We’ve talked about this trip for so many years. Hard to believe that we’re just days away from embarking on a 2 month tour of New Zealand!
It’s great to plan and run your own tour so you can tailor it to your interests and build in as much flexibility as you like on the journey but plans are never perfect and we’ve always found that many of the best moments on our trips are totally unplanned and often come up when plans go awry. It will be interesting to revisit this post at the end of the trip and see how our many small decisions played out.
The Plan
We started with two key resources; Fodor’s Guide to New Zealand and the New Zealand Cycle Trail website, https://www.nzcycletrail.com/. New Zealand’s great rides, ‘Nga Haerenga’, encompass 2,500km of trails ranging from easy bike paths to hard core mountain biking tracks. ‘Nga Haerenga’ means ‘the journeys’, in a physical and spiritual sense. The Great Rides originated in 2009 as a partnership project between the Government and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. With a government investment of $50 million and another $30 million from local governments and cycle trail trusts, 23 Great Rides were built across the country. Here’s a good map of the rides
Our first cut at planning selected the rides that were a good fit for our capabilities and interests. We then started to layer on the regions we wanted to visit and amount of time we would like to spend in each region. We quickly came to the conclusion that we would need around 6 months in NZ to do it all so we had to make some tough choices. After many iterations and much poring over maps and calendars we’re feeling pretty happy with the far more practical 2 month plan that we’ve laid out. We initially planned to bring our tandem bicycle and enough camping gear to allow us to camp at least part of the time. The bicycle plans changed as we read up on the Great Rides and discovered that most will be best enjoyed with a nice fat set of tires (not possible on the tandem) and the maneuverability of a single bike. The camping plans changed as we discovered the many affordable options for renting small cottages through HomeAway and cabins in the Holiday Parks. We’ll also be travelling in the early spring for NZ so weather may be a tad chilly at times for camping without full gear. As an added bonus, the current exchange rate is also making rentals quite affordable! We eventually decided to go ahead and book the accommodations for the whole trip to avoid spending time looking for somewhere to stay. We’re pretty confident in our plan but if we do decide to make changes the cancellation options are generally pretty generous.
Travel and Gear
We are travelling early enough in the season that flight options are limited so we’ll be flying Boston to Los Angeles, LA to Sydney, and then Sydney to Auckland. We decided to spend a couple of nights in LA to break up the trip on the way over. The return flights are direct from Auckland to LA and then LA to Boston. Once in Auckland we’ll pick up a rental car and 2 bikes from Natural High, a company that sells bicycles with a buy back program. Given the length of our stay it’s cheaper than renting and it will be good to have the bikes fitted and with us so we can take local rides wherever possible and not be constrained to just trail riding. We’re bringing a gear bag with our pedals, repair kits, bike lights, small pannier, helmets, camelbaks, water bottles, locks, and bike tools.
North Island
The trip starts on the North Island with a few days in Auckland to settle the jet lag and gather the car and the gear. We’ll then head north to the Bay of Islands, taking day trips to ride the Twin Coast Cycle Trail and travel to Cape Reinga at the northernmost tip of the island. We’ll make our way to the Coromandel Peninsula where we’ll ride the Hauraki Rail Trail. Next will be the Rotorua District, an area rich with Maori museums and cultural sites as well as many geothermal areas. There we’ll ride the Te Ara Ahi trail and hopefully get a soak in a thermal pool! Then it’s on to the Hawkes Bay wine region and the many ride options on the Hawkes Bay Trail. We’ll spend a couple of days in Wellington and then take the ferry to the South Island.
South Island
On the South Island we’ll ride the Tasman Great Taste Trail to further our New Zealand wine regions education, catch a ride with the mail boat in the Marlborough Sound and maybe do a whale watch in Kaikoura. We’ll spend a couple of days in Christchurch and then head for the West Coast and ride the West Coast Wilderness Trail. We’ll visit the glaciers near Haast and spend a night on Mount Cook in the Hermitage Hotel. We’ll then head for the original Great Ride, the Central Otago Rail Trail. We’ll ride that trail for 3 days with luggage support from a local tour company. We’ve booked an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound and then we will begin making our way back to the ferry spending time in the Catlins and the Otago Peninsula on the way.
Resources and other Gear
https://top10.co.nz/ Top 10 Holiday Parks
https://www.kiwiholidayparks.com
https://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/
https://www.geobluetravelinsurance.com for medical insurance although it should be noted that New Zealand will cover your medical expenses if you are injured enjoying any of their crazy dangerous activities.
Pixel phone with Project Fi should give us low cost data (same plan as at home) and cheap international calling. We’ll see how the coverage is. LifeProof phone case so the phone doesn’t get hurt on any of our adventures.
Logitech K480 Bluetooth keyboard for easy blogging with picture upload direct from the phone
Garmin Edge 800 with cycling maps loaded from OSM. Step by step directions here https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/05/download-garmin-705800810.html