13/06/19-19/06/19
Country: New Zealand
Distance: 261 km / 162 mi
Elevation: 1,315 m / 4,314 ft
We made it. Country number twenty and our final stop: New Zealand. We actually landed on 10 June, so as promised last week, I’ll start from the moment we touched down.
Our first seven days in Auckland reads like a Craig David song. We landed on Monday, slept until 3pm on Tuesday, met recruiters on Wednesday, I had two interviews by Thursday, we changed the bikes’ cables and housing on Friday, then started cycling south on Saturday. We did not chill on Sunday.
In between all that we got SIM cards, which were considerably more expensive than what we’ve been paying in Asia and Africa. We bought new helmets as ours have took a beating over the last fourteen months – plus Dan managed to lose his between NZ Immigration and Customs. We applied for our tax numbers, so we can start work in the very near future. Bought some thermals because it’s freezing. Also bought some interview clothes, which luckily in the jobs we do, doesn’t mean a suit and tie. Dan finished his personal website, danburns.video – I’ll give you three guesses at what he does for a living. And we dropped a load of kit off with a friend of a friend, to make our ride much lighter. It was a hectic first few days, we were excited to get back to cycling.
So, cycling New Zealand. If you’ve read the Route page on our website, you’ll know that our plan for New Zealand was to cycle the Tour Aotearoa: a 3,000 km trail from the most northernly tip on the North Island, Cape Reinga, to the most southerly tip on the South Island, Bluff. But plans have changed. Standard. We underestimated how cold New Zealand would be in June (the beginning of winter). And just how much we’d feel the cold after a year of summer. To avoid frostbite and misery, we’ve decided to just cycle part of the North Island: Auckland to Wellington. We’ll still follow the Tour Aotearoa trail, just not all of it – save that for the warmer months.
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Fun fact: Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand and means ‘land of the long white cloud’. It was Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who named New Zealand, which comes from the Dutch word ‘zeeland’ and translates as sealand. Zeeland is also a province of the Netherlands.
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The route out of Auckland was actually quite pleasant for a city, looping up an extinct volcano, Mt Eden, before passing through the huge Cornwall Park. Even though Auckland is the biggest city – it’s not the capital, that’s Wellington – it feels rather like a big town (maybe because we’re coming from living in London?). There are barely any high-rises, which means you don’t have to go far to get a fantastic view of the bays; there’s so much water around Auckland. The houses are very different to home too, in that most of them are built with wood – and a lot are bungalows! Bungalows are such a rarity in the UK; it seems the generally idea of home builders nowadays is just to cram them in and up. I suppose with a population just shy of five million, New Zealand still has the luxury of space, which the UK doesn’t anymore. There’s also a lot of work going into making Auckland cycle-friendly, with cycleways being installed here, there and everywhere. We’ve not heard great things about Kiwi drivers and their attitude towards cyclists, but after a week of riding around the North Island, they haven’t been half as bad as we expected.
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Another fun fact: In terms of size, New Zealand and the UK are pretty much the same size, yet New Zealand’s population is 4.8 million and the UK’s is 66 million. (UK is approximately 243,610 sq km, while New Zealand is approximately 268,838 sq km)
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Mt. Eden.
After leaving the gentle hustle and bustle of the city, we picked up a gravel track around the Firth of Thames, before joining the Rail Trail. We expected there to be plenty of wild camp spots along the route – known as freedom camping in New Zealand – yet we were surprised to learn that it’s a bit of a contentious issue right now. Of all the free camp spots we passed or planned to camp at, pretty much all of them only allowed self-contained camper vans. No tents. There’s been a handful of campers not in self-contained vehicles who have spoilt it for the rest of us. Rules are being tightened about where freedom camping can now be done. Obviously the more rural and into national parks you get, the more you can just pitch up. Mainly because there’s no-one around. But since we were still so close to Auckland, everywhere was fenced-off farmland or, like I say, tents weren’t permitted. The first night we cycled to and from two free camp spots that didn’t allow tents, before paying to stay in a motel, as darkness fell and we didn’t really have much choice. Rookies.
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Side note: Motels are not necessarily cheap in NZ. At $120 (£62) per night, it was our most expensive accommodation of the trip so far.
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Camping may have been troublesome this week, but the New Zealanders we’ve met have more than made up for it. They are just so friendly. That first night in the motel, when we were forced to stay somewhere, the owner gave us a $30 discount. The second night, when we did find a freedom camping spot for tents, we were invited into Doug and Lynett’s toasty RV for dinner and red wine. Then, on the third night, when we arrived at an actual campsite, the owner said it was too cold for us to sleep in our tent, and insisted we slept in her living room with a log-burner going all night. Just wonderful hospitality. And it gets better, as we then arrived at Colin and Janet’s in Cambridge.
Who would have thought, an Oxfordian in Cambridge.
It’s a funny old tale of how we got to know Colin and Janet, who are originally from Middlesbrough, but now live in Cambridge, NZ... Did you know that Dan and I have had our five minutes of fame? Before we set off on the bikes, Grandad Ken got us in the local Middlesbrough Gazette. Colin – who still reads the local news, despite emigrating in 1985 – saw that we were heading his way and contacted the editor of the paper to offer us a place to stay when we arrived. We’ve been emailing ever since and it was lovely to finally put faces to names when we pedalled to their door.
Port pipes. We’re definitely getting ourselves a set of these.
I’ve gotta’ say, northern hospitality certainly rivals New Zealand hospitality. Janet and Colin have looked after us like we were their own, making sure we’re well-fed, warm enough, and have clean clothes to wear. We’ve been treated to fish and chips, a roast dinner, a daily morning fry-up, endless amount of coffee and beer, and a tour of their lovely little town – not to mention a trip down memory lane discussing the ins and outs of Middlesbrough back int day.
While wandering around Cambridge, we visited the Avanti Velodrome, which is one of only two in the whole country. We ended up calling back that evening to watch some of the pros practise. The speeds they hit is unbelievable. Dan ran some sideline tests and reckoned they were hitting 50-52 km/ph. They offer some have-a-go sessions, which we plan to sign up for.
We have a few more days with these smoggies (what you call someone from Middlesbrough) before we have to pop back to Auckland, as I’ve got a second interview. Then we’ll get back on the bikes to make the most of our final stretch of freedom. Scary to think we’ll have to slot back into the daily grind so soon.