How are you? Where are you?

If you have a letterbox in Upper Hutt, New Zealand, you’ll find a copy of the Upper Hutt Leader inside on Wednesday (NZ Time).

The front page should feature a couple of grubby cycle tourists who arrived home over the weekend.

For those of you who don’t live in Upper Hutt then please move here. We need more friends. Before you pack your worldly possessions and set sail for the green grass of the valley, you can read the story online here.

It’s been great being home and we have ridden our bikes every day so far. We just can’t shake this bug yet. Riding our bikes just feels normal.

Our homecoming podcast should be online later this week or early next. There will probably be one more podcast where we review our trip, some of our gear and muse on our future plans.

We also want to provide the cycle touring community with a decent gear review portal so keep coming back and hopefully we will have extensive reviews of how our kit list stacked up after 13 months on the road.

We’re almost a stone’s throw away from home in this week’s How Are You? Where Are You? podcast.

A lot of road has been traveled between Christchurch and the top of the South Island and we’ve been blessed to meet some brilliant people as well as enjoying outstanding autumn weather.

We thought we had left all the beautiful scenery behind when we left the West Coast but the mainland has continued to delight especially when riding the lonely Rainbow Track through the country’s biggest farm. The weather tried to spoil the party that day but like what has happened so many times on this journey, the following day’s bright and brilliant sun erased any memories of struggle 24 hours earlier.

Two of the most moving things to happen to us since we arrived back in the homeland occurred on this final leg. One was a visit to Baden’s old stomping ground of Christchurch to see all the positivity to arise from the trauma of a devastating earthquake in 2011. The other was a visit to the Te Awhina Marae, the Maori meeting house in Motueka where we were privileged to be formally welcomed on but also to hear cycling comrade Nick sing.

Peanut butter is the fuel that has kept our wheels turning since we arrived in New Zealand so we went to inspect the Pic’s factory in Stoke for any performance-enhancing qualities.

Oh and something shat on Baden’s face.

Rediscovering Christchurch

Riding the Rainbow Track

Motueka Inspires

Final Days on the Road

Our Final Leg in the South Island

The West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island covers the distance between the two major cities in the North Island, Wellington and Auckland, but this part of the country only has 33,000 thousand residents and bugger all cell phone coverage.

This week’s How Are You? Where Are You? podcast follows our journey up the coast and introduces some of the people we met along the way. All of them outstanding citizens.

This trip home is blowing any stereotypes we had about the people of this land out of the water. We have ridden into big walls of kindness, laughter, wisdom and friendship.

We visit some Greenstone carvers, glacier guides, a gold miner, a fisher and do our best to give some sort of verbal justice to the magical scenery, all while coming under attack by the wildlife in Arthur’s Pass National Park.

The Ride Up From Haast

Life on the Coast

Home of Pounamu

The Majesty of Arthur’s Pass

Our Journey Up the West Coast

Like the hopeful miners of the 1860s New Zealand Gold Rush, we too struck the precious metal while cycling through central Otago.

In this 40th episode of the How Are You? Where Are You podcast we follow in the footsteps, or even the cycle tracks, of the kiwi pioneers along the mighty Clutha Mata-Au River where we find signs of the bygone days.

What the hills surrounding the Clutha lack in altitude, they make up for in stature. They hem you in as you ride along their valleys.

Baden hones his sheep farming skills in a visit to a high country sheep farm and enters a heated discussion with Farmer Jack.

The week of cycling ends over a bottle of central Otago Pinot Noir while relaxing at the Cardrona Hotel, one of the country’s most iconic pubs. We reunite with cycling comrade Nick who decided to cross the Crown Range with us to be hooked up with nice food and good times.

Music Credit: Southern Man by Denis Henderson

Sharing the Road

Over the Crown Range to Cardrona

The Clutha Valley

Our Ride From Gore to Cardrona

We became members of a cycle touring gang in this week’s How Are You? Where Are You? podcast.

As we headed into the remote Catlins region of southern New Zealand, we were joined by a couple of good buggers from the States.

Brian and Nick taught us a great deal and we had a brilliant time riding through some of the most stunning landscapes these isles have to offer.

Laughs and cheese rolls were shared on the journey and Nick’s mechanical nous came to the fore when Baden’s bike Fausto suffered his most catastrophic failure of the trip. A gallant attempt to resuscitate him an in impromptu ER in a woolshed was in vain, leaving the pair stranded in the wilderness until a kind Russian family came to the rescue.

There were some giant hugs handed out in Balclutha when we went our separate ways. The Americans drawn by the city lights of cosmopolitan Dunedin while the local kiwis sniffed the smell of moonshine in the Hokonui Hills.

Gang Riding in the Catlins

Cycle Touring in Heartland New Zealand

We’ve made it to New Zealand and without trying to sound deliberately cheesy, it’s blowing our minds.

Our journey so far has seen us arriving in Queenstown in the South Island (Te Waipounamu) and riding out into the Central Otago wilderness.

We visited the magic of Fiordland and pedalled into the land of good buggers in Southland.

This was recorded this a few days ago on Rakiura or Stewart Island – a beautiful blip of land at the southern tip of Aotearoa.

Life in New Zealand is expensive but we’ve been loving tucking into the Jaffa Thins and meat pies and covering our eyes when it comes to doing the budget.

Being tourists in our own country is a weird experience, especially when it comes to taking local advice from a French guy sleeping in the back of an old van.

Arriving into Queenstown

Clockwise from top: Baden goes walking in the back country; was great to see Mum Brenda again; Glenorchy train station; the views over Lake Wakatipu; ready to ride again.

Cycling Walter Peak to Mavora Lakes

From top left: Dinner time somewhere up the Von River, taking the TSS Earnslaw over to Walter Peak Station; Shell's shoes are off for a river crossing; Shell navigates another cattle stop; one of the best campsites of the trip.

Milford Sound and Western Southland

Clockwise from top left: where the road ends at Stirling Point Bluff; Stefan, the legendary Bulgarian psychiatrist; Clifden suspension bridge; Manapouri cheese rolls; Milford Sound or Piopiotahi.

Tour de Rakiura

Clockwise from top: Baden and Fausto explored all the roads in Rakiura; bird man Matt; Baden tucks into a dozen oysters and a beer; Paterson Inlet in Rakiura; don't run over the kiwis.

The Riding Has Been Superb