Kindness and Community

Helping carry my bike box. A word of encouragement. Driving across the country to ride with me. Making me a cup of coffee. Intentional conversation. It started as soon as I was on New Zealand soil. Acts of kindness everywhere. Are Kiwis, especially those on the South Island, on average if not more friendly, at least more helpful, than the average person in the United States? It may also be that as a solo traveler I am more open to connection with strangers. Afterall, unlike my mother, I still don’t want to interact with the person in the airplane seat next to me; however, once I have had only myself for company for days on end, I crave human interaction.

The first challenge of the trip was dragging my bike from the oversized bag pickup area to the city bus waiting area. Since I have always lived in rural areas or places where I can ride my bike everywhere, my experiences with city buses have been few and far between and as a result I always approach them with a (unreasonable, I admit) amount of trepidation. As I always tell Jesse: I’m just a simple country girl! But in reality all travel stressors are magnified when transporting a bike. I’m also very much a planner so I had made the extra effort to contact the Christchurch Metro in advance to ask if the bus had luggage bays, and if they did not, would I be allowed to bring my huge bike box on board. A representative indicated that I may be able to put my box in the wheelchair area on the bus if it was not otherwise needed, but it would be at the drivers discretion. The email reminded me of something I knew from previous trips to New Zealand — they have a “can do” attitude, and unlike in the U.S.A., they are more likely to act in the spirit of a rule and reasonableness and not the strict letter of a law. I approached the bus and the driver just shook his head at me. “Where are you going to put it?” I countered, “Central said I could put it in the wheelchair area”. He seemed to yield slightly so I took advantage of his moment of indecision and charged on, lifting and shoving, I quickly got the box up on its end against the window and out of the isle. The driver nodded, ok, looking a bit impressed, honestly. Four dollars New Zealand dollars ($2.45 USD) later I was dropped directly outside my friends Wayne and Tatiana’s place in Christchurch. Thank goodness no transfers were required.

My friends were actually out of town and kindly allowing me to land at their house, so I walked to the nearest pub for dinner and was asleep by 6pm. My early bedtime, the 5am twilight, and the accompanying morning birdsong had me awake and my bike built, packed for rolling and both of us ready to catch a city bus to the northern edge of town by 8am.

Shall we talk about aging and strength? Ooph. In my younger days I could lift my fully loaded bike up and over fences, even clearing barbed wire when the situation called for me to dig deep into my reserves, but these days it is much more difficult for me to lift a loaded bike above chest height. Had I been thinking about this I would have put a lot of the weight in my backpack for the bus ride, but instead I found myself trying to wrangle this awkward and heavily loaded bike onto the waist high bus bike rack. Front wheel in place, back wheel slips off, ugh, get that back wheel in the tray and…my tires are a bit too wide for the trays. I push and shove and I’m in! Then the swing arm that secures the bike by folding over my front wheel won’t clear the bags on my fork and is barely supporting my front wheel. My bike sways back and forth. I look up at the driver and he nods to me: “good enough” is what I read in his face. My heart sinks a bit, OK, I *really* hope my trip doesn’t start out with my bike getting run over by a bus. I’m on the #8, I get off at the first stop where I can transfer to the #1 bus to take me north. Wrestle the bike out of the tray. A few minutes later the #1 bus arrives and this bike tray is a different design, but my bike seems to fit better. Phew. I’m on and headed for the northern edge of the bus line.

Given my reservations about navigating public transportation, I was feeling a bit smug at this point. Has feeling smug ever lead to a good outcome? Eventually I’m the only one left on the bus and the driver pulls over, looks at me quizzically and says “last stop”. Wait, what? We’re only in Belfast and the bus is supposed to go as far as Rangiora. The driver looks at me sympathetically, this particular #1 stops at Belfast; he helpfully pulls out his app and tells me I can pick up the one I want across the street in about 10-minutes. OK. But can I have my receipt back to use for the bus transfer? He informs me that you are only supposed to be able to use it for one transfer, but since I transferred to the #1 and still want the #1… he takes pity on me and digs out my transfer receipt and hands it to me. The third time loading my bike and it’s yet another design and I’m really struggling to get my bike up, in, and secured as the driver stares down at me. Where’s that Kiwi helpfulness right now?! Feeling a bit defeated, but still on my way, I enter the bus and an octogenarian in the front row, says to me, with a twinkle in her eye “It looks like you are going on an adventure!” Yes ma’am, I am already on an adventure. It was a great little boost.

I’m rolling. This trip is now in motion. New Zealand camping is much more social than in the United States. As many of you have experienced in the U.S., each campground has a specific number of spots and you “own” the entirety of that space for the duration of your stay. If a campground is mostly empty and someone comes along and sets up in the site directly adjacent to yours that would be looked down upon. American’s camp to get away from people. In New Zealand there are a few different types of camping. Holiday parks are common in towns and cities and you may have an assigned spot for your tent but there is still a communal kitchen and laundry facilities, there are also flushing toilets and showers, and sometimes even a lounge with games and a TV. There are also more simple campgrounds that are just a big field (pitch your tent/caravan where ever), a water spigot and a toilet. Finally, there are the backcountry huts. These vary in size, cost, and quality of accommodation. In huts you are staying in one room with a bunch of bunk beds with anywhere from 3-20 other people. There will be a bit of cook area and a long drop outside. Again the theme is community. You interact with others constantly when you are camping in New Zealand.

