While Out Riding The Back Roads of New Zealand A Bikepacking Adventure, from Christchurch to Queenstown Ashwin Cheekati Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 2, 2017

Lost to my meandering thoughts, induced by the hypnotic nature of pedalling on a long stretch of highway, I was oblivious to the pouring rain by this point as it has been raining on and off for most part of the day, my thoughts (mostly of the pointless variety)are Interrupted by a honk from a passing van which stops a few hundred meters ahead of me, seeing this I smile to myself ,that some kindly person has taken the time to stop and offer help, as I approach the van I’m already preparing myself to thank them for their kind offer and say that I’m quite alright, as I have only about twenty odd kilometers left to the next town, but noticing something in the body language I Instead ask if everything is okay, to this the driver says “stopped to ask if you wanted a ride to the town as it’s raining and you are going up the pass, but the engine just died on me and I cannot seem to get it to start” Little over a month ago, In November of 2015 I decided that I should use my year end holiday break, and go do something that I have been thinking about for a while i.e. Explore the Amazing South Island of New Zealand on my Bike but I had only a little over a week’s free time to work with, as earlier in the year I planned to join some friends to hike the Routeburn and Kepler tracks during the holidays. So that I have enough time to properly explore, at least some part of this beautiful region, I took an additional few days off from work before the holidays, and decided to start cycling from Christchurch to Queenstown, through the beautiful Mackenzie countryside ,and also avoid riding on the highways and use the backroads and trails as much as possible.

Sunset over the Lyttelton harbour (Christchurch)

The first day of the trip, and my little adventure had already gotten to a great start, as I was invited to stay on a friends sailing boat in the Lyttelton harbour in Christchurch while I setup my bike, Having never been on a sailing boat before it was an easy choice to make, I ended up staying there overnight as I had to get the brakes fixed as I lost one of the pads for the disc brakes and the shops were closed that day. Got dropped off in Ashburton after the breaks have been fixed, as I needed to make up for the lost day.

Another view of the Sunset over the Lyttelton harbour

The weather during the first week had been very patchy, Sunny and pleasant one moment, and the next you are in the middle of a Hailstorm battling finger numbingly cold head winds or heavy rain.

The Calm Before the Storm! Being Pelted by Pea sized Hail for a couple of minutes was no fun!

Quite early on in the trip, I started wearing a hat under the bike helmet, to protect myself from the harsh UV radiation New Zealand is infamous for, this also worked perfectly to keep of the rain of my face while riding and sparing my head from the sting of Hail during the couple of Storms that I encountered.

Note to Self: Sleeping in a Bivy under a tarp is fun for a few days but for anything longer take a lightweight tent!

The setup, did not have enough spare cash for proper bikepacking gear so I had to improvise for the cockpit bag ;)

Except the Odd car, there was virtually no traffic along this road (The Pioneer Trail), a really nice change when you have been riding along the highway for a while. these fellas were really jittery to talk to :)

Mailbox outside a Llama farm reads “daly lama” Llama -Get It!? daly lama :D Other than the occasional rain and wind to make things more interesting, day two and three’s ride was mostly through beautiful countryside farm roads, with rolling hills and a few stream crossings.

too rocky for my thin tyres to ride through It’s for beautiful moments like these that you seek out the back country roads Lunch, Nutella and Peanut butter wrap

At times my route involved a fair bit of jumping fences

And sometimes the road would just disappear under knee high grasses Took a bit of persuasion to befriend these little fellas.

And so it was on the evening of my third days ride, I see the van stop as I approach Burkes pass, and after talking to him a bit about how the van had been behaving during the day, it was clear that the battery has gone flat and we needed to use the jump leads and ask for one of the passing cars to jump start the engine but unfortunately he had no jump leads with him so we start waving down passing cars and ask if they have any, we were pretty unlucky with the search as most cars would not even stop, as it was still raining and those that did stop had none.

Matti(the driver)tells me that he appreciates my help but I should leave before it gets dark and not get stuck with him, I feel bad leaving him in the middle of nowhere and after all he got into this situation because he tried to help me . After forty odd minutes of standing in the rain and waving down passing cars, we were finally successful and get the engine started, by this time it looked like there was only an hours worth of daylight left, so I agree when he offers me a ride as I would have ended up having to find a place to camp in the dark if I kept on riding, I load up the bike in the van and get into the passenger seat in the front and was in the process of buckling my seatbelt when he put the van into gear and it jerks to a halt and dies on us , after letting out few explicits we sigh and get out and start all over again. The second time it takes us way more than a hour to find another car which could help us, as the number of cars passing by had reduced dramatically as the day light faded, having learnt our lesson earlier, this time we rev up the engine for a good thirty seconds before putting it into gear, both of us are quite relieved when we start moving but Murphy’s law was in full effect today and our relief is very short lived when we find out that the lights wouldn’t turn on, we look at each other and burst out into a crazy laugh, by this time it was totally dark outside so we decide to spend the night there and look for help in the morning. After sharing the food we had with us(well it was more like me eating his food as I was very hungry after a long day)and in the process of preparing to go to sleep by changing into dry clothes, a pickup truck stops by to check why we have stopped in this odd place and after listening to our situation, the driver tells us he will tow us to the top of the pass where there is a large rest area and would be safe to sleep there.

We wake up to frost coated windows and a light dusting of new snow on the surrounding peaks, and that’s Matti

The next morning as Matti tried to find help again, I wander up the road to see if I could find some cellphone reception and eventually find a weak signal, I lookup for a car service centre number and call them up, half an hour later I say goodbye to Matti as he drives away following the service centre truck and I continue my ride under sunny blue skies.

Lake Tekapo