New Zealand: summary and route

Cycling in New Zealand can be summarised in three words: trucks, hills and wind. The combination of trucks with either of the natural factors can be downright dangerous. For us, the bottom line is that you can't expect to choose your destination without considering the cycling.....you are best off going where the cycling is good, or taking a bus on certain sections (Apparently Intercity will take disassembled bikes as part of your luggage allowance - although we haven't tried it).

So, if we had our time again, what would we do differently?

Firstly, choose a better route for cycling (not just based on the places you want to visit, in our case Mt Taranaki and the Whanganui River). To be fair, ours was great apart from a couple of short sections. The first was the Awakino gorge, which is narrow for a long way, and we felt was too dangerous to ride (although what do you do when you're already riding it?!). The second was riding into New Plymouth, although this was partially due to the exceptionally strong crosswind. If you DO choose to ride either of these sections, we'd recommend getting there earlier in the day to miss the worst of the trucks, and also the rush hour traffic. Taking the bus from Te Kuiti to New Plymouth would be a good alternative! Note: The two 'mini-tours' that we did towards the end of our time (in Marlborough and the Wairarapa) were both excellent - following our own advice and going where there are suitable routes for cycling.

[We can't speak from experience, but we have heard that the Tour Aotearoa route is pretty good. It needs a mountain bike though (see below!). Anyway check out the event website for info and maps if going that way might suit you. We did have the Pedallers' Paradise guides but, while these are helpful with information about facilities and gradients, did not find them useful in terms of assessing the safety of our chosen route. A general of thumb is probably to strictly avoid any of the single digit SH roads, eg SH1, SH2....etc.]

Secondly, bring mountain bikes, or bikes better suited to gravel. Lots of New Zealand's backroads are unsealed (which, if you ask me, is downright ridiculous for such a developed country but there you go!). A notable example is the section between Marakopa and Mokau - ie avoiding the Awakino gorge. You could also ride the Forgotten Highway, which we would have loved to do. It can be a bit tricky to identify sealed roads if you don't have a road atlas. Our top tip is to use the DOC website. If you go to a page that has a map on it (eg the page for one of the tracks), click 'expand the map' and drag it to your area of interest. Sealed and unsealed roads are marked.

Failing the above, or for the infrequent encounters that you can expect on pretty much every single road, we recommend developing a strategy for dealing with the trucks. If you are on a quiet road, all will probably be well. They will (usually) pull out and overtake you, as you may be used to from cycling elsewhere. Even on a main highway, they will usually pull out.....IF THERE IS ROOM. If it's narrow, and there are vehicles coming the other way, DO NOT EXPECT THEM TO PULL OUT. They will simply plough past as if you aren't there. It really has to be experienced to be believed! Do not despair, though. If you hear a truck coming (or, even better, see it in your rear view mirror) STOP. GET OFF THE ROAD. Just give in and let them pass!

You may be thinking 'oh, it will be ok, surely the main roads are really wide'. No. No they are not. Sections are ok, with good shoulders. But as soon as the road is squeezed by a bridge, gorge or hillside, the shoulder goes. You may be thinking 'oh it will be ok, the traffic is terrible at home' - which is exactly what I was thinking. I can categorically say that the traffic here is the least considerate I have ever experienced - far, far worse than the UK which I previously classed as pretty rubbish! And certainly far, far, FAR worse than SE Asia (even Malaysia).

This is all very negative, but I'd read many accounts from other people on here and elsewhere, and it didn't get through to me until I'd experienced what it's really like here!! Aside from all of that, we have mostly thoroughly enjoyed our riding through the beautiful and sometimes spectacular New Zealand countryside. The people we have met have been friendly and interested, and we have received many waves and beeps of encouragement (even from the occasional truck!!). There's a great selection of campsites ranging from exceptionally well-equipped (love that they have kitchens) down to the basic FREE places. The proper sites have cabins if it's getting cold, and we've also enjoyed staying in quite a lot of hostels. We encourage you to tour here, but bearing the above in mind....for your safety, but also your enjoyment.