My 2,5 weeks in the North Island

Wow, what a great experience so far. Meeting so many nice & open people here. Starting in Auckland with Grace & her family, later in Taupo with Danielle and the Taylor’s and then my Warmshowers hosts Amanda & John in Paraparumu or Rachel & Brett in Wellington. All experiences and meetings I definitely don’t want to miss in my life…

Again it was a great decision to cycle New Zealand – way better then in a car or Camper. Thanks Jen for this great inspiration, I keep following your Great Escape Blog too. But I was not only cycling – took a nice Alpine Crossing hike in Tongoriro National Park the other day.

During my North Island time I

Statistics

– cycled 865 km
– gained 6.500 m elevation
– spent 49 hours on my bike
– 6 hours per day on my bike
– 375 m biggest climb
– 122 km longest ride
– 1 broke spoke

So enough statistics, have a look into some of my inspiration pics below.

Most of the time I’m happy….

Most of the time I’m happy on my bike but I get also sad moments, especially, when I pass by road kill monuments as on the pictures above. Sometimes there are names on the crosses but most of the time not, maybe they are too old.
I tend to stop and think about precious life and life can be short – as sadly experienced last year, March 19th!
Life is a wonderful gift and I’m enjoying it, this is what I’m doing most of the time…

Now I’m off to the South Island and have 3,5 weeks there. Everyone keeps telling me this is much nicer there – hard to believe but I’ll find it out…