It is due to this communal nature of camping and huts that I had the pleasure of interacting with truck drivers, pre-school teachers, farmers, ESL teachers, retirees, and scientists from England, New Zealand, Australia, and Serbia. It was a great opportunity to collect opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of the country from many different perspectives. It’s also a great way to make connections and friends that may last beyond the night or two of shared accommodations.

The power of a cup of coffee. There was one particularly long day of pedaling in which I didn’t plan to pass through any towns for resupply, or more importantly, have an opportunity for my afternoon flat white (mmm… NZ coffee). Often in this situation I will pull out my stove and make myself an afternoon cup of tea to power the remaining pedal strokes of the day; however, this particular afternoon of riding was on a fairly busy highway without great spots to pull off and thus motivation to make my own cup was low. I may have exclaimed outload in excitement when I saw a sign for a cafe next to a small hotel! It came exactly when I needed it as I was starting to fade a bit. I pull up to the primary building and their is in fact a cafe — with the chairs up on tables and no lights on. Denied. Some hotel guests sitting on their porch made small talk with me and I mentioned that I had just been looking for a cup of coffee. The older man perks up, “Do you want a coffee? I can make you a coffee. It comes free with our room.” Yes, yes I do! Thank you! And while it was just instant coffee, the milk was fresh and at that moment it was everything I needed. We sat on the porch and talked about taxes and lifestyle in my coffee benefactor’s original home of Belgium and his home of New Zealand for the past 20 years while I allowed the caffeine to assert its will on my blood and brain.

The Power of Friendship Another real treat of this trip was when Daniel and Wayne both drove in from other parts of the island to to ride the Paparoa Track with me. This is one of the newer “great walks” in NZ. They build these ostentatious tracks in sublimely beautiful places — really, what they are willing to do in the name of laying a walking/riding track in ridiculously remote and gorgeous locations is pretty unbelievable. And lucky for me, as bikepacking has become more popular many of the newer tracks are built to reasonable bicycle standards and allow bikes (unlike many of the older “Great Walks”). New Zealand has a deep history of mining and this particular track is a memorial to the 29 miners who lost their lives in the Pike River Mining Disaster (2010). Unbelievably, coal is still burned with some regularity in rural towns on the west coast and it stinks (literally)! New Zealand as a whole depends heavily on hydroelectric currently.

I had planned to ride the 55km track (plus a bunch of bonus climbing miles to get to the trailhead) with all my gear and stay in one of the huts on the beautiful ridgelines; however, my Daniel and Wayne were keen to ride the route, but preferred to go at it in one day so that we could leave the heavy loads behind. After a bit of convincing I was in! Due to heavy rain I had already been holed up at my favorite hostel in Greymouth when the weather finally started to clear and the guys drove in from opposite directions. Car shuttling ensued and we got started at a reasonable time for what was sure to be a big day. Daniel proved that you don’t actually need brake pads to stop your bike and Wayne proved that you don’t actually need to eat much of anything to ride for nine hours. I on the other hand knew this was going to be a big day and paced myself with a bicycle in good working order and LOTS of food! Nine beautiful hours we were at the northern trailhead. Happy and tired. The route starts with a long sustained climb that was at the limit of my gears (more on that at some future point) and I was grateful not to be loaded down with all my overnight gear. I would have been walking a lot. It was a joy to share the day and the beautiful views with friends.

The Power of Connection With Strangers. Afterall, strangers are just possible future friends. Near the end of my time in New Zealand I was riding the popular Alps to Ocean trail and decided to spend a few days off track camping at Lake Ohau (seen below) where I could explore some additional less well-known tracks by foot and bicycle. I found a free campground not too far off route and set up my beachfront home. A vacationing Kiwi family was in the process of moving their tent forward to a beachfront space, as well, now that the weekend visitors had dispersed. The older man quickly approached, letting me know that he used to cycle tour New Zealand 50 years earlier and was so curious about my compact gear. Later I ended up chatting with his wife and they have lived a fascinating life, including both of their (now adult) sons being born in the Philippines. The afternoon wind whipped up across the lake and I started to regret my choice of beach front property and spent the majority of the remaining day hiding in my tent, with my neighbors helping me carry big rocks over to secure my tent from the wind. As the sun set, the wind finally abated.

The following morning I was up early and was out of camp before any other campers roused from their slumber. I was hoping to hike to a high alpine lake; however, after a few hours of progress it became apparent that my goal had been overly ambitious. I still enjoyed a very challenging scramble along the Tour Araroa, the long-distance hike the covers the entire length of New Zealand, both islands! The track, and tramping (hiking) in general in NZ, are often very rugged and more akin to a rock climber’s approach trail than a popular walking trail in the US. On this segment of trail I ran into one of the Tour Araroa trampers that I had met several days previously — this happens more often than you might think! It always feels like a serendipitous joyous mini-reunion.

In the early afternoon I returned to camp exhausted and excited to share my day with my camp neighbors and also to hear about their explorations of a 4×4 road I intended to check out the following day. While there are so many parts of solo travel that I enjoy, it is sometimes lonely business and thus when I manage a connection with other travels it is an exciting treat. I rolled into camp and they were gone! They had packed up camp and moved on. The feeling of disappointment was surprisingly strong. However, when I opened up my tent and saw that they had left me the note below under the fly my disposition lightened immensely. Somehow knowing that I had also made enough of an impression on them that they took the time to say goodbye washed away the disappointment of not being able to share the evening with them.

More stories to come later!