A New Hope

From Christchurch to Mount Cook (17/01 – 24/01)

It was with heavy legs and an even heavier heart that I left Canterbury House on the northside of Christchurch on Friday, January 17th. I had arrived there the previous Sunday, together with what I should now call my former girlfriend, Liesbeth. We had cycled around Europe together in 2017 and had been planning a new cycling adventure in New-Zealand for the last couple of months. However, things don’t always turn out as planned.

To cut a long story short, we decided to break up just weeks before boarding the plane to Christchurch, but having both given up our respective jobs to be able to travel for a while and all tickets having been booked a long time ago, we still departed from Zaventem, Brussels’ international airport, together. We figured we would just be finding our own (separate) ways across New-Zealand and I was still very excited to discover this beautiful country on my bicycle, but the fatigue from the long voyage combined with the different direction my journey, and by extention my life, would take, caught me as a bullet in the chest. I know it is pretty unusual to begin a travel blog with this kind of opening twist, but this is the way this story starts.

The weather gods had some mercy on my soul though, and that first day greeted me to the Canterbury countryside with lots of sun and a very pleasant tailwind. I almost effortlessly cycled the first 60km to Hororata, where I treated myself to one of their self-declared worldfamous hearty pies. Worldfamous or not, it tasted really good and proved to be great cycling fuel to get to the beautiful Rakaia Gorge and wrap up my first day on the road. I unfolded my newly bought one-person-tent and enjoyed the sun setting over the valley.

I got up pretty early the next day, but it took me a while to get all my stuff packed up again (you always have to get into the rhythm in the first days) and when hitting the road I immediately had to cycle up an incredibly steep section to get out of the gorge. My legs simply refused the effort and I had to push my bike all the way to the top. I knew it wasn’t going to be a great day and I cut it short after just 35km. I was welcomed by a very friendly hosting family at Mount Somers Holiday Park who offered me a cold beer on arrival, and by Bernie and Louis, 2 French guys riding their mountain bikes around New-Zealand. I decided to stay for 2 nights in this very cosy place and use the next day to go to Mount Sunday, a Lord Of The Rings film location (Edoras). It is beautifully set in a large valley, surrounded by hills and even some snow-covered mountains on the west side. It would also provide me with a good test to ride for 50km or so on gravel roads. With an unloaded bike, this worked perfectly well and when getting back to the campground at night, I was invited to share the hosting family’s pizza oven for an unexpectedly delicious diner. The kids were very curious about my small tent and wanted me to help them catch tiny fish in the creek running right through the campground.

I planned on staying at Pleasant Point the next day, but when I got there around 4:30 in the afternoon, I didn’t feel like stopping. I had stopped in Geraldine for a gigantic burger at a cool place called “The Running Duck”, where I’d been talking to a compatriot from Gent, who lives in Sydney and hadn’t been in Belgium for over 3 years, and his girlfriend, and I still felt I had some energy left. I continued on State Highway 8 – which didn’t have a lot of traffic by this point of day – until reaching the town of Fairlie, on the outskirts of the MacKenzie district and the gateway to the lakes area and the eastside of the Mount Cook mountain range. I checked in to the campground and met Ute and Konrad in the kitchen. They’re a retired couple from Frankfurt, Germany, and left their home almost 4 years ago to cycle all the way here. My own 10-month journey faded to complete insignificance compared to their epic ride, but they still offered me a beer when learning I had cycled 120km that day. It also provided me with the opportunity to practice my rusty German, which I gladly took. I would meet them again in the following days, which always filled me with great joy!

The next day took us over Burkes Pass to the first of many mountain lakes, Lake Tekapo. The road up the pass went up very gently, with only one steeper section right at the end. Whereas the previous days had always been rather calm in terms of tourism, Lake Tekapo quickly appeared to be on a crossroads of all types of travellers: it hosted lots of campervans, its occupants making a first stop after Christchurch on their way to Queenstown (or the other way round), but I also met some hikers, or “trampers” as they are called by locals, who were making their way all the way to Bluff in the south of the island on the long distance Te Araora trail. Their heavy backpacks full of just the most necessary personal items and food for a couple of days don’t seem to bother them anymore at this point, but I know it’s a big physical challenge. Riding a bicycle is nothing compared to their efforts. I felt exhausted by just looking at them, so I decided to take a resting day, do some laundry, eat something else for breakfast than oatmeal with water and enjoy the stunning views and good company – we formed a nice group of 6 cyclists there – at Lake Tekapo.

Well rested, I concluded my first week on the bike with a beautiful ride to Mount Cook Village, located right at the foot of Oceania’s tallest giant. The first part of the day took me along a canal connecting Lake Tekapo to the lower Lake Pukaki, which remained my companion to my right until I got to Glenntanner, from where I rode the final 20km-stretch up to White Horse campground. The views along this route were simply amazing.

Since this route is a cul-de-sac, I would need to ride the final 60km or so back when leaving this place, so I decided to stay for a day and hike up to the Mueller Hut, at the end of a steep climb over 2000 steps and a final ascent over an Alpine track (elevation 1800m). It was challenging, but I took my time and got to the top by mid-day. On the way down I had a nice chat with Mathias and Maria, a Belgian-Spanish couple living in Aalter and concluding a 5-week journey through the country. They offered me lots of advice on what to visit during my time here, and even had a fresh coke for me from their campervan-fridge when we got back to the campground by the end of the day.

After just a week, the beauty of the country, the joy of riding my bicycle through these wonderful landscapes and the warm encounters with complete strangers had already started driving out the heavy feeling I had taken with me out of Christchurch. I realised how lucky I was to be here for such a long time, to have the chance to discover this part of the world in the way I like best and I felt grateful for already having met a whole bunch of good people. I have every reason to be excited about everything that is to come in the next months and that fills me with happiness and enthusiasm. It’s all right here in front of me.