a landslide a few feet up. I carried on without the bike up a narrow chute littered with climbing boulders and engulfed in trees. I had climbed 100’ along the trail… a trail that my GPS told me would ascend 750’ in the next 0.5 miles… That’s 1,500’ per mile on an overgrown “trail.” I’ve never been so decisive about something like this: “Janet, we have to turn around!” The New Zealanders can forget their Haka dance… all they would have to do is show this trail to their opponents, and they would run away with their tails between their legs. That is what we did! The problem was that we had invested ~50 off road miles and ~6,000’ of climbing into getting to this point… The thought of retracing those steps was so painful, but that is what we started to do….. until….. ..With no upward heading options, we began the tedious descent, undoing our last several hours of work. At the bottom of the drop, we took a short side route to the lake. We had been shooting for the West Arm of the lake, and I prayed to God that there might be a boat at South Arm (pictured) to carry us the 14 miles on the water around the mountains to the West Arm. Sadly, nothing was here. I had done some math in my head though: 14 flat lake miles at 3mph would only be 4.5 hours versus the many hours of climbing that lay ahead of us if we had to ride all the way around back to the highway reversing yesterday’s and part of todays ride. At the beach, I set about gathering logs that were longer than the tandem. I arranged them half-way in the water because I knew that once I finished building the raft, it would be too heavy to launch. See that plant in the foreground? Those would be stripped to make “rope” that would tie the logs together. The logs were surprisingly buoyant, and I figured that if we can go 6 mph on a kayak, we could manage 3 mph in a makeshift raft. As I searched for a log to go 90 degrees across the 4 log “base raft”, Janet walked over and said, “do you want some help, even if I’m not going to go with you?” I said, “where are you going to go if you don’t go on the raft?” She replied that she would “walk back.” The idea of her walking a distance that seemed too far to ride was preposterous. This was a test that said, “if you really love me, you will let me be in charge of this plan – and it’s not going to be on your stupid boat-raft.” I consider taking Noah’s lead by telling her, “God told me to build it.” But God hadn’t really told me to build it unless you consider the fact that God didn’t put a real boat there for us as a sign that we were supposed to build one instead. Janet said, “We could drown. I’m not going.” OK, at that point, I decided to abandon ship. We left my carefully arranged drift wood, jumped on the bike and began the slog back to the same place we slept last night.

We learned that the “Routeburn Track” – one of the famous “great walks” of New Zealand is not open to bikes. If a bike could go through, it would have been an 18 mile shortcut around the mountains. Alternatively, one can do a ~300 mile out-and-back trip to Milford Sound (and then back to Queenstown). I tried to think of many ways to do this route, but with my foot still in so much pain, anything involving walking isn’t really an option. As a “consolation prize” we decided to ride 20 miles out-and-back down to Humboldt Falls along the Hollyford route. This is a spur off our primary out-and-back to Milford sound.

This is Humboldt falls; double falls.. but only a single rainbow. 🌈

This is Milford Sound. Janet and I took a boat out to the Tasman sea to see Fur Seals 🦭, dolphins 🐬, glaciers 🧊, and waterfalls 💦. Janet quipped that she was surprised I didn’t try you build a boat to go around to Deception Sound. I’m still a bit miffed that she thought my raft would sink before I had even finished building it. We did look for a boat (built by an actual shipwright) that would have taken us all the way around to where we had been trying to go a few days ago – but that would have required a 70 mile open-ocean voyage and no one was offering that package. The 14 mile lake-paddle would have been much more tame!

Shortly before finishing the day, we met Cyrus (left) and Miles (right). I joked to Janet that it will be easy to remember their names: just think “Miley Cyrus”. Janet surmised that they were brothers, and I said, “no they aren’t!” Keep in mind, she said this when they were kitted up in helmets and looked quite different. Well, as usual, Janet is right. They are actually twins from WA and touring 400km together before going backpacking and then trail running… and maybe even fun-ride that trail we did on day 2. They knew Josh Kato and Corrine Leistikow who we know from bikepacking, making it feel like a small world \u0026 giving us lots of fun stuff to talk about. I’ve been enjoying meeting new people frequently on this trip. We are spending lots of time talking with other travelers more often than locals, but that is just as fun! We plan to watch Cyrus on his Tour Divide run in 2023. You can too: https://www.strava.com/athletes/12086521?oq=cyru

Janet on the “Around the Mountains” trail. It was nice enough, but it paled compared to our list of favorite rides.

The Garston Ski Hut along the Nevis Road. This is a dirt road that takes you up to the “Welcome Rock Trails” mentioned earlier in this post. The ride from the hut to Cromwell was excellent; it was a remote double track that crossed a creek several times – plenty rugged and saw zero cars.

Later in the day, Janet and I rode the Dunstan Bike trail. In planning our route, I had dismissed this bike trail because it looked “too easy” in the brochure. Ok, you can laugh at my foolish attitude… I was thinking it was some flat beginner trail. I actually like easy routes… but they have to be interesting too. It turned out to be quite an exciting trail with lots of fun sections, plenty of ups and downs, and great scenery. The last 8 miles of this day were on the 150th Anniversary River Track – which was super fun, easy snoopy single track! Highly recommended!

This is the Roxburgh river trail. It’s pretty fun and flows… but it has a catch: 8 miles in the middle are missing. That’s fixed by a pair of jetboats that transport people through the trail-less piece of gorge.

“Let’s camp here!” At the perfect time for camping, a perfect spot appeared, so we stopped. That’s our tent bottom right. We were here for about 15 minutes when a car pulled up and just parked. My mind went to creepy places because I had recently seen a disturbing scene from “the zodiac killer” movie at Janet’s sister/brother in law’s house… I worried a bit, but we distracted ourselves by working on the bike. Another 15 minutes passed when the creepy car drove closer towards us and the driver got out and started walking towards us with one arm raised towards the sky with an oblong object in his hand. I was less scared now seeing his face. “Hey man…” he said, “you guys want a joint?” Relieved, we thanked him and said, “no thanks!” 🚬 🚬

We designed a “connection route” between the end of the Clutha Gold Trail and the start of the Otago Rail Trail. It was on mixed surface roads, but it was great because it had very little (almost zero) traffic. However, once we made the crossing, we had to ride on Clark’s Junction Road for a bit. That road didn’t have much traffic – but the cars that were on it drove fast and without a shoulder, it wasn’t fun. Today was the day of cool lighting. Clouds came and went – even a little rain on us – but the lighting kept changing, making for nice scenery in an area that wouldn’t have been as interesting otherwise. 🌈

Every night we try to do some form of cleanup. Last night, we had a river so I went for a swim. But here, all we had was the water we had carried in. I used one of Janet’s water bottles to do my “750ml bottle shower” – carefully working from top down to rinse the salts and dust off the skin. A few dribbles made it into my mouth revealing that this was no ordinary shower, but a sweet one made from partially diluted diet 7up! 🚿 🧼

It’s a rail trail. It’s beautiful. We are happy. We go uphill on 2% grades all day at 12mph. Not your typical Janet and Brian route – but we are enjoying it. In a couple days, back to the original route. I suffered a series of hypoglycemic episodes today – all triggered by forgetting one injection 2 days ago; the reverberations of trying to make up for that one missed shot have lingered for 48 hours. As I lay on the ground recovering by these jumping sheep, Janet and I discussed God. I said, “I don’t buy the anthropomorphic version of God, but I sure do believe in a unifying force.” Janet seemed to agree that this was possible, so I continued, “I mean, think of all those sheep with their own individual brains… and somehow that one sheep dog knows where he’s supposed to be guiding them – and exactly how they will react to his guidance.” Around this moment, the dog crouched low – almost in predator mode – to sway a lone, errant sheep to get back on-track. Janet said, “Yeah, Maybe God is just a Sheepdog.” This idea of God and Sheep… at the time, it seemed really deep. 🐑. 🤯

This is on Thompson Gorge Road – an excellent gravel road connection between Omakau and Wanaka (well except for the last bit into Wanaka which will be solved once they finish the “Upper Clutha Trail” that is mentioned at the top of this post. Yesterday we propelled the bike hard into the wind, and still had a great day along the trail. The wind took note and fought back even harder today, as we drove into its stalwart flow. At the end of each day, we like to review our highlights of the ride, and I’ve been starting to notice a pattern emerging (at least in myself). I actually really enjoyed this mountain section… even though it was steep uphill and headwind. In contrast, the last 20 miles were on a paved road (same wind but not steep)… and that part really sucked my enthusiasm. For me, good scenery and no cars can trump the challenges that might otherwise bring you down.

Image A brilliantly clear morning spent riding the surprisingly technical trail around the lake. We rode a mix of single track and paved roads around the edge of Lake Wanaka – headed out towards Mount Aspiring National Park.

There are fewer glaciers on the planet now than when I was born, making visiting them something of a “now or never.” Bikes are allowed out as far as “Aspiring Hut” which is a pretty good allowance considering that the trail became quite technical before that. In fact, our permit was for camping near Aspiring Hut. The trail is fairly slow-going considering it looks pretty easy on the map. It was worth the effort to ride out there, though because then we were able to do the hike towards the Rob Roy Glacier.

This is Cascade Hut. If you have been to NZ, you probably know that they have a pretty big hut system. For people like us who do things “seat of the pants” style, they don’t help too much because many need to be reserved months in advance. Some are free and don’t need reservations. We are moving towards the wet West coast in a few days – so likely will be seeking shelters more often.

Yeah, this is an uplift zone. The plates are rising at the extremely fast rate of 10-20 cm per year. As we were riding back to civilization, I felt like we were riding equally as fast (slow). Finally I asked Janet if we could pull over and brew a second pot of weak coffee from the river water. She said, “sure!” We rode a fair bit faster after that recharge! Also, our spirits were buoyed because we would be meeting up with Dave and Aglaja this afternoon!

This is the bridge that takes you to see the Rob Roy Glacier. The effort to scenery ratio made this the best glacier we saw on the trip. We would later go to Fox Glacier and Frans Joseph Glaciers, but neither allowed us to get as close as the Rob Roy.

Rob Roy Glacier.

Another beautiful morning! But “red skies by morning, bikers take warning”…. Rain is coming!

While seen riding along the West Coast Road. This road had us on pavement for 3 days heading North. While the scenery was very good, unfortunately there were no shoulders along the way. Luckily, there wasn’t too much traffic; there are worse roads to ride in NZ than the West Coast. The part of the West Coast Road from Wanaka to Makora was the worst. Farther North, it got better. By the way, if you do this, make sure you follow our route into Lake Hawea instead of taking the highway straight out of Wanaka.

At the beach coffee cart we met Jenny and John from the UK. They are on an unsupported 8 day hotel bike tour from Christchurch to Queenstown. They had nice rented Surly bike and new panniers.

We heard about this couple (Jeff and Pip from New Zealand) from another cyclist couple as we were heading North. We were told they had a green tandem the same color as ours – their bike was from California, so maybe the same brand? Sure enough, coming in the opposite direction, we see a tandem – and it is Gumby’s (much younger) twin!! Look at how their 29-er wheels are monstrous compared to our little 26 inchers! It was nice to meet an enthusiastic tandem couple. They knew what they were doing, but advised us against riding the Old Ghost Road and the Paparoa Track. I’ll let you ponder the probability that we will take that advice 😛. We might even meet up with them up in the North Island where they live in a month or so! 👻

The main purpose of today’s leg was to visit the Fox Glacier. Due to “the largest active landslide in New Zealand,” the route on the other side of the river was closed. We had scoped that route out on Strava, and were confused because on the segments, people had gone out there, but the heat map was pretty much blank. A little trail-side sign saying to turn back wasn’t about to stop us until we figured it out: the segments were from 2013… whereas the heat map was from 2022-2023. A knocked down tree was the final clincher – we turned back and went the way you’re supposed to go – on the South side of the river. Indeed, the views of this glacier aren’t as amazing as I had hoped – but if you’re not afraid of helicopters, you can fly out to get a better look. I’m really happy we made the effort to hike/bike to the Rob Roy glacier, which was much closer than Fox. 🦊

And the final camp! On top of gravel to keep the bottom from soaking through! We had to go past two fences (one of which we temporarily removed from the hinges (don’t worry – we put it back!)) This kept us safer from the riff raff.. but maybe more at risk in case an official person came. Luckily no one did and we got outta there at first light!

This is along the West Coast Wilderness Trail. The thing that really got me into cycling when I was a kid was the freedom of being able to go far away places. As I got older and now didn’t need permission to go further and further, I was always astounded by how much progress you could make down a road with just a bicycle. Riding roads is how I got into it. Now, after the last 4 days of riding pavement, the realization has really sunk in that I no longer enjoy road riding. It isn’t the pavement per-se, but just the constant fear of cars. Levels of traffic that I used to deem as “light” now feel like heavy traffic. Hwy 6 really didn’t have THAT much traffic (the other cyclists thought it was great)! Luckily, today was spent almost entirely on the “West Coast Wilderness Trail.” It’s not wilderness by USA standards, but it was total delight to ride and be away from cars! 🚗

In NZ, it’s “single and a half” track. Most trails so far are on raised, compressed gravel. It is an amazing surface for cycling – you still get that gravel crunch sound – but it is efficient to ride and drains heavy rain easily.

Camp sweet hut! There are two huts next to each other up near the ridge. One of the huts, you have to reserve so you can sleep crowded in with 16 people. It boasts a kitchen, lights, running water, and excellent construction. The other, more humble hut is kind of an emergency shelter – but room for 3. When we arrived, one guy named Andy decided to default on his reservation at the big hut citing that he wasn’t excited about sleeping with 15 other people. We weren’t too excited about sleeping with Andy, but he turned out to be a nice quiet guy and it worked out well with all 3 of us in our quiet, mostly fart-free hut!

Morning view from our cabin. We shared the cabin with a hiker named Andy. He got up early like us – but he split long before this photo. He was a good cabin-mate. In other countries, we have always had the non-reservable wilderness cabins to ourselves. We are kind of spoiled in that way. In NZ, there are just lots of people traveling similarly to us meaning it is hard to reserve huts, camping, or lodging of any sort. There is not any flat ground along Paparoa, otherwise, we would have tent camped in bliss!

The morning began well for us – climbing on loose rocks but no rain in the forecast at least! ⛅️

At first I was bummed! We climbed into the clouds and the infamous ridge of Paparoa looked like it would have no visibility…

This is on the Paparoa Track. Then the sun came out! Just in time for us to ride by this notch! The sheer drop off was staggering.

More Paparoa Track. From this angle, it looks like you’re close to the edge, but Janet and I simultaneously commented that in spite of all the warnings, this is a lot more tame than the Porcupine Rim trail in Utah.

It’s the Paparoa track. Janet and i were excited to do this trail from the get-go, and it did not disappoint! Plenty of rowdy riding and just right for the tandem.

Took a day off to hide out from the rain. Clearing skies predicted for tomorrow. Let’s go to the beach!

