From Haast to Greymouth

We aren’t early birds on this trip. When we left the holiday park in Haast it was 11 am already. After one kilometer we stopped at the visitor center and met a German couple who are riding on a bike around New Zealand, Stefan and Claudia from Berlin. They started their trip on the North Island it was good to exchange our experience on the route. We pay a quick visit to the exhibition in the visitor center about the environment at Haast Pass. Then we cycled over a long bridge to cross the Haast River and followed the State Hwy 6 along the coastline. We barely saw the sea next to the road is a rain forest. We camped at Lake Paringa (DOC). [...]

From Omarama to Haast

From Omarama we stopped following the Alps2Ocean trail because we wanted to go straight to Wanaka. Therefore we had to cycle on the Highway, it was busy with holiday traffic. We climbed up Lindis Pass over 900m high, after the summit it went 30 km downhill. We did a 6 km detour on a gravel road to get to a free campsite. It has historic buildings and ruins, a rustic place. We had a bath in the river close by and felt very good after. The last day of 2014 started with rain and didn’t stop till midday. We went on the Highway to Wanaka and had strong headwind. The wind became so strong that we had to push our bikes. It was only 25 km but we had a speed of 5 km/h. I was thinking maybe we will not arrive this year in Wanaka. Yen wished that somebody could give us a lift. Her wish came true, a bus with young fellas stopped and took us to the center of Wanaka. That was our only lift in New Zealand, all the other way we did on our bikes. Wanaka was full of people who came for New Year’s celebration. It started to rain and got very windy so we stayed in the tent and went so sleep, we don’t mind the party. [...]

From Christchurch to Omarama

I was full of excitement when I arrived in New Zealand, after almost 2 years in Australia my journey continued (and this time I have a travel buddy with me from the beginning)! At the arrival of Christchurch Airport our bikes and tent got checked for dirt, it was all clean. After answering a few questions about our stay and travel plans for New Zealand we got a three month tourist visa stamp in our passports. The first thing I noticed by coming out of the terminal it was much colder here. Only 15° C in comparison in Queensland we had 30° C. I assembled our bikes, there is a dedicated area in front of the terminal. Then we cycled to New Brighton a suburb of Christchurch by the sea. Here we camped in David’s backyard. We contacted him before on warmshowers.org. He runs a workshop for pushbikes in town, he is specialized in building custom bikes. Originally we wanted to stay two days in Christchurch. But we were tired and not that keen to ride our bikes straight away. So we stayed five days. We bought maps and a book which describes many bike rides in New Zealand. David repaired my bike, he changed the headset and I put new oil in my Rohloff hub. Polly and me went several times to the beach that was just down the road, but we had to wear long clothes because it was still cold. We went to the New Brighton Library, the best library I’ve been, it is cosy inside with a nice view to the sea through big panorama windows, the computers with internet access are free to use. [...]