This was on the list ever since I watched Lord of the Rings. I had a perfect two months gap and it was the right time to visit a country in the southern hemisphere. However, I did not realise it was shoulder season in New Zealand and not really the peak summer I was hoping for. 

The trail TA (tour Aotearoa) is a popular bike packing trail that run the entire length of both islands in New Zealand. The starting point at the norther tip is a quite a mission to get to, so I decided to start from where I landed – Auckland. Within the first week of riding, I realised this trail is more suited with a mountain biking. The gravel path was too difficult to ride with my fold-up bike, so after a week, I decided to do a road version of this tour- all the way to the southern tip of the south island. 

There were bike trails and walking trails everywhere and were well organised. Road cycling does not appear to be that common as the shoulder space was non-existent on most of the roads. Only, 1.2 million people live in the entire south island, so traffic, especially on the west was quite low. The scenery here was more dramatic than north island. But it rains here a lot and clouds were omnipresent. 

New Zealand was just green everywhere, clean air for the most part and it smells good too here, strange, perhaps because of the special flowers and the grass. One has to be quite lucky with the weather though. Fox glacier looks amazing on the pictures but when I was passing through, it was cloudy and I saw none of it! 

Fortunately, in the final week, weather was great and I was in the perfect place, Otogo region, where the movies Lord of the Rings and Hobbit were filmed. The turquoise coloured waters on the lakes from the glacial melt water was beautiful. The ride along the lakes was the best and finally the Queenstown was just picturesque. On hindsight, I should have just gone around the south island more. 

Auckland to pine harbour in a ferry about 30 mins away. Pine harbour – shore bird centre (78) – Te Aroha (72) – Arapuni (71) – Pureora (80)- Piropiro (38)- Taumarunui (60) – Raetihi (78) – Whanganui (101) – Bulls (61) – Levin (68) – Wellington (101) – Picton (ferry) – Blenheim (28) – Arnaud (103) – Murchison (60) – Reefton (87) – Greymouth (81)- Hokitika (37) – Harihari (72)- Franz Josef (61)- Bruce bay (68) – Haast (76) – Makarora (78) – Wanaka (63) – Queentown (63) – Athol (68) – Winton (83)- Bluff (63)