Long exposure with polarizing filter. Looking for penguins

We missed the Pancake rocks and blowholes on our way to the lodging the other day. The weather was unsettled, so we retraced our steps to pay a visit to this formation and a cavern along the way. We have been hoping to see penguins, but so far all the signs make it sound like we are about one month too late for them.

Janet and i were able to take pieces of a trail that is still in the process of being built. We passed by a beautiful Co-Motion Java tandem parked at a cafe. Further down the trail, we were stopped for some insulin top-off and Justin, Laura, and Matt (not pictured) rolled up. Justin is working here for 6 months as a nurse. There is a big demand for that here because médics get paid better in Australia- so they all leave NZ. He said here on the west coast, there aren’t permanent doctors at the clinics and hospitals. The few doctors just travel up and down the coast, so if you live in Westport (for example), the doctor is “in” on Monday only. It’s easy to complain about our own health care system, but I keep seeing issues in other countries as well. Anyway we couldn’t stop talking to these guys about all sorts of topics (including tandems!!) and they invited us to stay with them! I’m so grateful for Janet’s willingness to travel “seat of the pants” style because without pre-existing plans, it opens up the opportunity for us to say “yes” to new cool experiences and friendships. Matt took this picture of us with Justin and Laura. Laura just retired and she has a multitude of interests such as learning Italian, playing the harp, and writing. She is writing a book called “She’s not pedaling” – the stupid refrain that Tandem riders hear almost daily like a cat-call while riding past people who think they just came up with the funniest comment in the world. Laura sent us the intro to the book and Janet and I are excited to start reading it tonight (it looks like it will be funny so we may share some bits with you). Matt and Justin will be riding the Old Ghost trail in the opposite direction of us – so we will be seeing them again soon; they started today to celebrate Justin’s birthday.

Saw Matt and Justin a couple days later – they were riding the Old Ghost Road in the opposite direction of us.

People kept telling us we were going the wrong direction – because they thought it would be easier to go down the Skyline Steps instead of going up. For us, with the tandem, it was no big deal to just carry the tandem up the stairs. I think it would have been harder for us to go down because I wouldn’t have been able to carry the bike, and would have had to use the brakes to somehow negotiate the bike down the stairs. I can’t really imagine doing that.

Probably the first time New Zealand crossed my radar as a cycling destination was many years ago when I saw some friends’ post about Mountain Biking “The Old Ghost Road.” Their pictures of tight singletrack in the rainforest were tantalizing, and so were the descriptions… fun fun fun…. Years later, when researching the Tour Aotearoa route, I sought to see how we could integrate this trail into the TA route.

Every person we met along the trail had some sort of warning for us. The stairs would be impossible to go up on a tandem, we wouldn’t be able to ride the tandem on the trails; it would be too hard or impossible; we are going to need 3 days to do it; we wouldn’t make it to Blackball in 2 days, “Did anyone tell you about this trail? You’re going to have to turn back.” With all of these warnings, it set our expectations nice and low – so each time we encountered one of the “challenges”, we just kind of laughed them off. Here is Janet carrying the LBJ up the steps with good footing and no risk of slipping backward more than you walked forward 😂. Much easier than ascending this grade on loose rock. I wish I could go back and tell the naysayers that we made it! 🇲🇽

In spite of the name, The Old Ghost Road is actually a singletrack trail. It is a highly developed, extremely well maintained, machine built trail meaning that it is challenging, but also very rideable. There are no “services” along the way, but quite a few reservable well-sealed huts with stoves and water so you can sleep indoors with 19 other people. That’s not our cup of tea – so we elected to camp instead. If you’re a mountain biker who doesn’t want to carry as much stuff – but wants to do an overnight – and don’t mind the risk of snoring and farting* cabin mates, this would be a very fun tour. *We have heard stories 💨

We wanted to take a drone shot of us on the switchback climb, but it was impossible to see us. I think we were on a switchback above what you can see here maybe? Anyway, a photo of us wouldn’t have looked good because of the scale. I did have to walk more than half of these switchbacks due to loose rock in the turns – but someone (like a certain Sorcerer®) with a single bike could ride these with ease.

The high elevation cabin on the Old Ghost Road.

A lot happened today… but the most fun happening is that we got to ride the rest of the OGR (Old Ghost Road). This trail was fantastic and I can see why everyone loves it so much. Well built, well maintained, not too many people (due to the hut system requiring reservations). Fantastic views both along the ridge as well as at the bottom on either end. Enough challenge to keep it interesting, but never too hard. This trail has it all.

This is aptly named “Heaven’s door”. Maybe one of the most scenic bits of trail. We are so grateful that we got clear skies today. The riding up here was superb and well graded.

It’s nearly impossible to start the day with a dry tent in NZ. In fact, on non-rainy nights, the tent actually gets wetter than if it were raining!?! It seems that the dew point causes us to get condensation inside the fly as well as on the outside. Our routine is to shake the fly in the morning, pack it wet, and then do some sun-drying at the first opportunity of strong rays. A cell signal during drying time is an added bonus so we can post-load Strava updates!

At the hostel/campground, we met Kate and Rowan. Both nights, they kept us entertained with stories about their journey. They sold their house and started walking the TA route (the hiking version of what we are doing)… that was 6 months ago… The even had been carrying a 3kg pack-raft that could carry both of them and all their gear. You can imagine I was a bit jealous after the “build a raft” incident. Eventually they realized they wouldn’t make it to the South of NZ before winter – so they bought bikes and now they are bike touring… on their 5th day after all that hiking! The adjustment has been pretty major. If you need another couple to follow, here you go: https://kiwihobos.co.nz/ 🥾

This morning on the Tour AOTEAROA was grand. As we are going North, the weather is getting muggier. We are traveling opposite of the seasons. Another note: last night the time changed here. So, when we left California, the time difference was 3 hours (well actually 21 hours)… Then daylight savings began in California, so our buddies back home were 4 hours apart from us. Now, daylight savings ended here, putting us 5 hours off! From a jet lag perspective, coming here was a breeze! We will see how it is going home.

We went to the edge of Abel Tasman National Park. Didn’t go in because there isn’t really stuff for bicycles – but a good place to swim in the not cold (but not hot) water. I was surprised to find the water that got into my mouth was practically fresh water – no salinity!? Wonder why that is?

Janet and I saw an icon for bathrooms and a picnic table on Open Street Map. Let’s make it our destination! 🤞 When we arrived, it looked good – what you see here. We had to ascend a steeply rutted road to get here so assumed no cars would come. After a nice dinner and discovering that Janet got me back for losing her socks (by losing my shorts), we settled in to relax. Moments later some stinky vehicles came up the road. One struggled and spun around a lot. Then a dog came and jumped on the tent. Uh oh. NZ rednecks. 😆. The two cars pulled alongside each other shining their lights on the tent. They exchanged lots of words – most of what we couldn’t hear. Then they both peeled out spraying gravel as one of the kids yells out the window, “SORRY FOR DISTURBING THE PEACE!!”

Janet found an amazing alternative route to get into Havelock today. It avoided HWY from Pylorus bridge and took us on an interesting gravel road. Major kudos to her. 🙏 We did have to go 0.6 miles on a no-bikes-allowed trail to make the connection, but after seeing all the big trucks on the shoulderless road, we knew we’d risk offending some hikers vs risking our lives. Luckily, we only met one group of hikers and they were happy to see us and asked us to take their photo. We have been told that the death rate on NZ roads is double that of other countries… or the EU as a whole. Someone told us it was the highest in the developed world. I haven’t fact checked that yet, but having seen how people drive, I feel like I can say it rivals the worst countries we have been to for drivers caring about the lives of cyclists. Luckily, we have been mostly on bike routes and gravel roads – but sometimes we do need to ride on the main road.

We both slept well and were excited about today’s ride. It did have a reputation of being one of the harder sections of the TA route, but after we did that hike-a-bike towards Doubtful Sound, we feel well prepared for this section. The morning delighted us with partial low clouds.

Spooky morning fog. Happy climbing in the cool

As Janet and I were pedaling up the hill, a guy on a quad (side by side) stopped us. “You aren’t going to be able to make it, you know that right? I had to rescue other cyclists. I live at the top of the hill and they had to catch a bus and go around..”. Janet and I queried if the pass was open. “It’s open, but it is really rough. I don’t think you will make it over.” I told him that those other people may have been riding gravel bikes, but we had a “full suspension bike.” He eyed our bike and said, “no, they had nice bikes like yours, and they still couldn’t make it.” Anyway, he wasn’t going to stop us and we carried on. The road did get rockier and we had to walk, but it was much better than riding on deadly Hwy 6! When we got to the top, Cara (pictured) and Scott showed up on real mountain bikes coming from the other side. They are riding the whole TA. Neither one of them even said the climb they had just gone up was hard! Obviously they were well prepared cyclists. Not sure what that quad guy was talking about, but I do wonder if people are getting a little too entrenched in riding gravel bikes on terrain best suited to MTBs. Happy to see this smiling couple with no complaints or worries at the top of the pass!

We found a small campsite nestled on the side of the hill. It is absolutely beautiful here. As we ate dinner we stood and watched the changing color of the skies – constantly getting a new view and set of colors.

And then the moon came out! 🌚

Even with no coffee stop on the agenda, the morning did not disappoint! Although our things are perpetually wet from 8pm until 10am, I do enjoy the beauty that all this water-in-the-wrong-places provides.

Sitting in Limbo! Everyone has been telling us about the major catastrophe where there is no ferry space between the South and North island of NZ. This is because one company has had many of their boats break down due to lack of maintenance. Also it is related to the cyclone that hit the week before we arrived. Janet and I took it casually – we figured a bike is easy to get on the ferry compared to a car. Since we would be arriving the day after tomorrow at the ferry terminal, we decided it was a good time to book a ticket. Oops! None available for 8 days! Janet can be a stubborn person on certain things (like finishing something she started – which is a good thing)… but blessedly, she is also supremely flexible – so after a few minutes of disappointment, we decided to book the ferry for the date 8 days away and do some more exploring on the South Island. Flexibility is 👑!

Last minute campsite views and a new hope for tomorrow…

Janet and I had a ferry scheduled to take us from the end of the trail to the “big port” where we would catch the inter-island ferry in 8 days. Ferry was booked for 2:30pm, but we realized that the quality of our day would be much better if we didn’t end the day after dark – so we “dropped the hammer” and gave it everything we had to try and make the 10:30 ferry instead. For me, this was about an hour of high threshold effort. No time for pictures, and “flying” though the trail (which was fun) at a whopping 5 mph. I calculated that we maybe-kind-of couldn’t make it – but still put forth the effort as if we could – and we got there early! They accepted our impromptu time change and this would lead to a cascade of good following events!

Some cyclists arrived at the dock when the wind blew their helmet into the water! It turns out that the guy who lost his helmet did not like water, but I was happy to jump in and get the helmet because I had just swam in the (relatively) warm water.

Janet and I changed our ferry reservation because they repaired the broken down ferry! We were able to get it in 2 days instead of 8. We had already decided against Hamner Springs (due to rain and probably snow)…. So we decided to do an all-quiet-road-and-trail loop to enjoy the 2 “burner” days. Yesterday’s leg challenged us with lots of steep ascents, but we didn’t mind so much until near the end when we got tired. Today, though, promised to be hard – on a steep singletrack trail… This is the Cullen Creek WALKway… Bikes are allowed, but not recommended.

This is the Cullen Creek WALKway… Bikes are allowed, but not recommended.

I’ll note that Janet did lots of trail work on the route – she would go ahead of me and toss off branches and even roll logs off the trail! Janet helped a lot!

The ascent was actually great. Steep, but rideable in sections. The biggest challenge was the slippery-like-ice hard packed mud (that looked like rock). We made good time up the hill and I was happy.

So, we found a place to put up the tent next to Sarah (seated; fishing). She warned us about camping next to her, “I’m a hooligan and you’re going to have to put up with my shenanigans,” she introduced herself. We joked around with her and sensible Janet gave the green light for camping here; she seemed safe. We asked what her shenanigans were and she said, “well I’m going to be playing NZ music.” I asked what that is and she just gave me a scrunched up face.., but as the night progressed,I didn’t mind the playlist of Tracy Chapman, Gordon Lightwood, Fun, Simon and Garfunkel,etc. 🤔. Next she told us there were bats here, and I spouted off my knowledge bestowed by Nancy Prier, “bats are the only native mammals in NZ!” She corrected me: “Bats are marsupials not mammals!” I wearily pointed out that even given the activities of being a marsupial and being a mammal are mutually exclusive, now that we are discussing this: bats are not marsupials, ** to which she replied, “no, they are marsupials, not mammals! “I should know because I’m a Montessori teacher,” she witted as she took a drag from her marijuana joint, “you know I do the drug; that’s why I burn this incense.” Next she told us the largest insect in the world lives here: the Giant Wētā (look it up)! A lot of interactions happening here – I could write a short story on the evening camping by Sarah. Janet and I eventually retired to the tent when a drunk guy pulled up to stay here as well. He walked right up to her and got extremely close to her (ignoring us). It appeared that he knew her by his body language and proximity- but he didn’t! He started asking her name and basically hitting on her, asking why she was single (to which she replied, “I’m particular”). They drank, hugged, and did drugs together just outside our door – worrying me about safety as the night would progress. He began slurring to her “I’m your friend. I’d never do anything to hurt you.” I wondered if we would have to go out and protect her, and I thought, “guns are illegal in NZ… so we could probably safely help her.” Then I thought, “wait a minute, this lady Sarah could probably take out me, Janet, and the drunk guy all with one blow.” She seemed a lot tougher than him or your narrator the Lycra-clad-lad.

Janet and I survived last night camped next to Sarah and the drunk guy described in yesterday’s post. I was pretty worried, but by 10:30pm, I think they got drunk and high enough that they passed out. Before bed, though, they did team up with Dave – a nearby camper in a curvy bus-like vehicle. All I know about Dave is that I could see that he and his partner had MOST of their shades drawn – but not drawn enough for me to NOT see them dancing some sloppy boogie-woogie in their limited space. I almost took a video for you, but wasn’t sure about privacy laws here.

It’s time to leave the South Island and begin exploring the North. The South is known for being more “outdoorsy” and the North maybe more populated. My favorite aspect of NZ here at the halfway point has been the mountain bike trails (quality of building, and how fun these trails are). Also really liking the food options in small towns. Not especially impressed with the caliber of the drivers (for example, today I saw a guy slowing as we stood in the crosswalk… I said to Janet, “this may be the first time someone let us cross!” Nope, he was slowing to make a left turn right in front of us). I enjoy comparing countries, and there are many categories / aspects plus and minus for each… but Janet and I talked about it this morning, and in spite of some shortcomings, our favorite country is still home!

Taking the ferry from the South Island – to begin a new adventure in the North Island.

Love birds 💕 like me and Janet!

