Get Ready, Set, Pedal — Cycling Through New Zealand

All righty — this blog has been sitting and becoming pretty dusty from the last South America blogumentary from almost a year ago.

But, since tonight marks exactly 6 weeks until I (along with my fearless friend — Anya) be on the airplane on our 21-hour flight to New Zealand — The Land of the Long White Cloud — I have decided to slowly bring it back to life.

For those of you whom I haven’t told about the trip, we are actually going to New Zealand for 24 days (well — it winds up at around 21, since the other 3 we spend in the air and airports) to travel and see the country on bicycles!

A few people have asked me so far — why exactly are you going to be doing it? What normal person would voluntarily get on a bike with 40 pounds of camping and hiking gear and spend 3+ weeks cycling through the country, living in a tent, and hiking through mountains during breaks.

It’s a good question. One to which I haven’t even formulated a real answer to. I’m sure that the trip will be one of the most difficult ones I’ve ever done. I’m sure that on numerous days — when we’re going to be climbing yet another steep hill while it’s windy or rainy — I’m going to ask myself the ultimate “and why exactly am I doing this?” question. I’ve already asked that myself on several hiking trips that I’ve done this year :)

But at the end of the day, I am truly looking forward to it. Being completely self-sufficient and self-reliant for a few weeks, being able to travel through one of the most beautiful countries in the world and actually see it for what it really is (as opposed to seeing it out of a car window), and doing something challenging for yourself should wind up to be very rewarding.

Over the next few week, I’ll post a little more background information about our planned route, our equipment and anything else that may be of interest.

Thanks in advance to those that read the blog — it makes writing it so much more enjoyable!

– Borya