Today was a pretty short one, and it was awesome. I hid in my tent from the cold this morning and didn't set off until almost 10am and wound up pitching my tent and going hiking by 2:30 after only 28km. Granted it was uphill for most of it until the short descent into Rakaia Gorge itself. Tomorrow unfortunately I have to get back out of the gorge with a pretty steep 10km. After that it is pretty much downhill for 75km to Geraldine, whew.

Something I haven't mentioned yet is the birds. They are everywhere here and surprisingly have no fear of humans. Some are usually hanging out by my tent in the mornings. Magpies, however, have been making dive bomb attacks at my helmet from behind these last few days. A local recommended gluing plastic eyes to my helmet to make them think I'm watching.

The view from my tent tonight

Today I planned to take it easy, this is only the fourth day of my trip and I've been hitting mileage I didn't expect until much later. My body isn't a happy camper about that one. I figured I'd make it back to Christchurch and call it a day at a motorcamp a bit south of the town. Well I got lost, so lost I started to try to get on a motorway. Magically I found the road I need to take to continue my travels. What the hell, I thought, I'm sure there's another place to pitch a tent, right? Uh, wrong. Every town I made it to said that the next town has a hostel or a campsite. Nope. It was lightly raining and I was in the middle of the less interesting plains so I figured legs be damned I'll go until the place I expected to stay at tomorrow. 105km total, sorry legs.

Today was just rain and sheep, so instead of pretty pictures here is one of my caffeine this morning. It's a “long black”. Basically an americano but better.

I woke up before sunrise hoping to get an early start thinking I could make the 110km trip to Akaroa in a day. By the time I was ready to head out at 7am it was raining hard. Wasn't supposed to stop at any point today so I figured I had to deal with it. It rained for a majority of my day and the only thing worse than that was the strong headwind I was pushing into. All I could think was “what the hell am I doing here?”. It was a very busy road (though not a single car failed to give me ample space and nobody honked), my legs were screaming and I was drenched and could see my breath from the cold.

Fortunately the rain stopped and it warmed up a bit though the headwind never gave up. I could finally start to enjoy the absolutely phenomenal scenery I had been surrounded by all morning. This was also the point when I realized the only way I could get Internet again today to wish my mom a happy birthday was by continuing to fight the wind all the way to a town called Little River, 80km from the start of my day. When I made it I was rewarded with my first meat pie of the trip and about 10 minutes of free wifi before the store shut down due to an employee emergency. Meh, at least the meat pie was good.

From there I decided its was time to call it a day. Biked another 8km to the cheap campsite by the town only to find out out they were closed due to private event. Place next door ($40 teepee “eco stay”) was full because of this. Shit. Fine, I guess I'll continue on and stay at Hill Top. After seeing what “hill” means here I decided I'd go stay in the pub lodging in town. 15km more (putting the day at 100km) and they have no rooms left but call a b&b 1km away and find me a place to sleep. Apparently I'm not good at roughing it but this sure is a nice way to end a day like today.

Today I spent the better part of the morning trying to force my tired legs up to “Hilltop”. Which was about 430 meters of climb in 8km. Spectacular views from the top and coming down the other side was incredible (though a little terrifying on a fully loaded touring bike).

After that I took a 25km ride on the rail trail back towards Christchurch since my route on this peninsula is over. Was camping at a domain which had horse races going on so I watched those for a bit before getting dinner and chatting with some local cyclists there.

My plan today was to do almost no cycling. I figured I'd land in Christchurch, get my bike together, find a bike shop to fix whatever I did wrong and then relax around town. Bike assembly took less time than expected and everything felt sturdy and right so I skipped the bike shop checkup. The Christchurch airport has a nice bike assembly station. Makes you feel like everyone is judging your work as a large section of waiting area chairs face it. Some local actually came out and talked to me about my plans for a bit while I was at it.

When I was done it felt really good to get moving on my bike and I wound up putting in 35 miles wandering aimlessly and getting rather lost in Christchurch. I did manage to see most of the tourist things as well as some of the major points of earthquake damage.

Riding on the left side is harder to get used to than I expected. At first it seemed easy but the instinct to jump to the right side when someone's turning at you is hard to shake. I also forgot I needed to look to the right when making a right turn. Honk honk.

Most popular restaurants in the city seemed to be McDonald's and Subway.

Tomorrows plan is to get as far away from the city as possible (not because of the McDonald's).

I actually got yelled at for having biked to this spot

Guess this is really happening! Cleared customs and immigration and am in Auckland waiting for my final flight right now.

Mistake #1, don't leave your sleeping pills and Advil in your checked bag before starting a 25 hour duration set of flights. Mistake #2, avoid 25 hours of flying.

Something I've heard a lot in recent days is that people hope I find what I'm looking for. The truth is, I'm pretty sure I have no idea what I'm looking for but hopefully I do before I find it.

Also, posts won't always be added when I write them given my sporadic Internet for this trip.

Not everything but most of the important stuff.

Packing list for my New Zealand tour

Bike gear:

• Bike – 2012 Surly Disc Trucker
• Racks – Tubus Tara and Logo
• Panniers – Arkel T–48 (rear), Ortlieb front rollers (front)
• Headlight – Cheap Cateye AA battery light
• Rear blinker – One that screws into rear rack

Bike tools and spares:

• Tire levers – Pedros levers and 2 of my LBS branded levers for backup
• Patch kit – Vulcanizing patch kit Wanted the better patch kit
• Spare tubes x 2
• Lube – Chain-L This stuff smells horrible but it’s all that I use
• Pump – Road morph G Mounted on frame
• Multi tool – Crank Brothers 10. Chose this one due to T–25 bit for my disc brakes
• Chain breaker – Parktool mini chain tool
• Spoke wrench – Triple spoke wrench
• Spare cabeling – 1 brake cable and 1 derailleur cable
• Spare brake discs
• Brooks saddle oil and cover
• Thin cable lock
• U-lock – Small Kryptonite

Things to wear:

• Sunglasses (polarized and clear lenses)
• Bike shorts x 2
• Athletic shorts x 2
• Synthetic t-shirts x 3 – Wanted extra to put something on in town at end of day
• Synthetic socks x 2
• Helmet – These are actually required by law in NZ
• Rain jacket and pants – Custom ordered from Lou at http://foxwear.net/ (Highly recommend this guy)
• Wool base layer
• Swim shorts (hope I can use this if not I’ll toss them)
• Shoe covers

Camping Gear:

• Tent – Big Agnes Seedhouse SL2 Chose a two person tent so I can keep my panniers inside at night
• Sleeping bag – Marmot Never Winter
• Bag liner – CoolMax
• Sleeping pad – Thermarest Prolite Plus

Electronics:

• Kindle Paperwhite – I get bored
• Phone – Prepaid dumbphone
• iPad – To blog and upload pictures
• Camera

Safety and first aid:

• Sunscreen (super important down under)
• Bug repellent
• Whistle
• Space blanket
• Matches
• Lighter
• Prepacked firstaid kit
• Quikclot pack
• Chamois Butt’r

Misc:

• Towel – Large PackTowl
• Nylon cord
• LED lantern
• Platypus water sacks
• Leatherman
• Super glue

Eating:

• Spork – Titanium
• Alcohol stove – (Hand made zen stove)[http://zenstoves.net/BasicSideBurner.htm]