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

2017.12.23 – [NZ] Wellington ==> Wellington (0 kms | Total: 2323 kms) – As we discovered yesterday, our apartment/hotel was very centrally located allowing us to reach the main tourist road of Lambden Quay by using a nearby car park elevator. After our breakfast, we set out for some errands but, before leaving the building, we checked upon our tandem which had been stored in a secured laundry room. We bought some spare brake pads in case we encountered a lot more hills on the north island. As Jenny has been hinted, for the past week, that my hair was getting long, I stopped at barber shop for a hair cut. In the evening, we visited Cuba street, the first established pedestrian street in NZ, with the hope of catching a night market but we missed it by a day.

2017.12.24 – [NZ] Wellington ==> Wellington (0 kms | Total: 2323 kms) – We played tourist today. We visited in the morning the free Wellington museum and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, which was the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand. Both museums were easily accessed along the harbor front. In the afternoon, we took a cable car to the botanic garden. We bought more food for our Christmas day as we knew that all businesses would be closed tomorrow – Christmas day. We cooked fajitas for our evening meal. As mentioned in an earlier post, Jenny and I had agreed that we should reward ourselves with an island beach trip once we made it to Auckland. Hence, we started reviewing some Lonely Planet guide books on Fiji and Tahiti.

2017.12.25 – [NZ] Wellington ==> Wellington (0 kms | Total: 2323 kms) – After a lazy morning in our apartment, we ventured out for a hike to the nearby Mount Victoria. We quickly discovered that we were not the only ones walking the street of Wellington on Christmas day. The hiking trail was especially very busy. Unfortunately, a light rain fell along the way which reduced the visibility of the scenery from atop the lookout. On the way back, we took another route that brought us walking along the harbor front. As we encountered some fairly heavy wind on our walk, we also discovered that Wellington was known for its windy days. We took advantage once again of the clothes washing machine in our apartment. We finally opted for a trip to Fiji – as the most affordable destination. Hence, in the evening, we drafted an initial three island hoping trip itinerary.

2017.12.26 – [NZ] Wellington ==> Upper Hutt (39 kms | Total: 2362 kms) – Unfortunately, but as we expected, some heavy rain started to fall while we were having breakfast. When the rain tampered down, we dressed up in our full rain gear (i.e. waterproof socks, shoe covers and poncho) and rolled out of Wellington following our gps directions. Although we kept on our rain gear, we encountered only some rain drizzle until we arrived in Upper Hutt’s city center. Shortly after walking into a McCafé, we noticed the rain coming down heavily again. We waited inside for a break in the rain before completing our last 5kms to our holiday park. We walked to a nearby fish and chip takeway for our evening meal.

2017.12.27 – [NZ] Upper Hutt ==> Carterton (45 kms | Total: 2407 kms) – We had some oranges and yogurt for breakfast with the understanding that we stopped in the next town some 20kms further for a mid-morning snack. Early in the morning, we were reminded of some words that we had read from a NZ bicycling touring website that said:

“Overall, gradients tend to be easier on the South Island, which is surprising considering the number and height of the mountains. The South Island is said to have most of the mountains to look at and the North Island has most of the hills to cycle up, and down! Do not under-estimate North Island hills!” – Pedallers’ Paradise

Hence, we had been warned not to expect an easy ride to Auckland. Only a few kms from our holiday park, we started to climb over the Rimutaka Hill, a climb of over 500m. Traffic was heavy and the road shoulder was often fairly narrow. The ride down the hills was not much easier for the same reasons. As we arrived in Featherston, we stepped into a nice and busy café as the rain started to come down heavily. The cloud held back its rain for the remainder of our road to Carterton. The holiday park in Carterton was very nicely decorated for the Christmas holiday. We enjoyed very much our stay at this holiday park – nice cabin and extra neat common areas. We had our mind set on some Chinese food for our evening meal, but after leaving one of the sit down restaurant, we ended up ordering some Chinese takeway that we ate in our cabin. Jenny managed to reserve a hotel room for tomorrow night as the Eketahuna holiday park had no cabin availabe.

2017.12.28 – [NZ] Carterton ==> Eketahuna (57 kms | Total: 2463 kms) – We started our cycling day under similar clouds as yesterday. We stopped for breakfast at a McCafé in Masterton some 20kms further. Some rain drizzle fell along our way. After climbing Mount Bruce, we stopped for a visit at the Pukaha Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre which housed “Manukura”, the worlds only white kiwi in captivity. (Before arriving in NZ, we did not know that kiwi was also the name given to the NZ bird the size of a duck.) The other aviaries were somewhat disappointing as several were either empty or the birds were hiding from the rain. The last 15kms of cycling to Eketahuna were quickly covered thanks to a continuous gentle downhill towards town. We easily found our hotel within the very small village. The basic room and the general disrepair of the Inn left Jenny looking forward to leaving the next day. We had our evening meal at the Inn’s tavern restaurant.

2017.12.29 – [NZ] Eketahuna ==> Palmerston North (53 kms | Total: 2517 kms) – Before leaving town, we had breakfast at a nice local café. As we had confirmed yesterday our proposed route with some locals, we cycled confidently knowing that we would be riding on asphalt/sealed roads throughout the day. We encountered more climbs that we had not really anticipated from our gps profiles but nonetheless we managed to arrive in the early afternoon at our holiday park in Palmerston North. We walked 30mins into town for a pizza evening meal. As the town hosts a university campus, many of businesses have opted to close for more than a week during the Christmas holiday.

2017.12.30 – [NZ] Palmerston North ==> Bulls (33 kms | Total: 2550 kms) – After leaving our holiday park, we stopped in the city center at a busy café (Cuba café) for breakfast. The ride to Bulls was fairly easy and short at 30kms. As we arrived in town quite early, we visited a McDonald’s for Jenny’s ice cream fix and some lattes. There met a cyclist couple (Netherlands / Austria) who had been on the north island for the past month or so. We exchanged route information and other travel tidbits. We were impressed by their freedom camping approach for their journey. As we were taking a group picture, Tim from BC was walking by with his backpack. We learned that he had been walking the north island trail for the past 50 days or so and he would be reaching his trip mid-point in a few days. We discovered that the area we were cycling into was part of a popular hiking trail route. At our motor home park, we relaxed and chatted to our cabin neighbor who had been working at various local construction sites for some time and likely until Feb. We walked into town for some Thai as our evening meal.

2017.12.31 – [NZ] Bulls ==> Whanganui (47 kms | Total: 2597 kms) – We left our cabin a bit later than usual. We stopped again at the McCafé for our breakfast before pursuing our route to Whanganui. We had a fairly consistent medium headwind throughout our journey which made the climbs a bit more challenging. Arriving in Whanganui, Jenny had more ice cream – you know where. We opted to buy groceries for the next few days before making our way to our holiday park some 5kms further. The holiday park was quite busy with families who were mostly tent camping. We had a very nice river view from our cabin. We had a cooked roast chicken from the grocery deli with some veggies for our evening meal.

2018.01.01 – [NZ] Whanganui ==> Whanganui (0 kms | Total: 2597 kms) – We had a lazy morning. As we had only booked a standard cabin, we had to cook in the busy common kitchen facility. We missed the kitchen cabin we had previously experienced. We were surprised to see the sun shinning in the morning as the weather forecast was calling for rain. We noticed that many families checked out of the holiday park as it was most likely a return to work for many tomorrow.

And finally, Jenny and I wish you all a happy New Year. May it be all that you hope it will be! All the best

And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.
—  Rainer Maria Rilke