North Island - Vulcanoes, heated tentsites and hot pools

Total distance: 10300 km
Wellington - Wanganui - National Park Village - Taupo - Rotorua - Coromandel Peninsula - Auckland

Cook Strait

As suggested by many cyclists we hopped on a the Intercity Bus to get out off the capital's traffic. The bus ride was smooth and our bicycles were well taken care of. The bus driver was a cyclist himself and put our bicycles in a big luggage compartment. That bus ride was definitely the safest for our bicycles on our whole trip! We were surprised how efficiently and professionally the long-distance bus network works in New Zealand as we were in any country that does not have a dense railway network like Western Europe. Does Germany have such long-distance bus services? No clue.

Peter's prayer at Jerusalem

From Wanganui we cycled along a river road and visited places with names like Jerusalem, London, Corinth and Athens all in one day. The place is pretty remote and people are warned by a sign-post to use their mobile phones to arrange accommodation beforehand - no mobile phone network on the whole way. Some km before Jerusalem tarmac stops and gravel road starts. Normally not a big deal, but the gradient plus the loose gravel made it impossible to ride. For the first time we had to push our bicycles for a while. When we arrived in Jerusalem, Peter sent a prayer to heaven but it was unheard. The gravel road continued after Jerusalem and became even worse. Anyway, the nice scenery made up for the hard effort.

In Raitihi we have got the best road information. We asked at the i-Site how long it would take from Raitihi to National Park Village, 35 km on a hilly road. "20 minutes", "But we are on bicycles", "Oh, ok, a bit longer, 40 minutes". Of course, it took us more than 40 minutes to the Tongariro National Park, with its three impressive volcanoes - Mt.Ruapehu, Mt.Tongariro and Mt.Ngauruhoe. Lord Of The Rings fans know one of the
volcanoes as Mt.Doom.

Mt Doom

 We stayed here for a few days and did the famous Tongariro Crossing. This is an one-day-walk, 18,5km long, where you see the nicest parts of the National Park. We had already heard before that it can get crowded on the track on a nice day, but didn't really expect soo many people there. Busloads of tourists arrived with us at the start of the walk in the morning and there is really no way to get lost. You just have to follow the crowds. However, this didn't make the walk any less beautiful. Walking up we were in a big cloud, it was windy and we were freezing. But once we got to the top, suddenly the clouds disappeared, the sun and blue sky came out and we had a beautiful view over the volcanoes, the crater lake and the whole mountain range. Walking down was hard on our knees and for the next two days our legs were really sore and we almost couldn't walk. But we could cycle :)

Tongariro Alpine Crossing: Emerald Lakes

So we went along Lake Taupo, to Taupo city and on to Rotorua. On the way we visited Wai-O-Tapu, the 'geothermal wonderland' with differently colored pools, steaming grounds, bubbling mud pools, sinter terraces and so on. Not far from there we spent a night at Waikite Valley. This was a tip we got from another cyclist that we had met on the way. Waikite Valley has a huge boiling spring, which discharges 40-50 litres per second at a temperature of 98 degrees. There is camping ground next to it and adjacent to it are different hot pools, with cooled down water from the spring. To get here we had to climb quite a bit, but we were rewarded with an evening of soaking in the hot pools. I think this was one of our favourite places on the whole trip so far.

Waikite Valley Hot Springs

From there we continued to Rotorua, the city most famous for the volcanic activity in the region. At the campsite there was a big sign announcing the 'world famous heated tent sites'. Naive as we were we thought that was really cool and were a bit disappointed when the lady at the reception told us to put up our tent at a place that was not marked as a heated tent site. But we saw that there was a hot little stream running next to the tent site area and so we thought if we just put the tent close to it we might have a bit of heating at least. We felt the ground and it was only luke warm at some places but we thought that it would be better than nothing. Ha, that wasn't very clever. At night when we went into the tent, it was hot. Really hot! All the hot steam coming out of the grass got stuck under the tent and we felt like a fish in a frying pan and didn't sleep much that night.

From here it was not far to the coast and then to the Coromandel Peninsula. In the end we had a lot of time left and so we took it really easy for the last 10 days. We only cycled every second day and really short distances, something between 30 and 60 km per day. The rest of the time we were hanging out at the beaches, went for walks etc. We visited Hot Water Beach, where normally at low tide you can dig a whole in the sand and as there is a hot spring below the beach, the hole fills up with warm water and you have your own hot pool right at the beach. Well, normally ... Of course when we were there, there were huge waves and a really high tide, so the part of the beach where usually you have to dig, was inaccessible.

