South!

The first 650km from Christchurch to Invercargill

We are now located in Invercargill, at the very bottom of New Zealand! I don't think we will ever get this close to the south pole unless we're in Chile or antarctica itself. It's a pretty quiet city with somewhat 50.000 inhabitants. Still feels amazing to have a bed to sleep in, a hot shower and all the other stuff we lack when camping though. It's been some very rough days cycling the last week actually, yesterday was the worst one so far. 55km with an insane headwind that would make the Swedish january-storm Gudrun look like a summer breeze in comparison. In addition to that, there's been hailstorms, rain, punctured tyres and arrogant truckdrivers overtaking like their life depended on it! We are both alive and well rested today though and actually still looking forward to hop on the bike tomorrow. We are now at the starting point of the route we had planned from the beginning, meaning this first 650km was just warming up. Neither one of us have that sore of an ass yet so it still feels compelling to keep on going. The next checkpoint for us will be Queenstown about 6 days north from Invercargill. It's going to be more hills than we have experienced so far i reckon, but also more rain. The westcoast is world famous for it's wet and humid weather! Awesome.

A tiny kiwi hill