On yer bikes!

Day one of our first ever cycling tour, and we’re off! Here we are in New Zealand and aiming to ride our bikes from Pukekohe in the North Island to Nelson in the South Island in time for our friends wedding on the 7th January.

First ever cycling tour

The start to our first ever cycling tour today was a little bit later than planned thanks to the hospitality and heavy handed pouring last night by our good friend Debbie in Pukekohe. We managed a whole kilometre in the saddle before we had to make our first pit stop for lunch! At this rate we won’t make it south of the Bombay Hills, never mind Nelson.

Bee stings & red lights

If there’s one thing that will stop you in your bike tracks it is a bee sting. That’s exactly what happened to Dave less than 15 minutes into our post-lunch ride when the little blighter got him in the neck. I caught up with him and was able to pull the sting out rendering him fit to continue for the afternoon.

The other thing that should stop you in your bike tracks is a red traffic light. But not me today – I sailed on through one oblivious to the cop car following behind me. Thankfully he was in more of a hurry than me and carried on with his chase of real criminals.

Traffic & hills

Riding through traffic is one of the things we’re a bit apprehensive about, but today’s 30km route from Debbie’s place in Pukekohe to Marlisa’s house in Manukau wasn’t too bad. The Google maps bike option kept us on the secondary roads where possible.

With 5kms to go Dave announced that Marlisa’s address was Hill Road which could mean only one of two things, it was going to be either uphill or downhill, and yes you guessed it, it was uphill. But of course the good news is that when we leave for Miranda tomorrow we will have a nice downhill start. And after some traditional Kiwi hospitality and Dave’s favourites of roast lamb and pavlova from newlyweds Marlisa & David, we will need an easy start!