Yearly archives: 2008

14/03/08
Well, after over 4200km on the road, pedaling my little heart out, it’s over. I’ve also managed to realize another one of my dreams, which is to spend the night in jail. In fact, it looks like I’ll be spending 4 nights in jail in total for the crimes I’ve committed! Crimes you ask? Okay, I suppose I didn’t commit any real crimes, in fact, I’m paying to stay in jail. Yup, that’s right, I’m writing this blog post from my own cell at the Addington Jailhouse. This building functioned as a prison until the 1990’s, but is now a hostel. I booked it a few days ago to make sure they’d have room for me, as it is a pretty popular place now. In fact, they got 1st place for a BBH hostel this size in NZ, and were also awarded 2nd overall for all hostels in Oceania! Pretty impressive eh? And yes, it really looks like a jail, although a little more pleasant. They preserved one of the old cells as it was for comparison. I’m duly impressed, and happy to end off my cycling tour here. I booked one of the nicer rooms, a 4-bed share room, no bunks, which is double sized. For the rest of the details, please read on and check out the map.

13/03/08
Hello folks, I’m coming to you live from Springfield, NZ at the moment. I haven’t located the Kwik-E-Mart or Moe’s Tavern yet, but I plan to do some exploration after this post just to make sure they aren’t here somewhere hiding. I must admit, I had no idea where I was going to lay my head down tonight, but as it turns out, I think I made the best decision in the end. So why Springfield? After all, it’s not even close to being on my route, and I had to bike uphill to get there. Well, there are a couple good reasons, first, I can say I stayed in Springfield. But secondly, and most importantly for me, it’s 10km from Sheffield. I remembered someone telling me some time ago that Sheffield has the best pies in NZ, and what better way to spend my last meal on the road then eating the best pies in NZ while rolling downhill all the way to Christchurch on a scenic route? I couldn’t think of any either, and that’s why I’m in Springfield. Another option was Darfield, but I’ve since found out that the backpackers accommodations I’d read about no longer exist anyway, so I would’ve been out of luck. Anywho, read on for the rest of my story, and check out the map too.

12/03/08
Hi everyone… I’m back… again! Will I never stop posting and boring you with my stories from the road? Well, in a couple weeks, I suppose the answer will be yes, but for now, there are still a few more things to tell you about, since I’m still biking. I’m well over 4000km into this crazy journey now, for those of you who may be wondering. When I’m done, I’m hoping to be able to put together a ‘super map’ of all my NZ biking, along with a slew of interesting (boring) facts about my cycling. I know Haggerty is already salivating at the thought, but it’ll take quite a bit of work to put it all together. Stay tuned. However, in the meantime, I present to you today’s trip, a leisurely 80km ride from Geraldine to the town of Methven. Methven? Yup, I knew nothing about it either, but it’s quite a place, let me tell you. Check out the map and read on for all the details of this little ride.

11/03/08
Hello friends! Well, after several days of challenging weather, what with heavy rains, crazy winds, cooler temperatures, etc., it would appear that Mother Nature finally decided to be kind to me and bless me with a remarkably nice day. It was back to the original days of my trip, with very hot temperatures, along with which comes the sweat. However, it was also the return of a glorious tailwind for a great part of my ride, coupled with a predominantly downhill day. Did you get a load of the ride stats on the map? My average speed was 21+ km/hr over a 90km ride! How sweet is that? Well, very sweet, let me tell you. Three days of biking to go after today. Craziness. I must say though, I needed an easier day, as yesterdays summit bid has left my calves screaming today, again, much like I had run a marathon. Glad there are no stairs here at my hostel. When will I learn that boulder jumping down 1000 vertical meters is a bad idea? Probably never, as it’s such great fun. Anyway, read on for the rest of my little tale. Not much to say, but I’ll say it anyway.

10/03/08
Well folks, today has to rank as one of the greatest days of my entire trip so far. That’s saying quite a bit, because I’ve had 3 months of pretty great experiences to measure up against it. However, it was just one of those days when everything seemed to be going my way. I had a good night’s sleep, the weather was fantastic, and I just felt happy all around to be up here in the Mount Cook National Park. The plan for the day was to do some awesome hiking up in the mountains. I had planned just to head up to Mueller Hut and soak up the views there, but I also decided to tack on a summit by climbing up to Mount Olivier since I was already up there. After all, this was the first summit that Sir Edmund Hillary actually summited, so that should make for a pretty cool experience, right? Well it was, read on and check out the map.