The long way to Dunedin

John and me are planning on cycling around New Zealand now. Due to weather we will first do a loop around the South Island and then move on to the North Island.

Dunedin Cathedral

After spending a couple of days in Christchurch we decided to move on to Dunedin. One of the reasons for that is one of John's hobbies: Bell ringing. No German would have ever heard of it and indeed it is a very British thing. You have to picture the following: Early on a Sunday morning some very distinguished looking older and younger gentlemen (some wearing socks up to their knees combined with shorts that are held up by a belt shortly under their chin) congregate in a bell tower to do the Sunday mass ringing. They stand around in a circle each holding on to a bell rope looking very solemn. One shouts a command and then the ringing starts. The ringing follows a certain pattern (the aforementioned command) and sometimes they fuck it up. Not that I would hear any difference, but apparently you need a lot of practice to get it right. The whole thing is so popular, that there is bell ringing tourism - like John wanting to ring all the bells in NZ. The bells have to be hung in a certain way to do that, so there aren't that many churches available for that. He claims that there are 6,000 bell ringing places in the UK as opposed to only 8 in NZ. It is pure irony that we eventually arrived in Dunedin punctually on Sunday only to find out that this week's bell ringing had been cancelled.

It is only about 400 km from Christchurch to Dunedin and the terrain is more or less flat thought that we could easily do it in 4 days. We could not have been more wrong! Day one passed rather uneventfully: Too much traffic coming out of Christchurch, but nice warm weather and no wind. This changed on day two: There was a dramatic temperature drop in the evening and very strong wind came up - and of course they were blowing the wrong direction. So far we already had had strong head winds but they never lasted longer than one day, so I was not worried. Unfortunately, things got worse on day three. Strong headwind all day long. I ended up cycling in three layers plus gloves plus warm socks. It felt like freezing and on top of all that it started to rain. We had another short day, but surely the wind would not last......

But it did and day four had the worst wind I ever experienced when cycling. It got so strong that we had to get off our bikes every 10 minutes in order not to get blown away (and I am not exaggerating here!). For lunch break we sought shelter in a garage on the way and we politely asked for permission to do that. Immediately we were invited into the house, given hot tea (what a treat!) and were told everything we ever wanted to know about dairy farming. When we left they even gave us three enormous pork chops as a farewell present. This would have never happened in Germany. It took us over an hour to cycle the next 5 km due to wind and the situation got outright dangerous back on the major highway. Due to strong sidewinds we were constantly running a risk of being blown off the road by a gale or by a truck passing by so we had another short day and camped early. When we asked for water we were again invited to stay at peoples' house - New Zealanders are incredibly friendly and hospitable!

We thought we would eventually make it to Dunedin on day five but no such luck: The wind continued blowing like hell and we had to stop short of Dunedin with me being totally shattered and fed up. But that night we had pork chops for dinner and that cheered me up immediately!

Steepest street

In case you were wondering: We made it into Dunedin on day six! We celebrated by staying in a leopard themed Bed & Breakfast place - very fancy. I just want to add that the wind stopped immediately as soon as we arrived in Dunedin.... Dunedin is proud to have the world's steepest street, but after all that hard cycling I could not be bothered to cycle it - neither up nor down. But I must say that I have never thought of a normal residential street as a tourist attraction.

So far cycling in NZ has not been that great: Lots of traffic, bad wind and mostly monotonous scenery, but now we are heading inland and things are hopefully improving.

Preparing apple crumble

But I definitely cannot complain about the food. I must admit that I did John very wrong when we first met. He is carrying 2 pots, 1 pan, 1 set of cutlery, 1 cutting board and 1 wooden spoon for cooking. I thought that this is absolutely nuts and was doubting his mental health. Now I came to the conclusion that we actually do not have enough stuff: I was tempted to buy a spatula (lightweight plastic and collapsible of course), a grater and 2 plastic plates.... Now that my ambition is awakened our dinners become more and more extravagant. The other day we had pork chops with silver beets in sour cream souce followed by stewed apples with raisins and cream. Next I will be working on apple crumble. Luckily John lets me do the cooking and volunteers to do the dishes afterwards - very good job sharing. And he never complains about the food! How will I ever be able to get back to ultralight hiking? I better don't think about it now.

New Zealand

Christchurch Cathedral

 After I had discovered how luxurious cycling can be and that I will probably be back in Australia next year, I decided to go on to New Zealand and cycle around there with John. Figuring out all the flights was a logistical nightmare, but to my great surprise I could change my Air New Zealand ticket for only a very little fee.

So right now I am in Christchurch, NZ and will cycle around here for 7 weeks. My stay in Japan will be very short then (just 3 weeks), but the exchange rate is not very good for me anyways. The Japanese Yen against the Euro is at a 13-year- high right now, so that's not the best time to travel there anyway.

