An overview of the road covered during our second week of cycling.

2017.11.07 – [NZ] Omarama ==> Kurow (54 kms | Total: 482 kms) – At Omarama’s Top 10 Holiday park, we purchased a membership to the Top 10 holiday parks which granted us 10% off on our stay and future ones at these parks and other similar ones in Australia. We should be reaping some benefits over the next few months. After our typical simple breakfast of yogurt and oranges, we started our cycling day towards the town of Kurow. The road was quite pleasant as it followed a series of lakes, part of a hydro-electric power generating system. Since Lake Tekapo, our Maps.me (GPS) application kept on suggesting the use of some back roads, mostly gravel, which were part of the very popular “Alps 2 Ocean” (A2O) cycle ride . Although we trusted the A2O routes were more scenic, we preferred to stick with asphalt sealed roads. We were eager to avoid a forecast rainfall for 2pm as we arrived in Kurow shortly after lunch. The holiday park was well maintained but Jenny felt a bit spooky as there were not any usual tourist RVs stopping here – most sites being occupied by weekend seasonal campers. We cooked some frozen pizza for supper. It did not rain until 8pm!

2017.11.08 – [NZ] Kurow ==> Oamaru (70 kms | Total: 552 kms) – As the road from Kurow to Oamaru was mostly following a gentle downward incline, we opted to have breakfast in a café in town. We had a tailwind part of the way but traffic got a bit heavier and the shoulder got narrower. We reached the main coastal highway some 10 kms before Oamaru, where traffic from there was much heavier but the shoulder was fairly wider. We leveraged our Top 10 membership again at the holiday park. From our cabin, we walked through the beautiful Oamaru gardens to city center where we had our evening supper at a tavern. To our surprise, penguins can be observed on the coast of NZ – starting in Oamaru with a Blue penguin colony. We skipped the commercial viewing of these penguins.

2017.11.09 – [NZ] Oamaru ==> Moeraki Boulders (37 kms | Total: 589 kms) – From Oamaru we rode on a secondary road which followed the coast for the most part. The ride was quite enjoyable – even though we kept on being passed by tour cyclists. Upon our arrival in Hampden, we had lunch at a nice café. We stopped in town at the Moeraki Boulder’s Kiwi holiday park. We opted for a spacious and bright cabin. After settling in, we walked on the beach for 30 mins to the famous Moeraki Boulders . We considered cycling 20kms return to see some Yellow-eyed Penguins, but we gave up on the idea. We had supper at the local tavern.

2017.11.10 – [NZ] Moeraki Boulders ==> Waikouaiti (43 kms | Total: 632 kms) – We stopped at yesterday café for an enjoyable breakfast. We faced the wind most of the day and by the time we arrived in Waikouaiti we felt tired. We had some stir fry in the town center before heading to our campground a few kms further. We managed to secure another nice cabin for the night. We had a fish and chip as our evening meal at a nearby tavern.

2017.11.11 – [NZ] Waikouaiti ==> Dunedin (46 kms | Total: 679 kms) – We expected to have our breakfast at a bakery in Waikouaiti, but unfortunately it opened only at 9am on Saturday. We pressed on and stopped for breakfast in the town of Waitati. We were some 20 kms before our scheduled rest in an AirBnB accommodation for the next few days. Unfortunately, we needed to tackle a 400m climb (over 6+kms) – our first such climb – before arriving in Dunedin. As we had been told, the climb was for the most part not steep. We managed to complete the challenge with countless rests along the way but no walking! We were trilled arriving in Dunedin until… we started to locate our AirBnB. Dunedin holds the Guinness record for the steepest residential street in the world . We’re not sure but from our perspective we thought that our AirBnB might have been located along the second steepest street as we pushed the tandem for over one strenuous km.

2017.11.12 – [NZ] Dunedin ==> Dunedin (0 kms | Total: 679 kms) – Great timing on our part to be resting in Dunedin as a light drizzle fell for most of the day. We stayed in our warm and cozy AirBnB accommodation during this time. We enjoyed some of our own cooking. We did some clothes washing. Reviewed our pictures and started some text for our blog. I did a bit tandem maintenance e.g. re-tensioned the tandem’s synch belt and checked the wear of the front disc pads which appeared ok. We took a short walk after our evening meal. In summary, a great relaxing day to recover from yesterday’s climb.

2017.11.13 – [NZ] Dunedin ==> Dunedin (0 kms | Total: 679 kms) – After our breakfast, we walked down to the city center. We visited a pleasant Chinese Garden. We later took the city bus to Baldwin Street some 5 kms further and walked up the steepest residential street in the world. After a coffee break, we went on to tour the beautiful Dunedin Botanic Garden. We finally caught another city bus up to our AirBnB neighborhood of Roslyn. We had a great day exploring a few of Dunedin’s visitor offerings.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
— Nelson Mandela