Variations

New Zealand part I - Posted On

My Twistytwinz friends, Jola and Nela, arrive in Nelson for their beautiful circus show. They make us leaving temporarily our bikes at Peter’s place. Then, they drive us to their ‘home’ place nearby Christchurch. Twistyville, it’s a magic spot. Next to the terrible earthquake that happened two years prior, they had their house destroyed. They moved therefore in two magnificent house trucks.  Their level of goodness in life increased at once. Twisty

Jola and her friend Justin are even now building the house truck of their life. It’s a real castle on wheel VERY impressive, where two little tours crank open behind the truck to become shower and dry toilets. The walls extend from each sides and the second floor has a roof that climbs up with a system of ingenious winches and cables. Their example shows us another way of living a sedentary life.

Arthur’s pass hides some hot springs in a narrow wild valley away from Marakau Valley. We go to tramp there with Nela and some friends. Two days in the deep Nature offer us the very best that can be achieved living on that planet.

We go back to Nelson when we get our bikes. I finally could fix that damn back wheel for real. The bike shop R&R Sport really helps me out by letting me using their tools and workshop to fix what I need. Big thanks to them! (ad) www.rrsport.co.nz/ (end of ad).

Benjamin and Anelise are our friends from Caledonia. They travel New Zealand with their van for a few months. As Ben is a paragliding pilot, we get and meet in Golden Bay where we explore together. I stick on my bike while Nadège and her bad knee half go with them in the van. We find some lovely coastal flying sites. The large paddocks of the grassy hills offer us some super nice playgrounds for our aerial treks. Pohara and Collingwood are two steps before finally getting to the northernmost point of the south Island. It’s the strangely shaped Farewell spit, also nicknamed the ‘Kiwi beak’ for how it’s shaped on the map. 

Anelise offers to Nadège her knee strap, and a miracle happens: she doesn’t feel any more pain, this simple trick works very well! She can now ride 50kms a day and even more!!! It is so much a happy event for us…

We really appreciate this area. People are very open minded to live a better life with more time to do things more close-to-earth than our big urban centers. People try to grow their own veggies, to trade things rather than buying new, recycling also and using less fossil energy. 

The magic touch of the travel appears suddenly when we find by chance our good friend Laura from Chile with who we climbed the Licancabour two years ago. We spend some time together, planning the mount Aspiring (3033m) ascension in a few months. This ever-motivated girl also joins us for some days riding toward the West Coast.