Welcome to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Did you think Auckland was the capital? If so, you’re not alone; I thought that too! Janet and I are going to take one of our longest bike touring breaks ever here (3 full days!). We spent the last 7 days in a row traversing quite difficult mountain bike terrain and would like to recover a bit. Oh, and it’s predicted to rain every day in the foreseeable future – so there is that too!

Janet and I went to the New Zealand Museum in Wellington. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. This tidbit may come in handy if you choose the blue category in Trivial Pursuit. Speaking of Trivia, I happened to be reading front page news here, and there is a shortage of public toilets in this area! Did you know there are “only” 40 public toilets per 100,000 people in Wellington? That is a shortage in NZ, but one of the excuses for not building more is that public toilets may encourage “antisocial behavior”. If you saw our “Toilet Time” episode #44, you are “privy” to us flipping this antisocial toilet behavior on its “head.” And one more bit of trivia for you: New York City only has 4 public toilets per 100,000 – a tenth of the dunnys in Welly.

Me performing a Haka for Janet. Or maybe just a photobomb…

We were riding through an industrial part of town – past places that looked like the NZ versions of Home Depot. I had been thinking lately that a tent footprint would be useful. Normally I eschew this expensive extra piece of fabric because of the weight and packing space required, but in NZ more than other trips, we have had to set up the tent on soggy ground. This means that you instantly have a damp floor. We have been working around that by putting plastic bags on the tent floor, our pac towel, and our ground pads. Here is the deal with the footprints sold by manufacturers: they aren’t waterproof either – so basically you’re looking at a one minute delay before the soggy ground wets out two icees of fabric instead of one. I’ve heard that Tyvec (used for house wrap to keep moisture out) is a better product because it is abrasion resistant and somewhat waterproof. If you have ever used a flat non cardboard mailing envelope in the US, you may have felt this material. I wanted to go into the store and try buying some Tyvec, but then Janet had a better idea (a free one; always better!). She saw the plastic wrap that the lumber was delivered in, and said, “could we use that?” One dumpster dive later and some scissor action, and we had a perfectly cut footprint made from some relatively thick plastic. It will definitely be waterproof, but it did have some small holes. It’s maybe not as light as tyvec and we have to strap it outside because we are strapped for space, but we will let you know if it works! **Hint: It DID work, and saved us many times over!!

Hooray for rail trails! This is the Remutaka Rail Trail.

Now that Easter is over, we are finally into the real “shoulder season” here. Contrary to other legs of the Tour AOTEAROA route where we would see many touring cyclists per day, we didn’t really see any active distance tourists today. Although it’s fun to meet people, I do kind of prefer quiet solitude and less competition for resources. When we got to this campground, we found it was empty. All the signs warned “no camping here” (under various trees) due to risk of branches falling. That is a good warning – because even though it is rare – people have occasionally been killed by falling branches. Please always consider that when selecting your campsite!! Anyway, we paid heed to the signs, and noticed that the practically the only place that didn’t have prohibitory signs was this nice little “rail station.” We took that as a sign and camped sheltered from the rain that fell periodically during the night. We did have to share the space with some roof rats (or perhaps possums) that lived in the rafters above us. Never saw them, but they scratched about peacefully above us weathering the storm like us – in style!

Janet always apologizes to me if I have to carry the bike. I tell her: “People pay lots of money to lift heavy things in front of a mirror. I get to do this free in front of good scenery too!” I’m serious when I say this. As long as my legs aren’t getting all cut up from bushwhacking or things are breaking on the bike from us sliding down slopes, it’s just using muscles that if I didn’t use would otherwise wither away anyway. As cyclists, many of our upper bodies are atrophied, so having to carry a bike now and then is a good thing as far as I can tell.

Crossing the river was actually the easy part. Handling the bike down and then up the flanking banks was tedious. Luckily, Janet is game for challenges!

Maybe you heard about the cyclone Gabrielle that hit New Zealand? It hit in February, a couple days before we landed in NZ 🛬. The Auckland airport was flooded 3 feet deep right before we got here… and now that we are on the North Island, we are seeing the results of that destruction. An example was that blown out bridge in yesterday’s post. Even in this bridge, you can see the accumulation of the debris. All the rivers are still running muddy – after all the crystal clear rivers we enjoyed in the South Island. So far, we have been able to do our planned route – many landslides (which they call “slips” here) have already been cleared.

Today was just a great day. Now the fall colors are in full swing, and apart from a 3 mile stint on the main highway, the rest of our ride was on backroads or gravel. Simply a great day of riding and feeling good.

Looking for camp at the end of the day. The last road of the day was one of the best – very quiet and no signs of people… just sheep and cows in rolling hills and forested terrain. We saw a sign on a side road indicating that it was for 4×4 bicycles (huh 🧐?) only… that seemed right for us. We found a flat enough spot and put up our tent. Then we took our usual naked showers from water bottles and climbed into the tent to eat and chat. But we kept hearing creepy noises. One noise, Janet identified as a bird flying through the trees. I disagreed, but decided to accept that because it was less scary. Then we heard what I was sure was human voices… but who would be out here? Sometimes a sheep’s “baaaaaaa” can sound like a human voice…. I tried to ease up and for the night, and put in my earplugs….

Remember those scary human voices we heard last night? Turns out that two women had been planning to bike camp in the same spot we did last night (but we got there first)! There really were people in that valley! They saw our tent and thought we were hunters so they camped elsewhere… funny because I thought the noises may have been coming from hunters also. We rode along with them – surprised that they had elected to ride this road instead of the official bike route… turns out they were more or less locals on a 6 day loop. As we rode side by side, we saw a calf that had escaped the fence. One of the girls wanted to reunite the calf with it’s bellowing mom, so she opened the gate as Janet and the other girl herded the calf. As cute as Janet is, she’s not a sheepdog, and herding proved challenging! The calf tried to bust through the fence multiple times, to the point where I thought we were hurting calves better than we were herding them! Eventually the calf exploded through the fence instead of the gate. Happy to be at peace with mum. — Obviously this road has seen many landslides. The topography and the fact that Google street view didn’t go very far up the road are reasons why I thought it may not go through. Luckily, no issues and many sections like this with great scenery.

Today would end up being out best road of the trip! Oddly, this is NOT an official bike route. One can find National Bike Routes on various maps – including Open Street Map, but what I keep finding over and over is that the “official bike routes” are sometimes less to my liking than the backroads we find through careful investigation. In fact, I kept asking myself: “does this road go through? Why wouldn’t they have made THIS the bike route? There must be something wrong with it”. My theory is that the bike routes seek to connect commercial interests (i.e. places where people can spend $$) – and in order to have that, you need services… and in order to have services, you need cars. Maybe that is why? Hard to say, but the road we took today does indeed go through and it is amazing and car free.

Best part of the route!

I rode up as far as I could towards the Mount Ruapehu volcano from Ohakune. Then I hid my bike amongst the rocks and began hiking…

Luckily the clouds cleared for a clear view of the crater in Mount Ruapehu!

Janet’s Birthday!

After the volcano trip, we took a couple more rest days. This was mostly because of the weather, but partly because we knew rest would be good for us. We are getting better at resting and I think we have more fun as a result. Anyway, we also spent quite a bit of time analyzing the upcoming route. The official TA route didn’t even go to the volcano, so this has been a side trip to begin with. We planned to rejoin the official route – right where you would need to take a 20 mile jet boat ride up river due to a missing chunk of trail (they drop you off at an aptly named spot called “bridge to nowhere”. Much analysis on satellite, street view and blogs revealed that the Old Coach Road would probably be more fun for us than riding the pavement down to the river – only to take an expensive boat ride to a muddy trail where cyclists have died slipping off the side! We think we made the right choice because this morning’s trail was very fun and scenic!

Janet and I pulled over just as “Willie” showed up. He started cycling at the bottom of the South Island the exact same day as us… and he has already ridden to the top of the North island and is now on his way back to his home in the South – mostly following the TA route (though he made the same decision as us about the muddy trail and boat ride – to skip it). We enjoyed talking to him – though he did seem like he may have been riding alone for quite a long time. He told us about the muddy route ahead of us – as well as some super important information: There is a shelter at a campground – right about the perfect distance for us to stop for the night. He also told us that there were some “friendly goats” ahead as he smiled. 🐐

Today Janet and I did a short side route to check out a campground. A frazzled woman came up to me and said a bunch of stuff I didn’t understand. I asked her to repeat herself and she said, “I don’t know how to explain this, but do you have something to remove a fishing hook?” I saw a small boy of about 7 years leaning on the van behind her. His eyes were red and he looked worried. I suddenly noticed that he had a very large hook embedded in his chest. What were these guys fishing for that they needed such large hooks!? Anyway I got out my pliers, and handed them to the man nearby as he started working on the patient – first cutting away his shirt with the knife. I wanted to suggest that they push the hook through in an arch to get the pointy end out – then cut it at the old entry point and pull it out with the pliers by the pointy end (so they wouldn’t have to pull the barb backward which would have been devastatingly painful)… but I didn’t feel it was my place. It started to become clear that neither the man nor the woman were his parents… (the woman asked the boy something about what his mom would do…). I noticed that in his right hand, he was gripping a small chocolate bar – probably to make him feel better about this situation. Before we could get into the nitty gritty of hook removal, someone announced that there was a nurse who was fishing – she would come take a look. She sauntered over – all kitted up in her fishing gear. She took a look at the injury and suggested that maybe they could take the kid to a center where it could be removed. This sounded like a good idea… it would probably be less likely to get infected and they could give him something for the pain. But we were pretty remote, so I asked the nurse lady, “how far away is it?” She replied, “well… tomorrow is Monday, so they should be open by then.” I said, “wait, are you serious?” She looked at me sincerely and said, “it won’t get infected by tomorrow. Yeah!” A couple more fishermen came along to inspect it and poke and wiggle the hook a little bit. Not so much sympathy for the kid, but instead this was just something interesting. So then we asked the kid if it hurt if he didn’t move it or touch it. He kind of grimaced, but then shook his head “no.” So it was settled; his kid friends came over and he relaxed a bit and they kind of puttered about as if there wasn’t a big hook in his pectorals anymore. He’d get it pulled out tomorrow by the proper people and I got my knife and antibiotic cream back. When I was a kid, I thought adults knew everything, but really we adults are just like bik kids bumbling about with our “best guesses”.

We knew the trail would be muddy. A couple cyclists coming towards us were pretty well coated… and they hadn’t even gone this far. In fact there was a lone tire track in this mud; presumably belonging to Willy as he had come through here just this morning. When we finally stopped, we didn’t even clean the chocolate pudding coated chain, brake calipers or brake arches. It is going to be a crunchy ride tomorrow – but we still have 6 more miles of this atrocious mud. That may not sound like much until you consider how long it took us to go through the last 4 miles of it! I’ve been learning how to just not worry about this kind of stuff and shelve it for tomorrow. Instead, we had a nice candlelight dinner at our camping shelter.

This is along the Mountains-to-the-Sea route; the portion along the Kaiwhakaka trail. This section is notorious for being super muddy (and dangerous as a result of being slippery). They seemed to be doing work to fix the trail by laying down gravel. Not done yet..

Hey, a nice way to start the day to keep our minds off the mud! Let’s go visit a sweet waterfall

Our coldest morning yet… freezing temperatures, but we were warm inside the tent. I’ve improved my sleeping system somewhat so I can use a lighter weight sleeping bag in colder temperatures.

In the middle of nowhere, on the side of the road: exactly what we needed! Wow! Why is this here? Thanks, New Zealand; that was cool. No more mud shadow (for a few miles at least)…

Janet on the Timber Trail. This was our ~3rd favorite trail in NZ after Ghost Road and Paparoa Track.

We shoved the tent into this shelter- good thing because it did rain a bit. This is luxury camping for us!! Glamping

This guy doesn’t mind the rain! 🐸

Janet and I have been utilizing these shelters… just a little too small for the tent.. but we will take it! Every night in New Zealand is like a rainy night – even if it the skies are completely clear! Waiting out the drizzle before a full day of 100% fun singletrack!!!

Timber Trail.

Janet atop the picnic table near our camp. I went to fetch a pail of water while Janet built the tent. It was a beautiful spot to sleep as you can see. At 4am, though, some critter thought our place was a good location to do some wood scratching. I never found him (or her). I couldn’t help but wonder if we were listening to the calls and cries of the several endangered species that we had been reading about on signboards along the way. Many of these are species that only come out at night. Too bad we are not experts in identifying bird calls.

This is the bridge with a hole in it. At first glance it looked like an easy crossing – but I soon found that I couldn’t just walk the bike along the path. At first I tried removing the rear handlebar and turning the front bar 90 degrees – but even then the bike caught on the sides, and the pedals kept snagging the chain-link. There wasn’t anywhere for me to walk. I decided to heft the bike over my head, using my helmet as a balance point because of my weak T-Rex 🦖 arms. This worked but I couldn’t look where I was going and stepped through a hole in the chain link! This cut my leg as it dropped through the hole. The bike stopped because it landed on either edge of the cable, and I caught my body by snagging my elbow on the wire. It wasn’t very good, but considering what happened, my injuries were minor.

Hot Springs at Taupo. These are free and worth the relatively short trip down a trail to get there!

Coffee – Jed’s was our favorite coffee – sold like “tea bags” in most stores. Here is a story from Friday about Janet. We go to a store to buy Nikwax (a non-detergent solution that should clean the tent). We ask the lady behind the counter, “how much is the Tech Wash?” She says, “You can’t use tech wash to clean tents. It is only made for clothes!” I have used this product many times on tents, so I tell her such. She says, “well, it shouldn’t work…. It’s not meant to clean tents. We have this other product for cleaning tents.” I started to doubt myself: Maybe I have been using the wrong product this whole time? That is when Janet pipes up, “maybe it isn’t working; the tent does keep getting dirty!” 😂 I had a good hearty laugh at that one, but not the sales clerk! She just kept up her spiel about how it wouldn’t work! 🤓

This hot spring is called “Hot and Cold”. Luckily, it wasn’t cold! It’s a flowing hot river and turned out to be really nice. Some reviews said that it was trashy, but the place was really clean and not very crowded when we arrived. Maybe because it was an overcast, rainy day?

Our second hot spring of the day was Kerosene Creek – another free hot spring. I really liked this one due to the beautiful natural setting. Also, because it was a long hot river, we were easily able to find a spot just for us. Of course, it was drizzling so maybe that is why there weren’t too many people here.

We began the day taking the trail from Kerosene Creek to Crater Lake. The trail was fairly overgrown, muddy, and it was raining. We weren’t anticipating it to be so hard (it was a grade 2 out of 5)! In retrospect, I’m glad we did it – but at the time, I felt grumbly!

Today we endeavored to avoid the paved roads, which we managed for all but a very short distance. The trails today were actually great! Lots of singletrack (albeit slippery) through Rotarua’s famous mountain bike park. We thought were the only ones foolish enough to be riding there until at the very end we saw what must have been the local high school mountain bike team – some 9 teenage guys and girls rippin’ the trails. By the way, did you notice this is a redwood forest? Felt like home in the Santa Cruz mountains!

