I landed on April 1st with a dream, backpacking equipment, and no idea what I was doing. When I say no idea, I mean a man in the airport lobby walked up to me and said, “Son, you’ve been standing there a while, do you know where you are going tonight? It’s going to be dark soon.”
Surprised by his voice and greener than green, I looked at the man and responded, “I’m going to bike around the country.”
His eyes look around me and in the nicest way possible, he musters up the courage to ask, “Did your bike get lost in route?”
I giggled to myself, I truly had no idea what I had just signed up for, “Nope, I was going to buy one here.”
“You know, all of the stores are closed already, right? You’ll have to get a hostel tonight and then tomorrow get your bike.”
“Okay, that sounds great! Do you know any hostels?”
One of my first nights on the road was spent here, in a storm, on the side of a grassy hill.
Two days later, I pedaled away from the hostel the man at the airport had suggested. Winding through the city streets of Christchurch, I was eager to make it to the main road that circles New Zealand’s South Island. Upon arriving at the T, I asked myself, “clockwise or counterclockwise?” For the first time, I had a hunch that I knew what I was doing. Feeling confident, I recall thinking, it’s the second half of summer, I should go south now, so I am in the north for the fall. So, I went right and pedaled along the coast, embracing a freedom that I had never known before.
Flashback a few weeks, I had graduated early from college, with a BS in Mathematics, but I had no direction. As a kid, I dreamed of seeing the world and being a writer, but, somehow, I studied math. Luckily, I had a professor who took me under his wing and shared travel tale after travel tale. His experiences made him a professor of life, more than a math professor. As I packed my bag, my worried parents barraged me with questions that I did not have answers for. These questions were simple, like; “where do you plan to sleep?” “How much money do you have and is it going to be enough?” “You have never ridden a bike longer than 5 miles, how far do you plan to ride?” All I knew is that I watched a Rocket Power movie about riding bikes in NZ and Professor Klosinski had told me of the natural beauty New Zealand offered.
Standing in front of my trusted steed, Roam’n, I used to cycle around New Zealand's south island.
Armed with a journal, an iPhone (without a data plan), and an overconfident mantra of “I’ll figure it out along the way” I disregarded crazy looks from my family and friends. How hard could riding a bike be? Naïvely, that last question should have been one I asked myself! But, I am glad I didn’t, otherwise, I would not be sharing this story.
Call it beginners luck, but the first two weeks had passed and I had not crashed, nor had I gotten a flat tire. I started to get in the groove and my days, while unplanned, developed a routine. Wake up, eat anything, pack up, ride, eat lunch, talk to myself… A LOT… ride, pitch my tent, read, journal, sleep. Oh yeah, occasionally reference the map that I carried, since I didn’t have GPS. My body was in good shape and to my butt’s surprise, it didn’t get sore! There came a day that I thought to myself, Maybe I have the perfect cycling butt, I never get sore!
As the summer faded into the fall, my dad and brother visited. We packed my bike, that had earned the name Roam’n, into the van they had rented. We drove around the island over 10 days. My wet and stinky self, pissed my dad off from the start. We couldn’t find each other and my sense of time had become non-existent. While a watch was strapped to my wrist, my attachment to social norms had gone out the window. Turns out, I was three hours late. Today, I understand why he was upset, but I was dumbfounded in the moment. As we drove around the island, we created memories. We made many side trips, hiked trails, and, as if I couldn’t get my biking fill, went downhill mountain-biking. Ten days go by quick, but Roam’n and I picked up where we left off.
My dad, brother, and I standing at a road side vista. These are a dime a dozen in New Zealand.
By this time, I had been away from home for over a month. The white line of the road had replaced the black line of the swimming pool, that I had stared at since I was three years old. I did not listen to music nor podcasts, so, I did the unbearable, I learned to sit with myself. When I started the journey, I did not know… well… anything. I was flying by the seat of my pants, without an agenda, only an idea that I honestly didn’t care if I finished because I had tried.
While trying is great, so is finishing, but sometimes you have to ask yourself, Is worth it? Not long after my brother and dad left, things started to break. My back tire had to be completely rebuilt as eleven spokes snapped. I popped two inner-tubes. My panniers were ripping from the constant moisture. Rain became a daily tradition and there was one weekend where I read I sign saying, “Flooding possible, 5 meters of rain expected.” My boots, yes I cycled in mountaineering boots, were sopping wet. I found out the difference between $100 and $600 rain gear is the duration of rain it can repel. I should have sprung for the $600 gear! I got the flu. And to top it all off, I received word from home, that a friend had been diagnosed with cancer and most likely wouldn’t be alive by the time I got home.
Each day and night was different, sleeping next to farms, on beaches, hell, I slept in a sheep shear shed one night! The further I went into the suffer-fest, the greater joy life brought me! People would stop and invite me, sopping wet, into their vans for midday tea and biscuits. I was offered countless hot tubs (but strangely not many couches or showers). Eventually, I made a Dutch friend to cycle with for two days, that was a delight! Ironically, a French couple had hair buzzers and we shaved my shagged head, putting a J and F into the sides to honor my friend and teammate, Julian Fraser. Other amazing acts of kindness included; my rear tire being rebuilt for free, a tip to use rubber gloves to ward off frost-bite, about seven meals, and honey, lots of free honey!
With only a couple of days left, I watched the sunset every night as I made my dinner. This is just one example of what it was like cycling around New Zealand alone.
As struggle was met with kindness, I continued to pedal. The rain never stopped at the end of the trip, but each night I was greeted with a miraculous thunderstorm. Headwinds turned into tailwinds as I rounded the top of the island for my last week of riding. That final stretch I took slow. So slow, I actually ran out of food the night before making it to Greymouth. With a hungry belly, I pedaled my way to a hostel for my third warm shower in two months. My legs burned in pain and I couldn’t sleep, only stretch. While I waited two days for a bus to take me back to Christchurch, I learned how to make bread from a German couple.
I knew my time in New Zealand had come to an end and it was time for me to return to California. While I had been insistently journaling about what I wanted to do in my life for 62 days, I was coming home with no answer. There was this side of me that wanted to return to the pool and attempt to make Olympic Trials for swimming. There was a side of me that wanted to return to school and get a master’s degree to become a teacher. There was another side of me, the one that weighed the heaviest, that told me I needed to go home and make money. Regardless of my choice, there was a pull that I could not resist, no matter how hard I tried, for me to continue to explore. But, what would that look like?