Canterbury Museum, Christchurch

I have mixed feelings about cycling in New Zealand: I wanted to stay a shorter time, but I could not get any earlier flight out. The weather might not cooperate; we will be cycling well into fall. And I might not get along with my cycling partner John. So far the weather is really good here and New Zealanders are pretty nice, so maybe things will work out.

And there is another frightening thing: My wonderful trip will end soon! I have only 2 1/2 months left before my rtw-ticket ends and I have to go back to Germany. But I am already planning my next trip....

Melbourne to Adelaide

Benny and I

Our first stop was visiting an AT hiker friend of mine at Geelong: Benny or Daisy (the latter one being his trail name). Daisy and I had met on the AT where he had been a true advocate of hiking in Australia by giving me a 2 hour long presentation of hiking the Bibbulmun Track. And it has worked as I have hiked it now, too. At Benny's place we were treated with about the most luxurious meal I have had in a long time: Roast lamb with various sides. Benny's mom is a great cook and I got about 5 seconds....plus there was a delicious desert! Benny looked after us very well giving us directions how to get in and out of town.

12 Apostles

So the next day we were on the Great Ocean Road, which should be called Good Ocean Road. It was nice, but not overwhelming. The road is narrow and winding with a lot of tourist traffic, but fortunately tourists are not in a hurry so cycling was not too bad. We saw same very interesting rock formations out in the ocean, like the 12 apostles or London Bridge. I think they chose these names to attract tourists... The 12 apostles are one of the biggest Australian attractions, so I was a little bit overwhelmed by the size of the car park and the amount of tourists. Although the rock formations are quite impressive I still think the sight is a bit overrated.

In South Australia

We continued on to Adelaide passing and camping in Tower Hill Forest Reserve, that turned out to be a volcanoe crater. I was quite surprised to end up in a crater instead of on top of a hill. Unfortunately, I got real bad diarrhea when we got closer to Adelaide. I still continued cycling, but I was hardly able to eat anything and knowing me you can now assume that I was pretty sick. On the other hand John put on even more weight because he now had to eat my part of the dinner, too. He eventually convinced me to take some Immodium and the situation improved. And in Adelaide I was back to normal.

The joy of cycling or luxury bike tours are us

Getting water from a windmill

I ended up cycling all the way from Melbourne to Adelaide with John. The whole trip turned into a luxury tour - but I guess that is what happens if you cycle with a guy carrying a petrol stove and a kitchen sink.... Here is a typical day on the road with John: Around 7.30 am there is the first serious attempt to get out of the tent and have breakfast. John is addicted to coffee so he has to have a brew first. Breakfast consists of leftovers from last night, bread and cheese and jam and on one occasion even of bacon and eggs (I am not kidding you there!). After breakfast is devoured packing up start. I am usually done in less than half an hour, whereas John takes more than an hour to pack up all his crap. We are leaving camp later and later and I have to admit that on one occasion we left as late as 10 am. Gone are my hiker days where I was on the trail at first daylight!

Happy lunch break

We usually cycle around 100 km per day. The terrain between Melbourne and Adelaide is pretty flat, so 100 km is no problem if the wind is cooperating. We do not have much of a lunch break, but you don't really need that after bacon and eggs for breakfast and a 3-course dinner. The only big task is to find a super market and buy food for the evening. At 5 pm it is time to look for a campsite. We are always stealth camping and finding a site can be somewhat of an adventure. We always found something, but sometimes it is less than perfect. When hiking you are usually far away from roads, but cycling is different, so traffic noise can be a problem. Luckily, traffic here dies down at night - very useful if you are camped just 50 m from a road....

Brats for dinner

After setting up the tents the relax time starts when John has his first coffee and I am getting tea. Then comes the highlight of the day: dinner! Our dinners have become more and more elaborate and the hobby cook in me has come out. A typcial dinner starts with a soup as starter. We would then have barbecued fish or cangaroo or lamb or sausages with one or two side dishes followed by an extensive dessert like pineapple simmered in sweet condensed milk. It should come as no surprise that John has been putting on weight ever since he met me. All this is accompanied by various cups of coffee. Of course preparing a 3 course dinner takes quite a while so we are stopping earlier and earlier...BUT: Life is never been so luxurious on this trip!

Travelling partners or what have I done to deserve this...

John

I am getting along very well with my cycling partner John, but before I seemed to be jinxed.

My first attempt to find a hiking partner here in Australia led me to a German guy called Reiner. I found him through another hiker and we emailed back and forth for a while until we finally met on the Bibbulmun Track. I know that hiking is no beauty contest but meeting Reiner was some sort of a shock. Reiner is about 1,65 m (I am 1,84m) and has hair growing out of every face orifice. I am used to hikers having a beard, but not to dreadlocks growing out of ears. On top of all that Reiner was the most negative person I have ever met on a hike. He has been to Australia 6 times and hiked the Bibbulmun Track about 4 times, but in a 2 hour conversation he did not say a single good word about either one of them. It was very clear to me after 5 minutes that there was no way I would hike with this guy - compatriot or not!