Lots of fun riding the Taupo Trails! The trails were wet and muddy (and slippery in places), but we had a blast and the whole park to ourselves it seemed.

Janet in the Puarenga trail. There were more trails we could have done (have to plan ahead because several are one-way). The loaded tandem in soaked conditions isn’t the optimal setup/time to be doing these trails. We opted for mostly the “Grade 1” (easy) trails today.

In the Early Morning Rain… 🎶 I’m a long way from home; lord I miss my loved ones so. 🎶

Today started with wet drizzle, but that doesn’t mean it was bad! Good singletrack trails and a quick visit with the French couple who told us briefly about their trip across Asia from France to Singapore. “Just Do It!” Said Fanny. I liked her attitude, and carried some of her inspiration as we left the singletrack and enjoyed beautiful car free farm roads.

Soon we got to the “Waikato” trail. A couple weeks ago, a guy had been raving about the “White Kettle Trail.” I looked on my map and said, “I can’t find it.” He repeated what I thought was “White Kettle”… but finally I realized he was saying “Waikato.” Good news: The route I made in December already planned on doing the whole trail! “It’s really good,” he said. So far, he is right!!! We had a blast.

Stop by a large hydroelectric dam. Still in great moods and the rain is easing up. 💥

A happy day, made a bit somber when my friend Dennis wrote to let me know that Gordon Lightfoot had died. Janet had gone to his concert with Roberta Flack in 1974. We both like his music and dedicated the ride title to one of his songs (which seemed to be somewhat appropriate for today). Then we danced around a bit singing along to a few of his songs from “Gord’s Gold”, all while listening to variety of birds and fish jumping in the river. An excellent day all around, except for the news.

Non-stop rain was predicted… so when it stopped, so did we – to enjoy the scenery! I soothed my soul listening to the fish jump, the birds cry (or whatever combination of noises they were making), and watch the moon rise.

The Waikato trail does not disappoint! Wow! It’s a 10/10 on surface quality – in fact, in rain it is better than riding the road because the gravel drains better than sealed pavement. It hasn’t been very technical so far, just fun swoops twists and turns. We want to savor it – and we did – honestly having fun in spite of the rain that came down most of the time (I took this photo during a break in the cascade). Along the way, we saw signs saying “metal* for this trail donated by J.Swap”. THANK YOU J.Swap contractors. Today was sweet-as.

At first we thought this was a lookout… but it was the trail. 🙊. No problem; quick go-around on the side of the road. Actually turned out to be a great lookout too.

The muddy Waikato Trail…

The Waikato continued to be fun and swoopy in the morning. We aren’t bothered as much by the rain (while riding) now. Partly because the surface is so good.

In spite of all of my efforts, the cable housing was giving us tons of trouble. During our recent Honduras trip, we had some serious mud and more than double the climbing (and extremely steep; mud and climbing are both known drivetrain killers).. but New Zealand has actually caused more rapid destruction due to the ever present moisture. I’ve mentioned this before, but even if it doesn’t rain, everything is wet all the time due to the humidity (or dew point maybe).. anyway the drivetrain was doing all sorts of crazy ghost shifting, and I’ve never trained lifting weights 🏋️‍♀️ with my thumb… it was taking tons of force to move the lever. We found a shop that was in a tiny town – and they had 9speed stuff… and no mechanic on duty. No problem! I wouldn’t trust someone to work on my bike anyway! The guy behind the register said, “look, I don’t know much about bikes, but sounds like you do. You can work on it in the stand if you want”. YES!! All we really needed was new cable housing (normally I like to “use up” the chain and cassette and then buy a whole new drivetrain for the next trip when we get home…) We only have 2.5 weeks left, but the grit was sucking the joy out of me. And bike travel is supposed to be about joy, not suffering…

Like many of the trails in this part of the North Island, there is some form of cyclone damage from the storm that hit the week before we arrived. Many main routes have been closed – let alone these sneaky passages that we find. As you saw yesterday, we encountered two sections of impassable trail. One we found an alternative, but the other resulted in a big turn around. Today was looking grim – we might have to turn back. We encountered a huge washout just after this photo was taken. Not only was it washed out – but importantly, it was covered with thorny brambles.

And eventually we encountered some nice trail! This is where the fun part began, because about an hour after this the rain started to really back off. We ended up riding a nice long section of singletrack that made the connection we needed to avoid the roads!

Not to be deterred, we spent some time and worked out some go-arounds… (Photo credit: Janet)

… and then we came to the beach! Janet has been wanting to see the beach again…

We just rode the packed beach sand for 5 miles! It was a super highlight! We had a quartering wind, managing 17 mph in super high spirits! It would have been fun no matter what, but after having gone through so many challenges lately, it was a supreme high! As any drug addict will explain: The highs get higher when the lows are lower. Hmm not sure is this is a good thing 🤔 but right now, we will take it!

Today we got to meet Mark and Hana! I was very excited to meet these guys, as they are veterans of bikepacking and we have followed each others’ tracks over the last 6 years. You may remember in 2019 when we did their Cuchumatanes Route in Guatemala which we loved… and then again last we we followed sections of their TransMexico Norte route and most of their TransMexico Sur route. Mark and Hana have become somewhat famous in the bikepacking world for their challenging routes that they have designed and shared. The routes tend to be a bit understated in difficulty 😉. They also have authored 2 other routes (Camino del Puma and Capitan Lemos (see the Capitan Lemos comments to get an idea of what I mean about difficulty understatement haha)). You can find all their routes here: https://bikepacking.com/author/highluxphoto/ Whenever we find ourselves faced with pushing through long stretches of mud, or down-scaling walls with a bike, or having to cross tightrope lines with a bike, we alway think of them first: “Mark and Hana would do this!” So we knew beforehand that we would really enjoy meeting these kindred spirts who have been to some amazing places. Just last week, they returned from a 6 month journey in Chile/Argentina. They are so dedicated to experiencing a place that they spent several days repeatedly trying to view some peaks in the “just right” weather. Their blog a fun one to follow if not just for the professional eye-candy photos alone… you can escape into mountain-dream-land with their stunning mountain photography (this is worth the click; especially the most recent posts if you love mountain light photos): https://www.highlux.co.nz Also, if you like adventure stores, their narratives can be quite gripping at times…. such as the time Mark did a tyrolean traverse to retrieve a carriage to get their bikes across a river: https://www.highlux.co.nz/2022/12/argentina-el-sosneado-bardas-blancas-via-the-ruta-de-los-reales/ If you just want easy eye candy: https://www.instagram.com/beinghana/ https://www.instagram.com/highluxphoto/ We discussed how their routes through Mexico has actually changed things there. When Mark and Hana first went through certain regions, people were initially shy. But in some places, that is now changed; an example was when we met David and Marta in Chaucingo: https://www.strava.com/activities/6484392198 David told us that recently there have been many bikepackers through the region. Marta told us how it was great for her because the bikers stopped at her store to buy lots of stuff. They were so happy that bikes came through – and it’s thanks to Mark and Hana’s route that foreigners were finding these places. It’s good for both parties – partly because it helps the local economy, and partly because the great connections people make reduce xenophobia. So fun to meet Hana and Mark – and have so much to talk about!

Bypassing some pieces of highway with Mark and Hana. Actually, today’s road stretch was the best we have ridden in NZ because it may be the longest piece of road with a shoulder that we have ridden here. So not too bad!

This beach ride was even better than the last – no people or their pups – just lots of natural beauty (and Janet beauty)! Also tons of shells that crunched under the tires simulating gravel. Or maybe simulating broken glass.

While riding the beach, we encountered some flow that we decided to carry the bike across to protect the hubs.

That isn’t a lake normally. That is grazing land. Now you can see what the cyclone + tropical storm we just sustained has done to the area.

If you are what you eat, then I am the boss. The coffee boss! ☕️

Time to go to the hot water beach! 🏝️

If the sun comes out, so does the rain fly to dry. For the last month of our trip to New Zealand (apart from a single sunny day), we would only have a few minutes of sun here and there. Some days, there was never an opportunity to dry the tent during the entire day!

Todays objective was the hot water beach. You have to dig out your own hot tub in the sand and the hot water seeps in from below. Luckily, there was someone who had 2 shovels that we could borrow!

Soaking in the hot tub that we built together 😊

A local we met on the beach told us we could ride around the point… so we figured local advice is good. Well, not always! Several rain squalls hit and we had to lower the tires to 10psi to ride the sand (in some places we had to walk)… but then the sun came out and we changed our minds: Worth it!

Cold wind, tide moves in Shivers in the salty air

You may think the rain has gotten us down – but surprisingly, it hasn’t really. The rain has made the non-rainy times that much better. We appreciate those glimpses of sun and green when we get them!

It was all gravel today – and all smiles from both me and Janet. This was good – one of our best days in NZ. Just like last time we planned our own route that was not part of the official bike-route system, we are extremely happy. That isn’t to dis the NZ routes. All of the trail bike routes were spectacular; it’s just the road ones that scared us.

Planning the new route was fun. I found lots of gravel roads North of Raglan… but there wasn’t a way to get there. Janet did a great job here and searched the internet and found a French guy who directed her to Ian – who could take us across from Raglan for a car free day! Nice find, Janet! It was $40 NZD which is about $25 USD for the short ride. Worth every penny to avoid the roads.

Maybe the best day of the trip? Hard to say, but after so many days in a row of rain, the contrast makes this perfect car free day shine above the rest.

Visiting the Botanical Gardens in Auckland.

Leaving our AirBnB with packing materials we scavenged from the dumpsters (and a roll of pallet wrap that we purchased from a hardware store).

The bike – ready to fly. Once again, no charge to carry the tandem on the plane with Air New Zealand!

Likes and Dislikes about New Zealand

New zealand likes.

Trails: Many of NZ Trails cover relatively long distances. They are built to drain water and in most cases the surface is covered with gravel, which prevents the formation of mud.

Availability of outdoor gear: Quality replacement outdoor gear can be purchased pretty easily – even in smaller towns. It is not necessary to travel to the capital city to buy items such as tires, stove fuel, and high quality clothing.

Showers at the airport ! I get all hot and sweaty wrapping the bike. My stress is on HIGH because I fear flying plus having to manage the bike is stressful. Taking a shower after the bike is wrapped: super awesome.

Travel SIM: Spark has a 3 month plan. Our plan expires midnight tonight. We have been here exactly 90 days. That is exactly the max they give Americans here to stay (but you can extend it if needed). It fit our needs perfectly and worked well. Cell coverage is interesting here – sometimes in remote parts of the West Coast, they would have a micro cell tower that only served the parking lot! As a result, cell coverage was good enough for our needs. Cell pricing was fair as it has been in almost any country except the US. Those prices are in NZD, so you can multiply by 0.6

Weather: Don’t worry, this is going to go into the “dislikes” section as well…. But one positive of the weather that we experienced during 3 months here is that it was almost never “too cold” or “too hot.” We usually slept well getting cool air for sleep, but not being too cold during the day. Although persistent, the rain was always a warm rain in our experience.

Food : Some people have told us they don’t like the food in NZ, but I think they may be referring to restaurant food. We never gave restaurants a try, but we liked being able to buy a variety of produce, meats even in the smallest towns. In the US, towns this small might have a gas station with some junk food; in Latin America, maybe a house selling Candy… but in NZ, you can find a pretty well stocked grocer in all but the tiniest of villages. We also got wine periodically, which is hard to find in some countries.

Hiking: We did not do a lot of hiking trails. I had injured my foot before the trip, and this made it very painful for me to walk. However, the trails we did on the South Island took you to rugged terrain quickly (and without high altitudes). If you are an outdoorsy type, New Zealand seems best for hiking, second best for mountain biking, and a BAD IDEA for road cycling. My favorite places to go hiking are off trail routes in the California Sierra Nevada. Places like this, you can get away from crowds, and be in really rugged terrain. It’s my favorite! In New Zealand, those options exist too, but in most cases, it seems that you’re going to have to do a lot of bushwhacking or crossing swampy land… or maybe glacier travel. But if you are the type of hiker who likes multi day hikes in great scenery and enjoys sleeping inside huts and socializing with other people in the evening, this is definitely the number one activity that you can do in NZ. In fact, I think that hiking in NZ edges out Mountain Biking because there is so much infrastructure in place for long hikes (including a very organized hut system and bookable transport to and from the popular trailheads). Conversely, a bicycle becomes a burden the minute you leave a (safe) trail and have to connect to the next trail via a road. Since I prefer more “reclusive” wild hiking, I could tell that the organized hut system wasn’t quite best for me. Also, I prefer to travel “seat of the pants” style – and huts require a LOT of prep work unless you’re traveling after Easter or before Halloween. Luckily for us, we found a couple “no reservation” huts that we had to ourselves (except twice).

NEW ZEALAND DISLIKES

Sand Flies : Almost everywhere we went, except for the Eastern Side of the divide (on the South Island) had sand flies. These little critters leave painful scars that last for days.

The Roads : While the trails in New Zealand are well built, their roads are not. On the South Island, we did not find any roads with a shoulder, however people drive these narrow two-lane roads at US-Freeway speeds. In fact, if you’re a road cyclist, I would 100% absolutely encourage you to stay home or at least leave your bicycle at home and hike instead. Another option would be to hire a bike at a trail-head and ride the trails instead.

Lack of Empathy : People have told us that “kiwis are so nice.” Everyone’s experience is going to be different, but given that we spent 90 days here, I feel we have a more reliable assessment of the general culture than had we stayed 2 weeks. On several occasions, Janet and I would have to stop to do work on the bike. When this happens in other countries, I always have to prepare to say “thanks” a lot because most cars will stop and ask, “Are you OK?” Even worse, sometimes I will have hypoglycemia so severe that I need to lie down on the side of the road to recover. This is super embarrassing in other countries because people always stop to check on you. In New Zealand, no one stops. Ever. Not once. Well, actually one person stopped for us in 3 months, but she had a strong French accent. Maybe Kiwis have a “rugged independence” and they figure that they don’t need help and neither does anyone else? Although I really appreciated being left alone when we didn’t need help, it did make NZ feel a lot less friendly than other places we have been. Similarly, as you know by now, people don’t ever stop for pedestrians and give that friendly wave – even if they are going to have to stop in just a few meters. It simply doesn’t happen ever – EXCEPT if you’re at a zebra crosswalk, then they are quite good about stopping. It’s the law here, but basically, pedestrians and bikes don’t seem to have too many rights. There is a 1.5 meter passing law (give space to bikes), but it is rarely observed. The statistics (see my screenshot) confirm this – as well as the cyclists who we have met who were more terrified for their lives here than in any other countries they have cycled. None of this is to say that the people we met were rude. They weren’t. Most people were friendly enough. A big proportion of the people we met were travelers, so that isn’t even a fair assessment. As far as locals are concerned, we did meet a number of our AirBnB hosts, and they were all pretty nice.

