New Zealand: Southern Wonders

Your first ride starts twenty minutes from the city. We fit bikes at Dyers Pass and climb straight into the Port Hills, the old volcanic rim that separates Christchurch from the sea. At the top all of Canterbury opens up behind you and the Pacific appears in front. You drop through Evans Pass to Sumner for a late lunch on the beachfront, then take the cycle path back into town. Dinner is the long table at 5th Street, and by the end of it you know everyone's name.

The van carries you inland to Albury, with morning tea in Fairlie, and then the road turns to gravel. Mackenzie Pass is an unsealed heritage route with almost nothing on it, climbing into tussock country the color of a lion's coat. Lunch is on the old droving road the sheep once came down. By late afternoon you're on the shore of Lake Tekapo, which is a blue that photographs badly because nobody believes it. The whole basin is a Dark Sky Reserve, so after dinner we go out and look at it.

Onto the Alps 2 Ocean, one of the great New Zealand rides, following hydro canals where the water runs an impossible turquoise. You stop at the alpine salmon farm, then take the hydro road south toward Twizel with the Southern Alps filling the whole horizon. Late in the day we drive the length of Lake Pukaki up to Aoraki / Mt Cook village and arrive at golden hour with the mountain dead ahead. Nobody talks much on that drive.

No bikes today. You're sleeping at the foot of the highest mountain in the country, so we walk from the door. The Hooker Valley is the classic, three swing bridges and a glacial lake with icebergs floating in it. Sealy Tarns is the hard one, a thousand steps and a view that earns every single one. Tasman Glacier and Red Tarns are the quieter choices. Picnic lunch in the valley, an afternoon that's yours, and dinner at The Hermitage with the mountain in the window.

Back on the Alps 2 Ocean through Sailors Cutting and over the Benmore Dam, where the country stops being alpine and becomes big lake and braided river instead. Lunch is a picnic on the shore of Lake Aviemore. The last run into Kurow is off-road and easy, down a valley that quietly grows some of the best pinot noir in New Zealand.

Limestone day. You ride the Waitaki to Duntroon, where Māori rock art is still there on the overhangs, then past the Elephant Rocks, a paddock full of weathered limestone the size of houses. The Rakis Tunnel is unlit and long enough that you'll want the headlamp we hand you. You come out on the coast at Oamaru, a Victorian town built in white stone. Dinner is early and on your own tonight, because at dusk the little blue penguins come ashore, and you want to be there when they do.

South down the coast past Dunedin to Lake Waihola, where a boardwalk carries the trail out across the wetland. Then the old railway line: two tunnels and a viaduct, headlamps on again. You ride out of the dark into the Teviot light and roll into Lawrence, a gold town that boomed, emptied, and settled into something quieter and better than it was.

The Clutha is the biggest river in New Zealand by volume, and today you ride beside it, down the Teviot Valley past orchards and old gold sluicings. Lunch is Jimmy's pies in Roxburgh, which is not up for discussion. You finish in Clyde, a schist village of narrow stone lanes, and you're here two nights, so nothing gets packed tomorrow morning.

The Rail Trail is the reason a lot of people bring a bike to New Zealand at all, and today you ride its best stretch. Out to Oturehua, across the Ida Valley, and into the Poolburn Gorge with its stone viaducts and two tunnels you ride through by torchlight. The Ida Valley is the quietest place on this tour, enormous and empty and completely silent. Lunch at Lauder or Omakau, and the Chatto Creek pub on the way home.

The Lake Dunstan Trail is new, cost a fortune to build, and is worth every cent, boardwalks bolted to a cliff face above the water and a suspension bridge slung across a side gorge. If the timing falls right there's a burger barge moored partway along that you can only reach by bike or by boat. The afternoon runs through the Bannockburn vineyards into Cromwell, past the old town that went under when they dammed the river, with a tasting on the way.

From the Kawarau Suspension Bridge you can ride the whole way to Queenstown without meeting a car. Lunch is at Ayrburn, then the trail carries you through Arrowtown and along the river, finishing at the Marina with the Remarkables standing across the water. The afternoon is yours, take the gondola, it's worth it, and so is dinner. Queenstown is a good town to be let loose in for a night.

The riding is done. This morning you cross Lake Manapouri and climb over Wilmot Pass, a road built to service a power station that connects to nothing else in the country. On the far side is Doubtful Sound, and the vessel is yours for the night. Kayaks go off the back deck, dolphins and fur seals turn up if they feel like it, and the farewell dinner is served at anchor with the walls of the fiord going straight up on either side.

At some point in the morning the captain cuts the engines and the fiord goes completely silent, and that is the last thing this trip hands you. Breakfast aboard at one table, then out toward the Tasman before turning for home. Back over Wilmot Pass, across the lake, and the coach reaches Queenstown mid-afternoon with the whole of it still going round in your head.