My next attempt was an add on the crazyguyonabike website. I was looking for a travel partner for Japan and ended up with Mark cycling around Tasmania. I have already posted that Mark left me on day 2, but I have not written yet about his peculiarities. Mark was riding a folding bike. There is nothing wrong with that. The folding bike was transported in a suitcase that converted into a trailer. I am not kidding you now, but I was following a guy on a folding bike with a red Samsonite suitcase trailer. On top of all that Mark had some sort of a unfortunate figure. He was not bad looking, but he was sort of 7 months pregnant. That is nothing a nice shirt could not tactfully hide, but Mark decided to wear bike shorts that had fit him 5 years ago and a bike shirt he had traded with a Japanese cyclist (who was probably half a meter shorter than Mark). It was very difficult to keep looking into his face and not onto his exposed belly buttom... I still do hope he was having a good time in Tasmania without me.

Tassie - the happy ending

Rocky beach

 As bad as my trip to Tasmania started - it ended very nicely. Cycling with John for a week was so much fun: We barbecued sausages on his petrol stove and had a bottle of wine for dinner. John is definitely not an ultralighter: He is carrying a teddy bear (only 5 cm big) and a kitchen sink (collapsible, it is more like a water carrier - but still!). But he also carries a very useful picnic blanket for our gourmet dinners and a real Swiss army knife. It also takes him half an hour longer every morning to pack up all his crap... When cycling together we averaged about 70 - 80 km every day. That is not much, but still ok considering that Tasmania is very, very hilly (according to his bike computer we had an average elevation gain per day around 1.000 m) and we ended up in all sorts of interesting discussions every day.

Central highland plateau

We got along so nicely that I decided to continue cycling with him. John went back to Melbourne and I did a shortcut across the Tasmanian Highlands to go back to Hobart and fly out to Melbourne as well. This shortcut involved only one minor problem: I had to get up to the central plateau - and that is an elevation gain of 1.000 m in one go. And after that 30 km on my beloved dirt roads through the middle of nowhere. I was not very happy.

My high point in Tassie

To my big surprise everything went extremely well. I climbed up 1.000 m in 2 hours and was not even very exhausted (you have to keep in mind that 1.000 m is not much for hikers, but demanding on a bike). The dirt roads turned out to be not too bad and the weather cooperated. Add some really spectacular scenery and I had one of my best days on a bike! With 3 days I was much faster than I expected and made it back to Hobart earlier than planned: Time to visit the Cadbury chocolate factory there. In their factory outlet they sell 5 kg of chocolate for 40 AUS$ - I was very tempted, but no, I already had a baggage weight problem.

Roadside attraction in Tasmania

Today I flew back to Melbourne and I can proudly say that I am an expert now in disassembling and assembling my bike for transport in a bike box! What happens next depends a lot on the forest fires. The situation is still very unpredictable. I thought it might be wiser to go cycling than hiking in that situation. John and me will cycle along the Great Ocean Road together and probably even all the way to Adelaide. That will probably take 2 weeks. After that John flies on to the US and I will do some more hiking in Australia - all depending on the fire situation. Cross your fingers for me!

Tassie, where things are getting better

Port Arthur

After Mark left me I went back to the youth hostel in Hobart to recover from the shock and make new plans. After I had treated myself to wonderful food in a great Indian Restaurant and having had a good night's sleep I decided to start my tour around Tasmania by cycling to Port Arthur to learn about Australian convict history. I really liked historic Port Arthur, but was still not too enthusiastic about cycling. Everything seemed to be so difficult: Getting water, finding campsites, dealing with the weather - I did not feel in my element.

Wielangta Forest Drive

 On my way back I ran into another cyclist going the opposite direction. There are not many cyclists around, so we both stopped to talk. We talked quite a while and even longer and then decided to camp together. We got along so well that John gave up on his plan to go to Port Arther and decided to cycle with me in Tasmania. John is cycling around the world and has been on tour now for 22 months. So we have many stories to tell each other. He loves stealth camping like me so we are in for an adventure every night. Actually we are having so much fun that I will follow him back to Melbourne from where we will cycle to Adelaide together. There are so many forest fires in the bush now that hiking does not make much sense.

Waiting for the ferry

Our first day of cycling brought us to Wielangta Forest Drive, a dirt road through thick forest with even some primeval forest left. Although very interesting cycling on rutted dirt roads was too much for me. John had to wait for me a lot. We cycled to Freycenit National Park to see the famous Wine Glass Bay and in order get there you can either take a long detour on roads or take a pedestrian and cyclist only ferry. We opted for the ferry which turned out to be a one man operation with a sports boat - but it worked.

John looking over Wineglass Bay

We even did a cheesy touristy thing and visited a zoo where you could feed kangaroos. It was expensive and tacky, but so much fun! I really start to enjoy cycling now and thanks to the adjustments Alan made on my bike and have not had any hand problems any more. I even start looking forward to cycle in Japan! Life is good again.