Rain …. Rain. I’m just sick of rain.

Share this:

Tags: Around the Mountains Trail Bike Touring New Zealand bikepacking New Zealand Clutha Gold Trail Great Taste Trail Hauraki Rail Trail Kawatiri Coastal Trail Lake 2 Lake Trail Lake Dunstan Trail Link Pathway Mountains To Sea Otago Central Rail Trail Paparoa Track Queen Charlotte Track Remutaka Cycle Trail Roxburgh Gorge Trail The Old Ghost Road Timber Trail Tour Aotearoa Waikato River Trails West Coast Wilderness Trail

You may also like...

Muir Wilderness Fastpack

June 20, 2015

 by Brian · Published June 20, 2015 · Last modified May 26, 2021

Bike Touring Colombia – Ibague to Neiva via the Tatacoa Desert

January 13, 2016

 by Brian · Published January 13, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2021

Highway 108 and Highway 4 Mountain Biking

September 12, 2009

 by Brian · Published September 12, 2009 · Last modified March 19, 2021

• Pingbacks 0

I just loved all the pictures and commentary. Looks like you both had a mostly good time. I’m glad you are home safe and sound.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

In order to pass the CAPTCHA please enable JavaScript

• Next story  How I Carry Diabetes Supplies For Travel and Long Bike Packing Trips
• Previous story  Tablelands Traverse

Type 1 Diabetes Blog

• Recent Posts
• Popular Posts

When is a carb not a carb? The great fructose experiment.

August 4, 2023

How I Carry Diabetes Supplies For Travel and Long Bike Packing Trips

June 3, 2023

My Type 1 Diabetes Diagnosis Story

May 31, 2021

Type 1 diabetes FAQs – I thought you weren’t allowed to drink alcohol because alcohol turns into sugar!

April 24, 2021

Type 1 Diabetes FAQs – What food do you miss the most?

November 12, 2018

Type 1 Diabetes FAQs – You Can’t Eat That, Right?

November 3, 2018

Symlin for use in Type 1 Diabetes

October 30, 2018

Type 1 Diabetes FAQs – What do you Think you did to Cause your Type 1 Diabetes?

July 24, 2018

Type 1 Diabetes and Ultra Endurance Sport – Insulin Dosing.

July 23, 2018

Cycle 2 of the Fasting Mimicking Diet in a person with Type 1 Diabetes

July 17, 2018

Type 1 Diabetes and Ultra Endurance Sport – Why I don’t use an insulin pump.

July 4, 2018

Type 1 Diabetes and Ultra Endurance Sport – Why I take Lantus in the Morning instead of the Evening

July 3, 2018

Type 1 Diabetes and Ultra Endurance Sport – Keeping your insulin cool (and from freezing)

Cycle 1 of the Fasting Mimicking Diet in a person with Type 1 Diabetes

June 28, 2018

Idaho Hot Springs Loop

August 22, 2017

Roper’s Sierra High Route

August 23, 2015

Ionian Basin Traverse and Tehipite Gorge

July 17, 2015

Little Sur River Fastpack Exploration

November 14, 2015

Utah Bikepacking – All The Routes

September 30, 2021

Bikepacking Death Valley – Valle de la Muerte

February 12, 2021

Wandering the West Bikepack trip

October 23, 2020

Bikepacking Spain

October 10, 2019

The Oregon Timber Trail

October 9, 2018

The Baja Divide

January 12, 2018

Bike Touring South America

December 8, 2015

• Entries feed
• Comments feed
• WordPress.org

Ultra Distance Biking

Occasional blog of an long distance cyclist

Tour Aotearoa – ‘land of the long white cloud’ – New Zealand end to end – March 2020

(Note – click on small photos to enlarge – depending on your device)

Riding the roads, gravel and trails of New Zealand was always going to be a bit special – and so it turned out to be. Tour Aotearoa follows the paths less well travelled and is one of the worlds great Bikepacking trips. Stunning landscapes, friendly communities, magical sunrises and sunsets greet you every day.

The TA route stretches 3000km from Cape Reinga at the northern tip of North Island to Bluff in the south of South Island. In between the route follows cycle trails, tracks and paths all connected by relatively quiet country roads.  These are roughly one third sealed road, one third gravel road, and one third cycle trail (gravel usually) with some beach riding, serious single track and a few ferry crossings thrown in.

The Bike – Mason ISO

The most common bike used for the TA is a 29er mountain Bike. With the variety of terrain and surfaces my ideal was more than a gravel bike but not a full mountain bike. As luck would have it Dom Mason of Mason bikes had just designed a machine that hit the spot perfectly. The Mason ISO – In Search Of – was conceived for just such adventures. As Cycling Weekly put it “The Mason ISO will take you into territory where a dropped bar bike has no right to be”

I arrived in Auckland a week before the start and spent time with my brother and his lovely family and combined that with all the last minute preparation. I always find it virtually impossible to decide on what to pack. I have a habit of packing far too heavy – pack this – just in case – no not that – but then what if that happens? And so it goes on.

Its a fair journey from Auckland to Cape Reinga but luckily my sister in law had family living up north in Cable Bay and we headed up together a couple of days before the start and spent some relaxing time there.

Riders of the Tour start in blocks of 100 per day and each group start is timed to arrive at 90 mile beach on a falling tide. Towards high tide the firm sandy beach is under water and bikes would have to take to the soft sand and the dunes. Get the timing wrong or face a strong headwind will occasionally result in an overnight camp in the dunes.

Our start time on March 3rd was 0700 and I was booked into the organised camp at the remote Tapotupotu Bay the night before – a short ride to the Cape.

Luckily the afternoon before was clear and bright so we went to Cape Reinga to take some photographs. For Maori, Cape Reinga is the most spiritually significant place in New Zealand. It is here that after death, all Maori spirits travel up the coast and over the wind swept vista before travelling underwater to the Three King Islands where they climb to the highest point of the Islands and bid their last farewell before returning to the land of their ancestors.

Day 1. 

I woke early after a restless night in the tent and scrambled around in the dark packing bags and grabbing some breakfast. A thick mist hung over the camp as I set out riding to the Cape. It was only a few kilometres but a steep climb to over 200m in the dark and mist coupled with clouds of gravel dust when the occasional truck passed made it a tough start to the day. I did wonder if this was some kind of omen!

Nervous anticipation was tangible among the eclectic group of riders milling around on Cape Reinga carpark. Ahead lay 3000km to Bluff as we set off at 7am, following the road for 15km before riding down the Te Paki Stream, the only access to 90 mile Beach.

Te Paki Stream and 90 mile beach had been weighing heavily on my mind having read about riders wading through flood water in the stream and battling prevailing headwinds on the exposed sand and getting caught by the rising tide. As it turned out we were a lucky group of riders that day. The stream was a bit sticky in parts and the beach benign with a developing breeze caressing our backs and pushing us along towards Ahipara. The actual ride on the hardpan sand is 55 miles. Stories suggest its misleading name resulted from early settlers relating it to three days of horse riding which on average was 30 miles a day.

Arriving in Ahipara at the end of the beach ride I was just in time for some much needed lunch after taking advantage of the bike wash station generously provided by the local holiday camp. Salt and sand don’t mix well with drivetrains!

The beach ride was special and I was happy to make the first 100km by lunchtime but started to think about the night stop and the 2 to 3 hour Kaipara Harbour crossing that lay 250km ahead. There was only one ferry a day leaving late morning. Tomorrow’s ferry had spaces but the day after was fully booked so if I didn’t make it tomorrow I would need to ride the tedious road alternative adding loads of km and missing out on one of the iconic experiences of Tour Aotearoa.

The day had warmed up and I pushed on riding sealed and gravel roads towards a short ferry crossing that got me to Rawene late afternoon and onto Opononi at the mouth of Hokianga Harbour arriving in the dark and found a bed for a brief sleep at the holiday park.

So Day one was 193km of beach, gravel and sealed road with 10 hours of riding and quite a few breaks and the short ferry. My dynamo power converter had packed up which was a worry because I used it to charge my Wahoo Element Roam for navigation and phone charging. Luckily I had a spare but it was at my brothers house in Auckland, a few km off the route, so if I made the Kaipara Ferry I could divert and stay tomorrow night in Auckland.

I got riding just after 0200hrs and had 150km to make the late morning ferry. About 50km was gravel roads and there were a few good looking climbs. The first task was to reach photo control point 3 in the Waipoua Kauri Forest. This was Tane Mahuta – Lord of the Forest and one of New Zealand’s tallest trees. Sadly it was night when I arrived.

There is always something magical riding through the night and slowly emerging into the dawn. I made good time, even on the gravel sections where the 2.4 WTB tyres gave me comfort and confidence. Five hours and 80km later I arrived in the small town of Dargaville as the residents were awaking for the day and found some good coffee and breakfast.

The ride to Pouto Point was another 70km with 25km of gravel which was slippery after some rain but little climbing and I arrived at the point in good time for the ferry and found another half dozen riders waiting.

Three hours on the Kaipara ferry was a good time to snatch a little sleep and recharge for the ride into Auckland for a night at my brother’s house to replace the power converter. Helensville was a good stop for food followed by easy riding south towards Auckland Harbour and Photo control point 5 at the top of Mt Eden overlooking the city. Its a steep climb to the top of the extinct Volcano and it was great to find a cardboard box at the top marked for TA riders and full of goodies including a cold beer!

A busy evening ride followed but thankfully Auckland has an impressive network of cycle paths so it felt pretty safe. I headed past the airport and in the failing light across the City to my brothers house in Howick after 20 hours plus on the road. It turned out to be my biggest day of the Tour with 246km and 3,300m of climbing. I slept well!

Seemed a little strange, but a nice bonus, to be at my brothers house so soon after he dropped me off up at the Cape. I sorted the replacement power converter and after a good breakfast set off at the relaxed hour of 0930. I made my way through the morning traffic to the TA route where I had left it the night before. I headed on the inland course option towards Miranda Hot Springs on the Firth of Thames. I had ridden the coastal route before but the inland route resulted in some good climbing and heavy localised rain showers so after an hour or so regretted my route decision! Progress was slow and my legs felt heavy and it took me to early afternoon to reach Miranda and the coast but found a great lunch stop a few km inland. The Stray Dog Cafe had great food and probably the best stained glass window made of bottles in an outdoor brick shit-house – anywhere in the world!

The rest of the day was really easy as I rode the beautiful Hauraki Rail trail along the bottom of the Firth of Thames to Kopu before re joining the trail turning south towards Paeroa where I had booked a B and B stop taking day 3 as a bit of a recovery day. I often find day three is the hardest of any long distance ride and this was no exception.

The day ended in a great pub after an easy 146km in 7 hours.

My lovely host offered a great cooked breakfast so although I wanted an early start it was too good to miss! I got away at 0830 and headed on down the rail trail to Te Aroha and on to Matamata where there was a photo control point at Hobbiton HQ!

After 25km of sealed road from my coffee stop in Matamata the route turned onto the Waikato River Trail and real fun began. One of the NZ classic rides which included a real mixture including some serious single track – well serious for me having limited MTB skills!

We all had to take a diversion onto sealed roads just after Arapuni and then rejoined the trail on the final section to Mangakino where I had booked a B and B – interesting set of rooms built in a shipping container!

Timber Trail day! I got going at 0500 in the dark and got a little lost following the local trails alongside the Waikato but soon found my way and steadily climbed with a mixture of gravel path, sealed and dirt roads for the next 50km.

At 35km the photo control point no 8 was a marker for the Centre of North Island.

Leaving the sealed road the Timber Trail climbs through cloud forest to Mt Pureora at nearly 1000m. One of the great NZ trails it has 73km of single track and 7km of old logging road and crosses many river gorges with spectacular swing bridges which sway and induce some dizzy unnerving moments when you are glad not to suffer vertigo.

The end of the Timber Trail at Ongarue was followed by a lovely evening ride along a gravel back road to Taumarunui.

Into Town after 153km and 2500m of climbing on a hot day I was glad to find a motel and more important a fabulous Thai restaurant.

A quiet Sunday morning and I got going just before 0600 hrs and rode along the main street alongside the rail tracks hoping for breakfast and hey ho – MacDonalds had just opened! A Mac breakfast is as good as it gets. Lucky because there was a tough day in prospect heading towards the famous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ and the Jet-boat ride down the Whanganui River.

The first few hours were gravel riding to Owhango and then the Oio Road to Whakahoro where I met up with Tony again at the Blue Duck Cafe for a second breakfast 67km into the morning.

Six km after the Blue Duck Cafe the single track begins – the Kaiwhakauka Track – described in the guidebook as a tough challenge – expect walking.

I had pre-booked the Jet Boat and made good time. I was lucky to have such a good day. The following day it rained and the papa mud on the stock road is notorious – a soft blue-grey sandstone turns to cement like sludge.

The Bridge to Nowhere across the Mangapurua Stream was built to serve the farming community but landslips and flooding saw the demise of the community in 1942.

A short winding path leads to Mangapurua Landing – the pick up point for the Jet Boat. The great Whanganui River is spectacular and made all the better for the 28km ride down to Pipiriki.

So a spectacular day finished at Pipiriki after 106 km of riding that took just short of eight hours in the warm but dry conditions. Riders had a murderous time in the mud the following day. I shared a hut with Tony at the local campsite and joined up with Andrew and Davide for supper and a couple of beers.

We had asked for an early breakfast and were well looked after before setting off at 0700 heading down the beautiful Whanganui river valley towards the ‘big city’ on the coast. A few rain showers came through but quickly cleared away.

I arrived in Whanganui around lunchtime and found some great food in a restaurant attached to the Tourist Information Centre on the riverfront. I had broken my only pair of reading glasses and asked the lady at the Information desk where I could find a shop to buy some. She asked how strong I needed them and said to “try these”. I hesitated, she insisted, and they were perfect – she said have them you are doing a great ride – I tried to pay – we had a polite argument but she insisted! So I won some glasses from a very kind lady.

A quirky exit from the city followed. Crossing the river the route takes a 200m tunnel to an ancient lift operated by a lift attendant. Rattling and banging it climbs 66 meters to Durie Hill. Thoughts now turned to catching the ferry to South Island in a couple of days time and that meant two 200km plus days were needed to set up a shortish run into Wellington.

Sixty km of sealed road got me to Hunterville by mid afternoon and a useful stop for food. By now I was sharing the road a lot with Andrew and Davide. Andrew had found a good night stop at a remote farmhouse a few kms after Apiti. I arrived at dusk and shared a good evening with great food with the friendly host and my two travelling pals. The day was 203km with 2700m climbing over 10.5 hours and so the first week of the adventure was complete with 1228km.

