Category: New Zealand

Week 3 The big excursion this week was a bike ride over the Waitakere Ranges to Piha Beach. And even with our bikes unloaded and an assist from a train, it was still one of the toughest rides we’ve done, with over a mile of climbing! I mean, generally when we’re touring with our full…

Week 2 Halloween is relatively-uncelebrated here. The grocery stores have a tiny cardboard kiosk with a few bits of “Halloween” candy, and maybe a decoration or two available near the checkout, but clearly nothing like the aisle full of candy in the US or the elaborate yard displays. It sounds like there are occasional city…

Four days in Auckland was not nearly enough time to get us to be ready to hit the road in this new country, so, we booked a month at a new, bigger AirBNB. A month?! That’s probably more time than we need to plot a route and get our bikes in full working order. But,…

Bagels come in 4-packs instead of 6-packs. They call it a “rubbish bin” instead of a “garbage can”. Every electrical outlet has an on/off switch integrated into it, in addition to the plugs being a different shape. And obviously traffic drives on the wrong side of the road. But beyond that, cultural differences between the…

One final North American bike ride took us north from the center of Seattle to Rett’s friend Shar’s house in the suburb of Mountlake Terrace. Our ride through the steep urban hills of Seattle (much steeper than the long-slow 5%-grade mountain-climbs we’d become used to) was definitely a good way to revive our dormant cycling…