Some call it “pedalers’ paradise”, but to get that you have to leave the main roads! One big question when cycling in New Zealand is, how to divide the time between the two countries and when you do not have a lot, whether to visit the North Island at all.
I had 2.5 months, so I decided the first 1.5 months exploring the South Island and the one month left in the north.
There are two small books, “pedalers’ paradise”, one for the north and one for the south. I got both of them from my friend Olly in Adelaide, the chief desorganizer of the Beijing to Paris 2007 Carfree Rally, born in Kiwi country. They are written in a very basic way but contain all the necessary information and are easily obtainable in book and map shops throughout New Zealand as I have seen while I was there. Additionally there is a good book about mountain biking in New Zealand which I had bought a copy of, nice for the occasional off-road ride and for contacting land-owners who’s country you’ll be crossing.
The traffic in New Zealand can be deadly as I’ve heard several times … a lot of cyclists are dying on the roads every year, so try to avoid traffic, maybe wear a reflector west and some cyclists even prefer to ride with a little mirror attached to their helmet so they can keep an eye on the traffic from behind and get off the road in emergencies. My main strategy was to avoid the busy streets as much as possible and it was fine.
So equipped with these information you can set out to explore the two islands and enjoy the wonderful countryside of New Zealand. Camp on the DoC (Department of Conservation) camp sites, they are cheap and can be found in many places. Wild camping was possible for me as I had been traveling in a small, green tent, but there’s a lot of barb wire and sometimes it’s quite tricky to find a campsite. Whenever I’ve asked a farmer or a local they were extremely friendly and nobody ever said “no” when I asked to camp on one of their fields - instead they invited me in to sleep in their guest bed!
Going off-road into the gravel you often find DoC huts which I’ve only used once, but which can be a great thing after a long and cold day on a bike. They work with a ticket system where you have to buy the tickets before or get a season pass if you intend to stay more often (it’s more economic when staying more than 10 times as I’ve been told).
The main season, New Zealand summer, can be very crowded with cyclists, but I somehow arrived too late for that and didn’t get to see the cyclist masses others have told me from. Instead the weather got a bit worse in places, but I didn’t even get any of the 14 000 mm rain on the West Coast of the South Island.
The East Cape on the North Island was also a remarkably nice ride with very little traffic, and Rotorua is definitely the MTB el Dorado of New Zealand, you can hire bikes there.
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