Up before 0600 and on the road by 0640 after a good breakfast. Ahead lay 35km of gravel riding and now we were heading due south towards Wellington. Two and a half hours into the day riding through remote cattle and sheep country and a few rain showers I arrived at Pohangina to be flagged down at the side of the road by a lovely lady Mary – a Trail Angel – offering coffee and muffins – oh what joy!

Next was Ashhurst and the large town of Palmerston North. Along the way Davide’s rear tyre got a bad puncture which the sealant couldn’t repair and he was forced to divert to the town to make repairs.

I pushed on and planned to stop at Martinborough for the night. The roads were fairly easy going with short gravel sections and late afternoon I diverted into Masterton and found a great self service Chinese Takeout. Bliss after 12 hours on the road.

I arrived in Martinborough late evening and found my way to the Holiday Park where they had left a chalet key for me taped to reception window. A long day of 238km and 12 hours in the saddle.

A good day in prospect with an early afternoon ferry booked to South Island but it needed an early start so I was up at 0400 and away by 0440. Andrew’s wife had kindly booked our ferries. To my surprise I found a bakery open and had a great breakfast – they open at 0300 in this small town – night owls rule!

After a few kms I joined the Remutaka Cycle Trail – a spectacular trail following much of the old rail track and rising to 340m.

After the rail summit tunnel it was pretty much down hill for 65km taking in the Hutt River Trail along the way and then full steam ahead for Wellington.

The run into Wellington was a little busy but I arrived in good time for the BlueBridge Ferry at Waterloo Quay. Andrew’s wife, who worked for the company, had booked tickets and it was special to get welcomed with some food and drinks – nice.

The crossing takes three and a half hours and was a great opportunity to get some rest so I got into a cabin and grabbed a shower and a couple of hours sleep. We docked in Picton early evening and I headed out to reach Havelock about 35km away.

Night fell before I reached Havelock but I found a small motel after a short riding day of 133 kms on the bike. Great to be in South Island.

I got riding at 0700 but not before finding a fabulous breakfast in Havelock that set me up well for tackling the Maungatapu Track and it turned out to be a tough old day.

Pelorus Bridge at 19km soon turned to a gravel road and then the challenging Maungatapu Track that climbs to 740m over 20km.

Out of the hills and into the city of Nelson and some easy riding on great cycle trails along the coast to Richmond and onto Wakefield. The rest of the day was pretty much gravel cycle trails and took in the interesting Spooners Tunnel.

I arrived at the small settlement of Tapawera just after 5pm and called it a day after 125km. I found a rustic campsite that had a spare cabin and a short walk for some good food and early to bed.

I was up just after 0300 and away by 0400 with 60km of mixed sealed and gravel road to Lake Rotoroa. I had seen photos of this beautiful lake and arriving at the beach was not disappointed.

The next 30km to Murchison took in the beautiful gravel Braeburn Track, a good climb of 650m to the Saddle and crossed by several fords – lucky it was dry!

Murchison to Springs Junction is 80km mostly gentle climbing on gravel up and over the Maruia Saddle.

Next was a 6km climb to the Rahu Saddle and then a 30km downhill that just kept on going all the way to Reefton my night stop after 215km and 12 hours in the saddle. I found a motel and joined Andrew and Davide for supper. We had a long conversation over supper about the following day where the Tour route took in the Big River trail. Mud and rock with up to 5km of bike pushing had been reported after heavy rain and we decided to opt for the easier road bypass. Difficult decision to miss one of the classic trails but I am not a good MTB rider and as the endgame played out a few days later it was a good decision.

Davide and Andrew were riding the Tour together and I bumped into them so often since way back on the Kaipara Ferry on day two that we decided to ride the last few days together. The three amigos – a Kiwi, an Italian and a Brit – got to be a joke there somewhere!

And so we headed out at 0600 along Highway 7 and headed towards the coast arriving at Greymouth late morning after 80km. We found a super little coffee shop on the seafront road and dived in to refuel and take a rest.

A gravel cycle trail took us 25km along the flat coast and inland to Kumara through sand dune country. This was the start of the West Coast Wilderness Trail and over 150km of trail riding lay ahead.

The trail heads inland, literally into the wilderness, and is great riding with a variety of off road surfaces. Bizarrely half way around the trail loup inland we came across Cowboy Paradise run by a crazy sort of guy (check out Trip Advisor reviews!) We took some refreshments but worried about his attitude and the pole dancing pole in the middle of the room! Seemed out of place!

We headed back towards the Tasman Sea with Hokitika our destination for the night. The clocktower was a photo control point and we found a good hotel with a busy restaurant and we went a bit overboard with the food! A great day of 176km and 9 hours in the saddle.

We were away by 0600 heading south along the beautiful West Coast and marvelling that we had not had a drop of rain in this notoriously wet part of NZ.

We arrived at Fox in the late afternoon and booked into a Motel and had a little trouble securing the bikes, locking them together around the back of the building. One of the few places that did not allow us to have the bike in the room. But before that we carried on a few kms and turned towards the mountains in the hope of seeing Fox Glacier. Sadly with global warming the glacier had retreated and we hardly got a glimpse!

Another magical day of 172km finished off in style with some good food and beer.

Another 0600 start and a beautiful day ahead but a bit brass monkey for a few hours until the sun arrived. Dawn’s early light is always special on these rides.

Leaving Haast Village we headed inland to climb the Haast Pass (564m). A steady gentle climb of 50km got us to the steeper section over the pass.

After Haast Pass there was an nice descent of 20km to Makarora where we found a chalet at the tourist centre after 200km and another day to remember.

Some surprising numbers came out of the day. I improved my FTP – functional threshold power – which is the maximum power you can ride for an hour. Not something you would expect to do on day 14 of an ultra ride but suggests I was not too knackered!

All change – Plan B

There was no phone signal at the Tourist Centre and only a very weak wifi in the building. We had been watching the development of Coronavirus for the last couple of weeks and late in the evening I suddenly read that Air New Zealand were going to stop all international flights at the weekend. Panic! How will I get back to the UK because I was booked on Air New Zealand to London via Los Angles in ten days time.

No phone signal but I managed to get an internet call into my brother, John, in Auckland. The hero – he stood on the phone calling Air New Zealand until the early hours and eventually got through and was able to book me on the penultimate Air New Zealand flight to London in two days time. I got the “good” news in the early hours trying to get an internet connection in the freezing cold outside the Tourist Centre – lucky it was not switched off!

Sadly there was now no prospect of finishing in Bluff so the plan was to get to Queenstown the next day and fly back to Auckland the day after to catch the flight home. It was an strange feeling – having to curtail the ride – but given everything that was happening it seemed irrelevant and of no importance or regret. I was happy to finishing in Queenstown – one hard days ride from Bluff. Still an amazing adventure.

Day 15 – Final Day

Up early and we were on the road by 0545 in some chilly conditions. We were soon riding alongside Lake Wanaka.

By the time we got to Albert Town after 65km we were in desperate need of coffee and food – it was so cold.

After Wanaka we faced a 40km climb to cross the Crown Range at 1076m – the highest point of the TA course. The famous Cardrona Hotel at 25km into the climb was a good stop to refuel at the cafe opposite.

The climb to the summit was pretty relentless at times with the heavy bike but the arrival was good because in the far distance we could see Queenstown.

Despite the fact we could see our destination we still had over 50km to go and it turned out to be an variable mix of tracks and trails after the quick descent off the Range to Arrowtown. It seemed to take an age – “are we nearly there yet?”

We called into the small Queenstown airport as Davide and I were flying back while Andrew was determined to crack on and finish the following day which he accomplished in style. We needed to get a couple of cardboard bike boxes and after a bit of hassle we got two and paid a taxi driver to deliver them to the hotel.

Arriving in Queenstown felt like a different world. Busy streets, bars and restaurants humming with the good, the bad and the ugly! We found a hotel and set about packing the bikes and kit ready for the flight to Auckland in the morning. We had a good supper together and Andrew got to bed early. For him there was a long day in prospect, water taxi across the lake and big ride to Bluff. Chapeau Andrew. He finished at 8pm.

In Conclusion

A big thank you goes to my brother John, his wife Net, and their lovely family who met me on arrival, took me to Cape Reinga and had planned to pick me up in Bluff at the finish. He then ended up sorting my early flight home to UK to beat the lockdown – a close run thing – a couple of friends waited 8 weeks to get home when the flights stopped and it cost them a fortune. Love you guys.

Kennett Brothers

The TA route has to be one of the best ultra distance rides anywhere in the world and great thanks go to the Kennett brothers who organise the ride, provide the route and the Spot Tracking system. They have developed the parcours since 2016 when 250 riders christened the route. Over 1000 riders signed up for TA 2020! Big thanks too to the New Zealand Cycle Trail Organisation for many of the spectacular trails. Chapeau the Kennett brothers.

Kiwi Kindness

Like most TA riders I experienced a lot of kindness and friendship along the way. Apart from the odd aggressive, impatient Kiwi driver there were numerous occasions when people went beyond the call of duty to help and it was lovely to see the ‘Welcome’ signs along the road side in towns and villages. Thank you Kiwis.

Mates along the way

I shared the road along the way with some good mates, especially Andrew and Davide. Andrew from Auckland and Davide from Italy were great company on the bike and generous mates – we enjoyed some good meals and beer together. Cheers to you amigos!

The bike is one thing but its still needs an engine and big thanks goes to Rob Wakefield of Propello Cycling. A great coach based in Barnstable, Devon who got me into good shape for the ride with a good plan and loads of encouragement. Thanks Rob.

The Bike and Kit

Of course us addicted cyclists always believe its about the bike. Well I reckon I had the perfect machine for the job. The Mason ISO – In Search Of – worked so well in all the conditions.

It was so well set up with Apidura Bags and a carbon Tailfin rear carry rack. The beautiful little front mudguard can carry a couple of kilos too. My tent sat on that and to my shame I never used it – there always seemed to be a B&B or motel that called louder! Well I am 71! Wimp I hear you say!

I ran with WTB Ranger 2.4 tyres on Hunt 29er wheels with a SON dynamo. Comfort was enhanced with a Cane Creek eeSilk seat post together with Redshift Sports Shockstop stem. The Aero-Bars were essential and were stacked 50mm high off the drops for comfort. I probably spent over 50% of the ride on those bars.

The 1x Deore XT Di2 with an Oval chainring worked perfectly and I was able to recharge the battery from the onboard power converter.

Navigation with a Wahoo Element Roam was flawless with downloaded (Ride with GPS) route maps on my phone for backup. My Spot Gen3 Satellite Tracker worked well and allowed friends and family to follow my ‘dot’. All the photos and video were taken with my iPhone 10 with a lanyard attached and kept for quick access in the top-tube bag.

There are three key elements to enjoyment and comfort on long multi day rides – feet, backside and hands – the three points of contact. I’ve tried many saddles and now ride the Selle SMP Lite 209. My feet always hurt until I found Lake wide-fit shoes. (thanks Richard from Salt Dog cycling) Perfect feet now! As for hands the Aero-bars have done the trick. Rest the hands, relax the shoulders, different position on the saddle and of course little more aero – whats not to like?

Mason Cycles

Finally, a special mention is needed and a big thank you to Dom Mason, Cal, Alex, Matt and the team at The Barn nestled in the Sussex Downs. They make some great bikes and have given me top support. Thank you guys.

The Numbers

Fifteen days averaging 183km per day. In the saddle moving averaging 11.6hrs a day. A total of 2,757kms and 39,300m of climbing.

A final thought

Not many long distance cyclists have managed to ride their big events in 2020. So many were cancelled. I was so lucky to get to New Zealand and ride the TA. Lucky to get home in the nick of time. Lucky to be able to ride locally here on the beautiful Isle of Wight and compared to the heartache of many in these Covid times a very fortunate man.

As Captain Sir Tom says – “Tomorrow will be a good day”

PEDAL ON – KIA KAHA

Share this:

Published by Rob Packham

Hello. I started cycling in late 2012, aged 63, with the intention of gaining a little fitness and losing weight. I slowly extended the rides with Lands End to John O'Groats in 2013 the first long one. Each year produced new challenges with local Sportives and trips to France for a couple of Etape du Tours and Tour du Mont Blanc. Every winter we headed to Morocco for a couple of months in the Campervan. A beautiful warm winter training ground for biking. My first real ultra distance ride, apart from LEJOG, was the 2017 London Edinburgh London. I warmed up for that with my third Ride Trafalgar Way and went for the Colossus ride of 500km from Falmouth to London within 24hrs. I have raced in five Bikingman Races over recent years, Corsica, Taiwan, Oman, Inca Divide and Portugal. Completed the TransAtlantic Way in Ireland twice and Bikepacking adventures in the Taunus Hills of Germany, in Morocco, France and New Zealand. I live on the Isle of Wight and ride with the West Wight Wheelers - a great group of mates. Rob Packham View all posts by Rob Packham

5 thoughts on “ Tour Aotearoa – ‘land of the long white cloud’ – New Zealand end to end – March 2020 ”

Great write up of a great event. I rode the TA in 2018 and your blog brought back many memories! I’m now enjoying your other blogs.

This was a great blog, Robert. Met you all briefly at the end of the Whanganui River. You were riding in one day what took me three days! I restarted my journey this year from Greymouth.

Hi Jonathan. Thanks so much for that. Such good memories of last year and been great but mixed with envy following riders progress this year. Who knows we might be very distantly related? Back in 1852 my Great grand uncle Samuel Packham sailed to Melbourne from Brighton – was part of the Bendigo diggings gold rush!!

Really interesting to read about your journey through NZ, Rob. I’m planning on riding the TA in 2021

Thanks for publishing this Rob, it’s a great read.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

All sections of trails are OPEN.  Check Trail Status for details and information. 

Tour Aotearoa - Support

Kia Ora and Welcome

We're cyclists just like you.  We congratulate you on taking on the Tour Aotearoa  and wish you all the best on an incredible journey.

Riding through remote areas such as the Ruapehu and Whanganui areas means that getting the essentials like a cold drink, food or a hot shower can be challenging.  So our operators have got together to offer a couple of extras to help your journey.

Note: There is Trail Work in progress on some sections : We want all our riders to have a safe passage.  Please DO check the trail status page .  The team are working hard to improve the Kaiwhakauka and Mangapurua.  Some safety tips do apply.

i-Site Whanganui for Everything Whanganui

Whanganui i-SITE Visitors Centre is right on the Tour Aotearoa trail, beside the Whanganui River.  Call ahead or come in and see us for local expert knowledge, assistance with accommodation bookings, dining/grocery options, and a free city map.

There are bike racks and a multi-tool bike repair station for your convenience, right outside our doors. 

Phone 0800 926 426 or 06 3490508 info@visitwhanganui.nz  | 31 Taupo Quay, Whanganui

Whanganui Top 10 Holiday Park

Situated at Papaiti (on the new cycle path after you cross the bridge) on your way into Whanganui, Jeannie and the team look forward to welcoming you.