Goodbye New Zealand: Sarah & Judy at airport

From Coromandel Town we then took a ferry to Auckland and this is where we are right now. Judy - a former colleague of mine from France - lives here now and invited us to stay with her. So we had the luxury of sleeping under a real roof, in a real bed, something we haven't had since our arrival in New Zealand. And on Thursday we flew home! Incredible that our journey is over already. In the beginning when we started our 10-month long trip, 10 months sounded like an eternity and now its over and time was just flying past so quickly. Now we are half sad, because it's over already and half happy, to get back home and see our families and friends again....

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Westcoast = Wetcoast?

Total distance: 8549 km
Wanaka - Haast - Fox - Hokitika - Westport - St. Arnaud - Picton

From Wanaka, where we last updated you, we cycled north along the westcoast. As we passed the Haast Pass, the vegetation changed completely and suddenly we were into deep rainforest. The next day we finally saw the sea again, really wild with big waves and long empty sandy beaches. Quite different from the Mediterranean Sea. We camped at beautiful, clear lakes and made our first encounter with the famous sandflies - we had heard much about them, but couldn't really imagine that it was quite that bad. As soon as we stopped cycling we had to put on long clothes or use insect repellent. I couldn't decide which was worse, walking around in long trousers and a shirt when the sun was shining and I was quite hot from cycling, or putting on stinky insect repellent, right over the layer of sun blocker, which was a horrible mix specially if you started sweating once back on the bike. But both of it a lot better than those horrible bites, that itch so much that you cannot sleep at night. Well, I finally had use for the mosquito net to put over the head (no idea what the correct name for that thing is - just have a look at the pics) that I was carrying with me all that time.

When we arrived at Fox we were much looking forward to the famous views over the alps, but were disappointed as they were hidden in clouds. We had a rest day, went to see the glacier which was quite impressive and the next morning when we woke up it was pouring down. We decided to wait a bit to see if the rain stopped but it just got worse during the day. During the afternoon in addition the wind grew really strong, so that at the end of the day we were afraid whether our tents would 'survive'. We even checked on the prices for a room, but in the end decided to try to spend the night in the tent. It was loud because of the storm outside, but finally we fell asleep, just to be woken up in the middle of the night by water dripping in directly above our heads. So Peter had to get out and luckily managed to fix it. This was the worst weather we have had on the whole trip so far. But luckily the next day it stopped and so we could continue and from now on we had the most beautiful sunny days you can imagine, with blue skies and just the perfect temperature for cycling. So I guess we can only confirm what everybody says, there are not more rainy days here than anywhere else in NZ, but when it rains, it really rains hard.

In Hokitika yet another rest day was necessary. On our trip we had couch-surfed once in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with Brock. Now we couch-surfed a second time at Kevin's place, a real mountaineer and outdoor enthusiast. We enjoyed Kevin's hospitality a lot as he tried to show us some gems around Hokitika. Thanks Kevin!

North of Hokitika the road was really nice going right along the coast and when we got to the pancake rocks we had another rest day and went hiking in the Paparoa National Park. From Westport we intended to take a rental car and drive all the way up to Picton and take the ferry to the North Island, because we felt that we were running out of time and there were still so many things we wanted to see. In the end however we decided to cycle and to keep some of the things for our next visit to New Zealand.

So we spent two days cycling uphill till we arrived in St.Arnaud, a small village at another beautiful lake. We spent a day there climbing Mt. Roberts, from which we had a beautiful view over the mountain ranges. The next morning we had quite sore muscles! Apparently we're not used to walking anymore. Finally we also had to say goodbye to Roger with whom we had been cycling almost all the way since Christchurch. Quite sad and with aching legs and bums we started into the day, expecting it to be easy, because it would be downhill all the way. Well, it would have been easy, if it wasn't for the wind again, which somehow seems to be always going into the wrong direction. This is really frustrating, having to pedal hard when it is actually going downhill.

One more day on a nice road going along the coast on the Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton and we took the ferry to Wellington, where we arrived yesterday. We spent the day in the fantastic national museum and its café. In particular the interesting information about earthquakes interested us because of the recent earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan. An earthquake simulation shook us and we could feel how bad it must have been for the people there.

We then followed the advice that we had got from almost all cyclists that were here and took the bus out of town. So today we arrived in Wanganui from where we will cycle now to the Tongariro National Park and, if we are lucky with the weather, we will spend a few days hiking around the volcanoes.

Anyways, only 3 weeks left before our flight back home!! Strange feeling, on the one hand we are looking forward to many things back home (like seeing our families and friends, sleeping in our own beds, wearing a pair of jeans etc.) and on the other hand we are quite sad that our adventure will be over so soon, quite sad to quit that life that has made us so happy during the last year...

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