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Day 1, Christchurch - Rakaia; March 8, 2004
Friday, 07 July 2006

Did not sleep well, woke up few times during the night but anyway feel better than yesterday. New mattress from Ortlieb is really good.

I wake up around 6 a.m. actually taking off plane wakes me up. It is still dark but I do not want to loose too much time. Shower, breakfast and let's start the trip.

The weather is much better today, sun is trying to get through the clouds and the forecast is 22°C.

By the time I re-packed it was well after 10 a.m.

At the camping ground I met a German guys also with the bike but he was already on the way back to Europe after 3 weeks (just as well)

Christchurch - it was supposed to be most English city in New Zealand, but to me really English were only street names :-)

Everything else looks more like in Australia to me. Quite green, lots of parks and small (1-2 floor) buildings and houses.

I Drink coffee at the main square by the cathedral and write postcards...

Got really warm, the sun is shining.

I still have to buy maps and sun block! With the block no probs, as to maps I had to find a good shop in order to have proper scale maps, so far all the maps I saw were in scale 1:1.000.000, but finally found decent ones with scale 1:300.000.

On the way out of Christchurch I got a bit lost and took wrong road and lost some time and of course that costs extra distance. Finally I reached state highway #1 making a big circle around the city.

So I started my journey through Canterbury plains. Roads are extremely busy plus it was already early afternoon so the traffic was building up, but there is no way back now. Lots of trucks :-(

The road itself is quite hard and different than in Europe - very porous.

Road signs are a bit weird as well. But must say that signs directing you to camp grounds are very clear, not like in Gemany. And so far I have seen many of those. The cost of the camping is NZ$ 9-10.

On 42nd km I catch 1st flat in New Zealand. Later I even stopped counting them.

I am passing fields, sheeps, horses, huge 2m high hedges. Terrain is flat for the time being, but on my right (west) you can see mountains. In few days I will start climbing. It is cloudy but still warm.

So I am moving southwest along the coast of Pacific. The objective of today is Rakaia. Not very far, but do not want force myself too much on the first day.

There is a sign behind me - KEEP LEFT UNLESS PASSING - normally the road has only 2 lanes, but every 5-10 km road widens (actually utilizing the shoulder) and cars have 2 lanes for about 1-2 km.

This is the longest bridge in New Zealand (2km). On the map the river looked very wide but in reality there was almost no water only stones and more looked like a creek. During wet periods though level of water can reach the bridge itself.

I must say I was scared there few times cos it is very narrow, and the is no shoulder whatsoever, I was mainly worried of passing trucks.

I found the camping on the south bank almost immediatelly after crossing the bridge.

I want to say here that campings in New Zealand have very good standard comparing to those I know in Europe. Especially when you compare the price. In most of the places for the price of NZ$9-10 (€6) you can use the kitchen, ketle was everywhere, but what is the most important you have hot water in the shower for free.

Distance - 76 km; Average speed - 18 km/h

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 		  

 

 

 

 
Last Updated ( Sunday, 29 July 2007 )
 
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