Queenstown

We left Invercargill behind us, this time accompanied by our new friend Zane from Colorado, who's also cycling through the country! We met him at the hostel over a "few" slabs of beer and our new favourite game, "Udda eller jämnt". It turned out he liked the brews just as much as we do! The first day of cycling however was neat! No crazy winds blowing us off the bikes, and no exhausting hills to climb! Just easy flat cycling, which resulted in us cycling 85km that day! Then we camped in a little village called Lumsden, we made our tents up in the middle of the park, not knowing that we were just meters away from the local police station. Fortunate for us though was that they didn't care the slightest! The day after, Zane was heading west towards Te Anau and we were going north towards Queenstown so, we took farewell and kept on pedalling.

The following day was pretty rough though, but the scenery totally made up for it! Biking uphill feels so much easier when you do it next to postcard landscapes! After those 65 kilometeres we finally made it to Queenstown, where we are staying right now! This means we have cycled a total of 830km so far!

Queenstown wharf

The road along lake Wakatipu

Queenstown is a very pretty little town, with a mere 8.500 inhabitants, but 1,8 million visitors each year, which means it's very busy. It's beautiful though, located just at the shore of lake wakatipu, surrounded by rugged mountains. (This is where they actually shot a lot of the scenes from the Lord of the rings trilogy). It seems to be a very new city where all the buildings seem to have popped up just over the last decade. Reminds me a lot of the Austrian ski-resorts. The next destination for our journey will be Wanaka which is a day or two from here, but, we have to pass a massive mountain! Gulp..

I heard a funny kiwi-australia joke today, Do you know the difference between Australia and yoghurt?
-Atleast yoghurt has got a little culture!

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

Dunedin

It's now sunday evening here in Dunedin and we should probably try to get some rest tonight before we head off for new adventures tomorrow. We've had a very busy weekend, with very late nights! Dunedin is a quite small city, but got the pulse of a big one. Probably due to the University here which is the oldest one in New Zealand!
It's got a lot of beautiful architecture from the old colonial days when Otago was the richest province because of the gold deposits! The word Dunedin is celtic for Edinburgh which does make sense because the whole city is filled with scottish influences!
We went to a nightclub yesterday called the "Monkey bar" which is located in an old church! Felt pretty awkward to shake the booty in the house of god? We also met a whole bunch of cool people here who also shared our passion for beer!
Today we went to see the new movie "In time" starring Justin Timberlake. Was pretty cool and definitely worth seeing!

Anyway, heading south towards Invercargill tomorrow!
Ciao

Christchurch, the start of the Cycle trip!

We arrived in Christchurch at about 00:15 and realized that accomodation would be impossible to find this time of the day. So we laid down on the airport floor, thinking we could sleep for a few hours. Minutes later, we were awoken by an angry security guard, declaring that we may not under any circumstances sleep here, but we were however allowed to move twenty meters down the hall to sleep at the ”designated rest area”. Some hours later, we decided to go catch the bus to the city. We were of course aware that an earthquake had hit Christchurch a few months earlier but when the bus driver told us that the whole city centre was inside the ”red zone” and that he could not take us there, we were surprised! He did however take us to the bus station and we made our way from there. A few hours later, we decided to walk around the compound surrounding the damaged area. It was shocking to see it with our own eyes. Around 600 buildings in and around the CBD had been destroyed, taking the lives of 180 people with them. This happened in February, but the city still looked like the catastrophy that had struck it. 

Our main quest in Christchurch though, was of course to buy the bicycles this trip is going to be made upon. After walking through a dozen stores or so, we decided to go for the deal we had gotten in the first store.

We got ourselves two brand new Hybrid MTB -GT Transeo 3.0, with disc brakes, kevlar tyres, 24 gears, lockable suspension and all the necessary gear and gadgets, plus a tralier with a drysack, to keep all our belongings in, for NZ$-1300, which is around 7000 SEK.

We waited for another day for the guys at bicycle business to assemble all the stuff for us and then at 12:15 we took off on our great adventure. It took us some time to find our way out from the city, but once we did, we were so excited. The first day we cycled 45,7 km until we decided to call it a day and make some dinner. That night, we camped at the shore of lake Ellesmere.

We started the next day with some oatmeal in the sun, packed our belongings and took off. The landscape here in Canterbury is pretty much just farmland, farmland and farmland. You can see the beautiful southern alps in the horizon, but apart from that it's all just flat and green. (I've got a feeling that's going to change pretty soon though!) 

After about 50km we stopped for lunch next to the main road. After a few minutes, two fellow bikers came along and said Servus! It was a german couple that had been cycling for 19 months. Starting in Germany, they had gone all the way through eastern europe and asia down to singapore, then taken a flight to Brisbane and cycled to Melbourne for another flight to Auckland and they were just about to finish their trip once they got to Christchurch. It really inspired me and gave me all the energy I needed to keep on going the next 21km to get to Ashburton. Well there, we find ourselves a nice little spot just behind an old industry. We had to share it with some rats, but neither of us cared.

We are now in Oamaru, about 120 km from Dunedin, where we'll probably stay for the weekend, feeling proud of ourselves for cycling over 400 km already! After that, Invercargill in the very south of NZ is the goal and once we are there we are going to start cycling north on the westcoast!

See you soon.