Welcome steemiers! My "decentralized" fam!!!
You are about to read the most epic adventure I've ever done probably no one have did it before, I travelled in New Zealand 3 month entirely on a recumbent trike.
So the story begins...
It was in last summer 2017 that I flewed to Queens town with 3 bike boxes, had my recumbent trike being ripped apart into frame and wheels in order to fit in, plus 3 bags containing all the "Man vs Wild" gears. Yes, I was prepared for a long lost into the wildness of New Zealand. Things were going crazy in both good and bad ways, such as my fire starter didn't went through the custom security check and a Li-on battery for my laptop didn't make it as well, I missed a tool bag at Auckland airport which contains all the tools I need to put my trike together, finally the beautiful landscape shock was so greatfully affected my decisions on where to start....
Go watch the trailer!
How to paddel this huge thing?
Well that was atcually easy - Having easy gears. On the crank side it was a single chainrain which is quite small and the cassette on rear was massive, creating a big gearing ratio and simply requiring faster cadence with easier gears, and it works. But naturally it went pretty slow on the road, a bit more slower on gravels, but still moving.
Why not travelling light?
For sure that idea came to my mind at the first place but think twice, everyone can do it and that was a bit too easy bite for me! When this "harder" idea came to my mind, the questions remain were solved by time... To start this travel, I need to consider: food, water, weather, bike mechanic, body condition, safety, local law, route\directions all by myself and I wish I had companies but no one cycling in winter... At the time when I realized the decision I made was absolutely amazing, I had my drinking water tested by meters, a hot pot of potatos to eat when temp drops below freezing and most importently: recorded all I experienced with big cameras creating huge datas and had hardrives to store.
How to keep safe on the roads?
Safety issues probably would be the question came to peoples mind next, and yes, It was tricky.Cycling on NZ's road isn't for the faint of the heart, the road surface could be rough, traffic can be very dangerous, no cycling lane on major highways, crazy side winds all-day and finally, most of the towns were pretty isolated. To deal with those, althrough my trike was a bit wide but it's more stable under the wind due to low central gravity and having a mirror was the game changer: I could see the head lights when cars apporaching. Lastly, you must having a pair of sharp ears to hear things came behind so you can take actions to avoid it.But, things were not always works propaly, it happened to me twice when I was on my road bike during the trip(yep, I had a road bike on the back of the trike)and wind blowed like crazy so couldn't hear a thing other than wind noise, a car and a animal truck were passing me at high speed with close distance. As a "survivor" after cycling on NZ roads, what I would suggest are: No friday-evening rides, No SH1 rides,No tired long rides,No hungry rides.
Where to stay & what to eat\drink?
There is no need to worry about your safety and personal belogings being stoled when you travel in winter NZ, cause theifs were too cold to make any crime! NZ holds much less population than America Europe and Australia, so basicly you won't meet any bad luck unless you left your 10 grand $ camera and set a tent beside another 100 tents, in the middle of Christchurch city. As I mentioned before, water was being collected beside the lakes and rivers. As soon it looks clean, tastes clean, just came down from snow mountains, it sould be fine, plus, I wasn't drink a lot of water, instead of I brought much more water dense fruits and veges such as watermelons, pineapples, apples, potatos, tomatos and so on. Don't eat cheese! It's a water-sucker.Talking about the camping grounds, there're plenty of it, some of them were the most epic camping grounds I've ever seen - awake in front of snow-caps and deep valleys, eat lunch beside deep and steep lakes, diving into deep thoughts about civilazions under the milky way and BMC, LMC. What a morden high-tec life wouldn't bring you is what you experiencing.
How long did I went & What people did I meet?
I went around 2000KMs among South Island, started from queenstown and down Southland all the way tp Gore, then I rode up into Centeral Otago fruit orchards, getting over Lindis pass down to mind-blowing lake area scenics, stright roads and flats, then dive into valleies reached Fairlie, Mayfield and keep descending strait forward to Christchurch, finally cycled into Bank Peninsula's capital - Akaroa and witness those cool motocycle cliff road riders. I meet a few but amazing people, truly kind, they helped me a lot and I was so greatful to them. They were a Queenstown airport stuff, a Tekapo magizine editor, a Roxburgh reaturant owner, bike shop owners, an Alexandra weather scientist and all the NZ people I've meet.
More stories
There are still much to tell and those untold story would run out steemit's post characters limit but
I'm always pumped to show all the rest of the stories to all adventurists and you - who haven't done any ride out of your city but always dreamed about to do such things...
Story telling can also be like watching a film with popcorns grabbed in hands, but today this is an end. On my youtube channel : LOST IN NEW ZEALAND and become more and more on these platforms like Steemit, DTube, DSound, the rest of the stories won't be too far away. I'm producing music tracks specifically for each of the NZ videos, so it's not just a simple travel vlog series but more like a documentation episodes. See you there!
Go check out my youtube full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClRy5CuSqC_fwY9Z9_adhKg