• TA riders receive a 5% discount if you pre-book directly.
• We offer a free shuttle bus into town for cyclists.
• Onsite we have a hot chip vending machine, plus some grocery items in our small shop.
• If you are keen to glam it up for a nice meal in town, the team will take guests into town and then they can either taxi back or we can pick them up within our opening hours (so last pick up 8pm).
• There’s also quite a few takeaway options that now deliver to the holiday park too.

Contact us at Whanganui Top10 Holiday Park

Velo Ronny's - make it a recovery day for your bike...and you!

The experienced team is right in the heart of Whanganui and happy to help you!

• Full Workshop – Book online or ring ahead
• Online Store
• A huge range of accessories, tyres & tubes, clothing & nutrition
• Washdown facilities
• Leave your bike with us while you refuel in town
• Cold coke (or beer) in our fridge!

49 Wilson Street, Whanganui Phone 06 34 84261 Hours: Mon-Fri: 8am-5pm | Sat: 9.30-12.30pm (or anytime the team bus is parked outside)

www.veloronnys.co.nz

Bound for Pipiriki

Whanganui River Adventures green jetboat pick up from Mangapurua Landing ( Call us on 0800 862 743 for times of pick up)

In our Pipiriki Campground we have a full range of support

• Cabins and tent sites
• Fully equipped kitchen and lounge area
• Hot showers and Toilets
• A small laundry for washing
• Hot and cold food and drinks
• Bike Wash Facility

Our facilities will be open throughout the Tour Aotearoa Event.

Contact Whanganui RIver Adventures

A unique on River hosted experience

Our yellow boats can pick you up, and bring you to our little oasis on the river from camping to fully catered lodge stay options.  Stop and breathe for a night, have a drink and a relaxing rest before heading south the next day.  Sit up on the balcony and soak in the stunning wilderness scenery, sounds (or lack there of) and just "be" for a moment.  Fully catered, self catered, lodge, cabins, camping - options to suit your journey

Jetboat pick up from Mangapurua Landing - scheduled pickups (options for early morning and late afternoon).  Our boats will transfer you to Pipiriki for your onward journey.

Book direct or give us a call and we will be happy to assist. (Ideally give us a call from Taumaranui or before if you know how your are tracking to ensure we can assist.)

Please note Saturday nights may be fully booked in the Lodge - camping is available.

Contact us on Bridge to Nowhere Lodge and Adventures

Matahiwi - Coffee and Camping Oasis

Cafe is open Wednesday to Sunday (Call ahead if you know you're heading there) from 9am - 3pm

Cabins and camping available (all days for TA riders on request)

Meals available on request (again please email or call ahead to arrange)

Marlene is a font of local knowledge - and does a great coffee too!

Contact us at Matahiwi Gallery and Cafe

Blue Duck Station - Respite and Coffee

Cafe is open seven days from 8am - 5pm with coffee and good food.

Accomodation is available (although weekends may be fully booked).  Contact the team directly to enquire.

Remember the Dept of Conservation campsite and shelter are here too

Last spot to book onward jetboats and River Road accommodation

Need help booking?

Our local i-Site  can help you plan and book your trip.

OR  Book directly with  Trail Partners  and discover the Mountains to Sea's cycle trail journeys for yourself.

Sign up for our occasional newsletters

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thanks for signing up to our occasional newsletters. We'll be in touch - and happy riding!

Quick Links

Contact Us Trail Status Feedback survey Why Ride Here About Us New Trails News

Copyright © 2024 - dashboard - Terms & Conditions - ♥ Website made on Rocketspark

This product has been added to your cart

• Tour Aotearoa – The Full Tour
• Tour Aotearoa – North Island
• Tour Aotearoa – South Island
• Cape to Cape – Kopiko Aotearoa
• Marlborough Molesworth Epic
• Canterbury Peaks to Plains
• Kenya & Tanzania
• Kenya & Tanzania Family Tour
• Cambodia Family Tour
• View All Bike Tours
• Why Escape Adventures
• Meet The Team
• Environmental & Social Impact
• Our Bike Tour Reviews
• Stuff We Love!
• Join Our Team

Tour Aotearoa, Full Length NZ Cycle Tour

Proceed booking, already a member, don't have an account create one., or continue as guest, adding item to wishlist requires an account, got a question.

Call or Email Us To Ask About Anything

+64 3 545 1789 [email protected]

Why Book With Us?

• Small cycle groups
• Hand-picked Cycle Tours & Activities
• Family Run Business
• 12 People Per Tour
• Fitness Level: 2 - 3
• Fully Supported Bike Tour
• Cape Reinga to Bluff

The ‘Tour Aotearoa' is a 3000 km cycling route exploring the full length of Aotearoa, New Zealand

Arguably the most well-known bike packing route in NZ, originally created by the Kennet brothers, if you’re looking for an adventure this one should be top of your bucket list. (It will leave you with a tall tale or two to recount to riding buddies back home.) We have created a fully supported version of the Tour Aotearoa so that you can ride the full length of New Zealand knowing that we have got your back!

You will be immersed in the diverse and beautiful scenery that makes up the ‘land of the long white cloud’. From wild coastlines to giant stands of ancient Kauri forest. Cycle through volcanic North Island landscapes and in the shadow of the mighty Southern Alps. Connect with locals and get the full ‘kiwi’ experience. You’ll be donning a swandri and jandals in no time…

Our incredible network of cycle trails and rural gravel roads keep you ‘off road’ most of the way. Navigating point to point each day gives you a true bikepacking feel, but with the luxury of knowing lunch will be set up for you, snacks are never far away, and a comfy bed has been arranged for you each night. Relax and take the days at your own pace!

This is a fully supported cycle tour, one crew will ride with the group whilst the other goes ahead to set up snack, water and lunch breaks. The support vehicle will have all your luggage* and supplies for each day and is also available if you would like to take a break from the saddle.

*Please note if coming from overseas and bringing your own bike, we are not able to carry empty bike bags or boxes. You can either courier them from Auckland to Invercargill or package your bike to travel in a cardboard box that you can recycle on your arrival.  

Tour Highlights - Tour Aotearoa Cycle Tour

Departure & Return Location

Meeting Point:  Pukenui (or optional transfer from Auckland) Ride Start:  Cape Reinga Ride Finish:  Bluff Tour Finish:  Invercargill

Price Includes

• 40 Nights accommodation
• Meals as per tour itinerary
• Two Escape Adventures tour leaders
• Support vehicle & bike trailer
• 3x Boat transfer

Optional Extras

• Bike Hire: If required hire fee is NZD $950 (Pedal Bike)
• E Bike Hire: If required hire fee is NZD $2,400 (bookings essential)
• Transfer from Auckland to Pukenui $375pp (includes bike transport, one extra nights accommodation & one extra breakfast) Limited availability, booking essential.
• Bike Collection (to transfer your bike Auckland to Pukenui) $50 per bike

Price Excludes

• Airfares, visas, or airport taxes
• Optional activities and excursions
• Some meals as per the detailed itinerary
• Personal equipment
• Getting to and from meeting points Kaitaia/Invercargill

Solo Travellers - Single Supplement

• NO Single Supplement! If you’re traveling alone, we’ll pair you to twin-share with another biker. (same gender)
• If you do not wish to share that is fine too, a single supplement of $3500NZD will apply. NOTE Single rooms will be provided where available however in some places you will be required to share a bathroom.

Itinerary - Tour Aotearoa – Full Length NZ Supported Cycle Tour

Day 1: meet at our starting motel in pukenui.

Arrive in Pukenui by mid-afternoon. Exploring this tiny settlement won’t take long before you meet with your tour leaders & fellow bikers at 5pm for your pre-departure meeting and first meal together.

Accommodation: Motel

DAY 2: The journey begins! Cape Reinga & 90-mile beach

Our start time is dictated by the tides. A 1-hour vehicle transfer gets us to Cape Reinga and the start of your epic journey. 90 Mile Beach leaves strong memories in the minds of all Tour Aotearoa riders – a crazy way to start… but there you have it. I hope we get a north-easterly!

Cycling Distance:  85km

Accommodation: Motel 

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch 

DAY 3: Cycling to Hokianga Harbour

Day two on the bike and it’s time to start preparing our hill legs for the journey ahead… The day promises stunning NZ bush and views of the Hokianga Harbour on a 10 min ferry to Rawene.

Cycling Distance:  111km

Accommodation: Holiday Park Cabins

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch

DAY 4: Pedal between Giant Kauri

The Kauri Coast cycleway fully immerses us into the far north – riding through the Waipoua sub tropical forest dominated by giant kauri. This is the epitome of the far north with quiet roads, quiet towns, wild beaches and some great swimming opportunities.

Cycling Distance:  110km

DAY 5: Kaipara inland harbour by bike

We head south down the remote and quiet Pouto Peninsula through farmland and the mouth of the Kaipara inland harbour. We cross the harbour by boat (3 hrs tide dependent) and pedal into Parakai.

Cycling Distance:  69km

DAY 6: Cycle trails galore - Auckland City

We’re not in the far north any more! But suddenly in the centre of NZ’s largest, busiest and traffic craziest city. Thanks to Auckland Transport for the convenient cycle routes for getting us there alive!

Cycling Distance:  84km

Accommodation: Hotel

DAY 7: Cycle the firth of Thames

Negotiating the city traffic + tricky navigation out of Auckland city is not everyone’s cup of tea… and the support vehicle is available for those who opt out. Once clear of the city we ride around the firth of Thames finishing on a short stretch of the Hauraki Rail Trail.

Cycling Distance:  117km 

DAY 8: Spin along the Hauraki rail trail

We get our “groove on” riding the smooth surface and gentle gradient of the Hauraki Rail Trail. We ride the historic railway across the Hauraki Plains then divert west all the way to Cambridge.

Cycling Distance:  126km

DAY 9: Rest day in Cambridge

Your first rest day, get some ‘bikepacking admin’ done or visit Hobbiton movie set conveniently located just down the road!

Meals: Breakfast

DAY 10: Off road and on to the Waikato River Trail

Running alongside New Zealand’s longest river, is the amazing Waikato River Trail. Our riders tell stories about the Waikato River Trail. The trail passes a series of hydro lakes, through volcanic landscapes, forest and farmland. Our escape riders always tell stories about the Waikato River Trail…once you’ve ridden it you’ll have your own stories to tell! 

Cycling Distance:  89km

Accommodation: Rustic lodge 

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

DAY 11: Magical and historic, Pureora Forest awaits

We make a B-Line for the lovely Pureora Forest Park and the topographical centre of the North Island. And then the fun begins! The Timber Trail is famous for stunning stands of virgin forest bush saved from logging in the 1970s. Remote cycle trail and cool bridges bring us to the Timber Trail Lodge. 

Accommodation: Lodge 

DAY 12: Ticking off the Timber Trail

We ride the second half of the Timber Trail following historic  milling tracks down to Ongarue, then quiet back roads get us to Taumarunui for the night.

DAY 13: Volcanic views central North Island

We ride lesser-travelled farming roads for a little while before hitting the tar seal and boosting towards Raetihi. Fingers crossed for clear skies and views of Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand’s largest active volcano and home to the North Islands only glaciers.

Cycling Distance:  82km

DAY 14: Cycling the Bridge to No Where Trail

Optional: Ride the Bridge to Nowhere trail + jet boat then vehicle transfer to Raetihi.

OR: Spend the day exploring cycle trails in the area

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

DAY 15: Whanganui River Trail

The Whanganui River Valley has a climate of its own. Take your time rolling up and down (it’s got to be more down than up right?) through this lush river valley down to Whanganui. 

Cycling Distance:  98km

DAY 16: Rest day in Whanganui

Explore the art walks and galleries around Whanganui, or maybe it is time your bike got some love with a local mechanic.

DAY 17: Up and away to Hunterville

With a bit of a quirky start to the day we warm up heading east out of town on nice flat quiet farming road. It wouldn’t be NZ without a couple of hearty hills to get your heart happy before hunkering down at the Hunterville Hotel.

Cycling Distance:  61km

Accommodation: Traditional Hotel

DAY 18: Rural roads to the Ruahine Range

Some smooth seal starts the day, but don’t get too comfy! Soon we’re back onto a mix of gravel and farm roads. Taking us from Hunterville towards the Ruahine Range.

Cycling Distance: 80km 

DAY 19: Crank over the Paihiatua Track

Traverse below the Ruahines as you head South, then your legs spin like windmills as we crank over the Paihitua track. What a wonderful thing a wind-powered bike would be! 

Cycling Distance: 90km

DAY 20: Pedal Paihiatua to Greytown

If we get a northerly, you’ll have a famous Martinborough vino in your hand soon after lunch. If we ride into a southerly breeze, you’ll just have to wait until dinner time!

Cycling Distance:  116km

DAY 21: Remutaka Cycle Trail

After a warmup on flat farm roads, we meander up the Remutaka Cycle Trail through disused rail tunnels and take in other cool history. Then it’s down, down, down and along the Hutt River cycle trail all the way into Wellington (Petone) before our final dinner together which marks the end of your North Island adventure!

Cycling Distance: 87km 

Accommodation: Holiday Park Motel

DAY 22: Wellington, Ferry Transfer Day

Farewell to those completing the North Island!

Ferry transfer and rest day for those continuing to Bluff

For Those beginning their journey in Picton, WELCOME!

DAY 23: Scenic Queen Charlotte Drive to Havelock

We get our wheels turning on the stunning Queen Charlotte drive. Or you can head off road for a more adventurous ride on The Link Pathway cycle trail (similar km’s but more singletrack trail and some steeper climbs/descents). A shorter riding day offers us time to explore the coastal settlements along the way.

Cycling Distance: 45km

DAY 24: Mighty Maungatapu challenge to Nelson

You’ll ride on sealed roads today through small rural settlements and over the scenic Whangamoa reserve between Havelock and Nelson. Don’t worry, there’s a good cafe and at least one ice cream shop on the way! 

Cycling Distance: 75km

DAY 25: Great Taste Trail to St Arnaud

We meander out of Nelson on the sealed/gravel Great Taste Trail. Navigating a historic railway tunnel is a pretty great way to avoid a steep hill, so don’t forget your head torch! Then we’re on country roads all the way to St Arnaud.

Cycling Distance:  99km

DAY 26: Ride via Lake Rotoroa to Murchison

We stretch our legs today clocking up some kilometres on quiet country roads.  We pass through Lake Rotoroa, some gorgeous native bush and lots of fords.

Cycling Distance:  75km

DAY 27: Native bush and back roads to Reefton

Good rural farming country meets native bush on lovely quiet little used roads. We pop over Maruia Saddle at 500m, then it’s a lovely up and over piece of road – rich in bush and birdlife to Reefton.

Cycling Distance:  123km

Accommodation: Historic House 

DAY 28: Historic roads to the West Coast

It’s gently descending all the way to Greymouth. Stopping off at the eccentric and historic settlement of Blackball and paying our respects to the minors lost in the Pike River mine disaster.

