Australia (local)

Dopo Patagonia, Toascana, Sicilia e Corsica ecco la cigliegina sulla torta: la Nuova Zelanda da Auckland a Christchurch in bicicletta. Due mesi e mezzo e 4500 km (almeno credo, il tour deve ancora finire!) tra laghi, vulcani, alpi e splendidi paesaggi costieri.

As I came to the sign ``Perth 46 km'' I become a bit sentimental. I remembered a moment on the opposite side of time and space, the end of the first day (Day 0) just outside of Darwin. I was at the kitchen of a caravan park and a young fellow asked me where I was going to. ``I'm cycling to Perth'', I said. I had a sum total of 41 km under my belt at that time. The other camper, preparing the meal at the kitchen, looked at me bewildered, thinking probably ``What is this lunatic talking about?''.

A three month bicycle journey through both islands of New Zealand. It begins in Christchurch in January 2008 (south island) and ends in auckland (north island) in April 2008. This is a Live-blog that already contains a lot of information...and during the trip you can track my route and read fascinating reports with amazing pictures!

Our trip began in Wellington at the southern tip of the North Island. After a day to adjust to the time and date differences, we took a ferry across Cook Sound to Picton. From there we made our way to the coast and biked along side the Tasman Sea to Haast. At Haast we turned inland to Lake Wanaka and Queenstown, the adrenaline capitol of the world. After taking a week off from biking to hike the Milford Trek, it was back across the island to the Pacific Ocean and Dunedin, where we stopped cycling and used wonderful New Zealand public transportation to make our way back to Wellington.

On the road, we stopped at a fruit and vegetable stand owned by Maoris natives, the first peoples to inhabit New Zealand. They gave us a warm welcome and soon the whole family, aunts, uncles, and children, was buzzing around us. They showed us their craft centre and took some pictures. Thinking we were missing something, they made us a Baby on Board sign. We fastened the sign to Marjolaine's bike, over-thanked our hosts, and were back on the road an hour and a half later with 3 tomatoes, 1 avocado, and 10 kiwis.

It was hardly a cycle tour. There was no relaxed pottering along quiet roads admiring the scenery and no stops at the café in the town square for a cup of strong coffee or a glass of pastis. This was a challenge ride. Two hundred and twenty kilometres from Melbourne around Port Phillip Bay.

Alan and David travelled to Melbourne to join 7,000 other cyclists on Bicycle Victoria's annual ride. Starting at the inner city suburb of St Kilda on the shores of the Bay, riders had a choice of riding clockwise or anti-clockwise around the bay. Unfortunately, it wasn't a case of turning up in the morning, checking the wind direction and then choosing which way you wanted to head. The choice had to be made at the time of entry and the carrying capacity of the ferries across the entrance of the bay meant that there was a limit on the numbers which could go in each direction.

Named after Sir Douglas Mawson, one of Australia's greatest Antarctic explorers and geologists, the Mawson Trail is a mountain bike touring route extending nearly 900 kilometres from the outskirts of Adelaide, South Australia to Blinman in the Northern Flinders Ranges. The trail uses a combination of gravel roads, farm access roads, forestry tracks, fire tracks, roadways which were surveyed but never actually built and short stretches of sealed road. It passes through forests, vineyards, grain farms and sheep and cattle properties to reach the arid and semi- arid country of the South Australian outback.

James Esmond was not the first person to find gold in Victoria but his discovery of alluvial and quartz gold on the Clunes ``run'' triggered the great gold rushes of western Victoria in 1851. When the rushes ended and the gold ran out, a number of towns and cities struggled to adapt to being country farming towns or faded away into insignificance. The gently rolling countryside and attractive old towns of the western goldfields provides the perfect opportunity for cycling touring. Seventeen cyclists from South Australia and Victoria accompanied Alan, Mary and David on Adelaide Touring Cyclists third bicycle tour through this region.

Tony was recuperating from major surgery to replace a faulty valve in his heart and felt the need to be some place warmer than Adelaide in a cold and wet winter. It had been nearly twenty years since David had returned to Far North Queensland where he was born and where he had spent his early life. These two old farts left their partners in the cold and flew off to the tropical paradise for a few weeks of sun and relaxation.

``The Great Heart Travelers'' promote the blood donation riding around the world. They made a Europe tour of 5400 km in 2004, and a tour in New Zealand in 2005.

In March 1996, I sold my home to fulfil a dream I'd had since my childhood. At age 46, I'd always wondered if one day I might realise my ambition to ride horseback the length of the beautiful country in which I live - New Zealand. So I did it.

It took almost a year but my trip was complete, and this is the story of my journey. It's not just my story, though. The journey was more than a physical one - it became a mental, emotional and spiritual journey as well. And not only for me, it affected (I hope all positively!) the lives of so many other people.

I hope you enjoy my story as much as I enjoyed living it!