Month: January 2026

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After a good night’s sleep and some breakfast, we headed out on our way to Te Kauwhata and our Warmshowers hosts, Darren & Theresa.

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We arrived in Auckland Friday the 30th at 6 AM after completely losing Thursday due to crossing the International Date Line. The flight from Baltimore to Houston was 3 1/2 hours, an hour and a half in the terminal in Houston, and a 14 1/2 hour flight from Houston to Auckland. Not very restful, but uneventful as all good flights are. It took some time to get through customs as they need to check our tent for biological pathogens. The tent passed, as did all our luggage, and within an hour we were outside the airport in the 75 degree weather putting the bikes back together.

Our new adventure takes us to New Zealand for three weeks, then to Australia for five weeks. Much of our time since the Holidays has been spent planning and packing, though if you asked us what our exact plans are, the answer would be, “Dunno, exactly.” Roughly, we’re flying from BWI to Auckland NZ, cycling through the North Island to Wellington, ferrying to the South Island and flying out of Christchurch to Melbourne.

In Australia, we’re hoping to visit Tasmania, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane (and the Gold and Sun Coasts) and the Great Barrier reef. Flying a bit blind, so to speak, but we’re building on our recent upper Midwest tour and what we’ve learned about New Zealanders and Australians, and we expect we’ll be just fine.