Accommodation:  Motel

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch

DAY 29: Rest Day In Greymouth

A well-earned rest day, explore the nearby historical mining settlements, enjoy the Pounamu pathway exhibition or hire a car/ ride your bike up to the beautiful  Punakaiki rocks.

DAY 30: West Coast Wilderness Trail

We don our plaid and join the West Coast Wilderness Trail and gently climb on purpose-built trails through magical forest. What goes up must come down, this afternoon we enjoy a stunning ride from Cowboy Paradise down to Hokitika via the Lake Kaniere trails

Cycling Distance:  101km

DAY 31: Coastal Cycle Trail

We absorb the West Coast pace of life on the most recent part of the West Coast Wilderness trail. Coastal cycle trail, secondary roads and finally highway, we enjoy a smorgasbord of farmland, stunning bush and lakes.

Cycling Distance: 82km

Accommodation: Retro Hotel

DAY 32: Riding Into Glacier Country

Get your hill legs out… we’re riding into glacier country. We set out early to allow time for optional glacial viewing activities for those who wish.

Cycling Distance: 86km

DAY 33: Pedal the Wild West Coast

We continue riding south on sealed roads through towering Rimu rainforest. You’ll enjoy glimpses of rugged and wild coastline including Bruce Bay and the famous Knights Point lookout.

Cycling Distance: 119km

DAY 34: In the shadow of the Southern Alps

Click into your low gears or crank up your battery we’re going over… Up we go – up and over the Southern Alps. Take it slowly – because there is some great scenery to see!

Cycling Distance: 79km

Accommodation: Cabins

DAY 35: Wānaka awaits - lake views get us there

We ride from Lake Wānaka to Lake Hāwea and back to Lake Wānaka.  It sounds like a circle… but it’s not.  It’s quite hilly and can be windy but if we’re in luck the resident nor’wester will blow us to Wānaka with the last part on a fun riverside cycle trail.

DAY 36: Rest Day in Wānaka

Rest Day in Wānaka. Central Otago scenery, local activities, abundant shopping and dining options or a relaxing walk by the lake.

DAY 37: Bike The Crown Range Road

There’s no doubt you need your wits about you today, the Crown Range Road is the highest main road in NZ at 1076m and you’re going to ride over it! We finish the day on the cycle trail into Queenstown. (You can of course opt out of this ride if you prefer).

Cycling Distance:  87km

DAY 38: Round The Mountains cycle trail

We begin the day with a 45 min boat trip across Lake Wakatipu. Today is BIG, big scenery, big day, big climb, big down and hopefully a big southland feed!

Cycling Distance:  103km

DAY 39: Pedal The Southland Plains

We make a beeline for Invercargill today. Quiet roads through rolling farmland with an occasional view of the Southern Ocean make a great landscape to reflect on your journey!

Cycling Distance: 101km

DAY 40: Grand finale into Bluff!

The last hurrah, the crowning glory, the culmination of 34 days of pedaling! Today you roll to the iconic signpost at Stirling Point, Bluff marking the end of your incredible adventure by bike.

Cycling Distance:  31km

DAY 41: Farewell

Our final breakfast together. Stay on and explore the region or travel on to Stewart Island. Crew can help arrange bike boxes and transfers to the airport.

Photos from the Tour Aotearoa - Full Length NZ Cycle Tour

Map - Tour Aotearoa - Full Length NZ Cycle Tour

Cycle Tour Aotearoa - Full Length New Zealand Cycle Tour Frequently Asked Questions

The biking lowdown.

• A total distance of 3000km spread over 34 days of biking.
• This is a ‘Pedal bike-centric’ cycle tour. Riding distances and overnight stops have been designed around the needs of pedal biking. E-Bikers are welcome to join.
• Daily riding distances have been planned to be achievable, (but not without challenge) and to allow plenty of time to explore the local towns along the way.
• We encourage an early start so that you have time to recharge at the end of the day.
• 31-139km riding per day on wonderfully remote and scenic riding route. Approximately 58% sealed roads / 18% quiet gravel roads / 22% cycle trails and a 90km beach section.
• There are some big climbs, big downs, undulating coastal terrain and of course there is also some flat terrain.
• Cycle trails have variable terrain and generally slow riding speed.
• Dirt/gravel road biking experience will add to the enjoyment of your tour.
• Our ‘Sag Wagon’ support is available (most of the time) should you need a break from the saddle.

What does “Fully Supported Cycle Tour" mean?

YOU  – RIDE . NAVIGATE . ENJOY . EAT . SLEEP .

WE PROVIDE:

• Daily ride information.
• Digital navigation and cue notes.
• Mechanical and first aid support.
• Carry your luggage *please note we are unable to carry empty bike bags or boxes  
• Ride sweep.
• Breakfasts, lunches, water and riding snacks (and some dinners).
• All the logistics.
• And all Accommodation

Whether you choose to ride the full length of New Zealand or just one Island at a time – we’ll sort the nitty gritty. Before your tour begins, we will organise all the logistics and book all accommodation.

We will give you daily digital route maps, that you can follow on your phone or GPS, and route cue notes so that you can ride at your own pace, stop when you like to smell the roses and grab a coffee when the opportunity presents, while always knowing that we are there if you need us.

On tour, your awesome Escape Adventures support crew will have your breakfast ready for an early start and provide snacks for you to carry with you. They will provide daily ride information and ride sweep with first aid and mechanical support. Our support vehicle will carry your luggage, and on most days set up a ‘floating picnic lunch’ on route so that you can dine’n’dash and top up on water and snacks. The support vehicle is also there if you need first aid or mechanical support, or if you need a break from the saddle.

How fit do I need to be for this cycle tour?

This cycle tour includes rides of 31-126 km per day. Please do read about the daily riding distances taking note of the riding terrain in the itinerary and prepare accordingly. The more prepared you are the more you will enjoy your adventure! You should be comfortable riding 3-5 times a week with regular rides of 30-80km in length. Preparing for your cycle tour should involve gravel, dirt and off-road riding, with some hills.

Preparing for your cycle tour should involve:

• Riding on gravel, unpaved terrain with some hills.
• Ride 3-4 times a week with rides of 40-80km in length.   

Support:  Our trusty support vehicle carries all your luggage, has lunch, snacks and water at hand, and is there if you need a break from the saddle.

What type of bikes do we ride?

The ideal bike for the tour is a hardtail mountain bike or a touring bike with off road tyres. A gravel bike is also an option – but only if you are familiar with riding one on unpaved surfaces! You will need to be able to carry up to 1.5-2L water, a jacket and snacks in a backpack, front roll or frame bag.

Escape Adventures have a small fleet of bikes and E-bikes available for hire available for hire in S M L & XL. (Bookings Essential).

Trek X-Caliber hardtail mountain bike $950 E-Bikes (Brand and Model tbc) – $2400 (Available from November 2023)

When you hire one of our bikes – they are maintained by us and kept in excellent running condition.  Contact us if you plan on hiring a bike.

What kind of meals do you provide?

Included in your tour: All breakfasts and riding snacks, most lunches and three evening meals. (Six lunches are not included). Six lunches and most of the evening meals (as per the tour itinerary) are in places where there are dining and wining options available – therefore at your own cost and choosing. (This gives you more control over the cost of your tour AND spreads the love supporting local businesses!).  We are most definitely able to cater for vegetarians and special diets. If this includes you, it is essential to advise us of this before your tour begins, so that the support vehicle can be stocked with the necessary supplies.

Typical Meals Include:

• Breakfasts – Fresh fruit, muesli, toast and spreads, hot drinks.
• Lunches – Picnic style lunches, fresh salads, cold meats, cheese & bread.
• Snacks – Fresh fruit, salty snacks, home baking.
• Evening Meals – At your own cost / Prepared by your local accommodation on occasions.

What kind of accommodation can I expect

Accommodation is included for all 40 nights of the cycle tour.

Our job is to explore and find the most fitting accommodation to work in with the riding route. Sometimes there is lots of choice, sometimes very little. We will be staying in a combination of motels, hotels, lodges, holiday houses and holiday park cabins. When possible these will have ensuite bathrooms, however in some cases – in holiday houses and holiday park cabins it will be necessary to share bathrooms.

Accommodation is on a share twin basis. If you’re traveling alone, we’ll pair you to twin-share with another biker. If you do not wish to share a single supplement is available. *Single room options may be limited in some locations and an ensuite bathroom is not always available. 

What is the maximum size of the cycle group

This trip has 6-12 guests, plus two experienced Escape Adventures guides.

Tony McPherson

Tour Aotearoa with Escape Adventures certianly exceeded expectations, very well organised and supported by our tour leaders Theresa and Tim. Commencing the trip not long after cyclone Gabrelle had passed through Aotearoa, we were amazed how quickly roads and tracks had been reistated, but the scope for full restoration of damage will be a massive project.

What a great way to experience many parts of NZ you would not see other than on these trails and backroads.

The growth in camaraderie for those on the tour continues with both Kiwi and Overseas bikers.

I highly recommend Escape Adventures from a mature biker who has booked another tour with Escape Adventures in 2024

Jeanette Waters

Escape Adventures have exceeded my expectations across the board. I just need to ride, enjoy scrummy breakfast and lunch spreads and know the accommodation was sorted. Enthusiastic leaders, manageable but challenging days followed by cruisey. I’m 75, on an e-bike and now 1500kms cycled. Just come and do it!! No regrets!!

Raewyn & Bruce Davidson

First and foremost the trip was awesome thank you. The crew were fantastic and we enjoyed every single one of them!! They all worked extremely hard to provide a fantastic experience and did manage to do this so credit to them all! You have an absolutely awesome team and they obviously are very happy to be working with you. This is one of the best things Bruce and I have ever done as a couple in NZ…..and at our ripe old age we have done quite a bit!! So thank you for the opportunity to do this and especially with e-bikes as we could never have even considered doing something like this in NZ with ordinary bikes.

Annie Hudson

Riding the entire Tour Aotearoa was fast looming on my bucket list and when I saw that Escape Adventures were putting this trip together, I was on for it! Having had 3 most amazing overseas adventures with Escape Adventures I knew that they would provide the most fantastic experience. All I had to do was get to the start, get on my bike and pedal while Escape took care transporting our stuff, organizing food and accommodation. Escape’s support crew were brilliant, so willing to help and support everyone, prepared and provided outstanding meals and snacks in abundance. All in all a absolutely fantastic way of riding some of our fabulous trails, seeing remote and beautiful New Zealand with like minded Kiwis and to achieve a personal goal at the same time. I just loved it! Riding the length of our country – Aotearoa.

SORT CONTENT BY LOCATION

CLICK TO DRILL DOWN BY COUNTRY/PROVINCE

Your browser is ancient! Upgrade to a different browser or install Google Chrome Frame to experience this site.

Inspiration

• Bikepacking 101
• Join/Support

• View Latest/All
• Bikepacking Videos
• Your Stories
• Rider's Lens
• Field Trips

Popular Tags

• #bikerafting
• #Tour-Divide
• #family-bikepacking
• #winter-bikepacking
• #1Q5V (1 Question 5 Voices)

Gear/Reviews

• Bikepacking Bags
• Camping Gear
• Accessories
• #Editors-Dozen (Our Favorite Gear)
• #Gear-of-the-Year
• #MYOBG (DIY)
• #Decade-in-Review (Best of All Time)

The Gear Index

Latest indexes.

• Mini Panniers
• Saddlebags & Top Openers
• Cargo Cages & Anything Bags
• Gravel Bars
• Drop Bar 29ers

Bikepacking Bikes

• Rigid & Plus Bikes
• Drop-bar & Gravel
• Full Suspension

Rigs & Roundups

• Rider & Rig
• Race/Event Rig Roundups
• Worthy Builds
• Handbuilt Bikes
• #29+ (29-plus)
• #vintage-mountain-bikes
• #cargo-bikes
• Readers' Rigs (Dispatch)
• New Bikes (Dispatch)

Plan Your Trip

• Bikepacking Guides
• Bikepacking Food
• Gear & Pack Lists
• Bike Photography

Essential Reading

• Leave No Trace (for Bikepackers)
• Guide To Bikepacking Bags
• Bikepacking Gear That Lasts
• #Bikepacking-Awards
• Power Of An Overnighter
• Advice For New Bikepackers
• Our Favorite Bikepacking Routes
•     

Where to Begin

We have over 300 original and curated bikepacking routes in our global network spanning nearly 50 countries.

Start at our worldwide routes map to dig into our detailed guides with GPS maps and inspiring photography.

By Location

• The United States
• Latin America
• Middle East

By Length (days)

• Overnighters & S24O
• Weekend Routes (2-4)
• Week-long Routes (5-10)
• Odyssey Routes (11-30)
• "Freakouts" (31+)

Local Overnighters

The Local Overnighters Project is a unified effort to document and map one-night bikepacking routes all over the world—by locals, in their own backyards.

The Bikepacking Journal is our biannual printed publication. Each issue features a collection of inspiring writing and beautiful photography. Find details on the three most recent issues below, join the Bikepacking Collective to get it in the mail (anywhere in the world), or click here to find a collection of selected stories in digital format.

The special edition 10th issue of The Bikepacking Journal is one you won’t want to miss! It features 25% more pages with extra stories, bonus art and maps, and much more...

Issue 09 takes readers on trips through time—one to the early days of bicycles—and offers several reminders to be grateful for supportive friends and family, and strangers we meet along the way...

For Issue 08, we invited several contributors to return and pick up where earlier trips and ideas left off and also feature a handful of first-timers whose perspectives we’ve long been eager to share...

• Group Rides

2024 Tour Aotearoa

February 18 @ 7:00 am,  new zealand,    1864mi (3,000km).

Next Event Thu Nov 9, 2017

Next Event:

Hunt Sydney to Summit 2024

Tour Aotearoa is New Zealand’s longest bikepacking event. Stretching 3,000km from Cape Reinga to Bluff it follows a combination of cycle trails, tracks, paths and lanes connected by the most enjoyable country roads available.

Date: February 18

Time: 7:00 am

Event Website

Organizer: Jonathan Kennett

Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga , New Zealand

Tour Aotearoa is a 3,000km bikepacking adventure from Cape Reinga at top of New Zealand, to Bluff a the bottom. It is a brevet, not a race. Riding conditions vary from rough single track, to beaches, to dirt roads, gravel roads, sealed roads, cycle lanes, trails and paths, and 5 boat trips.

The Tour Aotearoa route is designed to highlight the best New Zealand Cycle Trail Great Rides, Heartland Rides, and quiet back country roads. The route was/is designed by Jonathan Kennett, a New Zealand cycling guidebook writer. A Tour Aotearoa Brevet event is also organized in February each year. The 2024 event starts in waves of 100 people per day. Riders are supposed to take no more than 45 days to finish.

Live Tracking

Rad Companies that Support Bikepacking

You need to be logged in to use these features. Click here to login , or start an account if you’re not yet a member of the Bikepacking Collective…