Who: Shanti and Shreyas

Transport forms: Bus, ferry and bike

Biking distances: Day 1 – 27.47km, Day 2 – 23.48km, Day 3 – 61.71km

Shanti: 

The days have been getting longer and, inspired by our friends Sophie and Ivan, we decided we needed to go on a trip to work on writing our wedding vows. Specifically, a bike trip: there is no point in people (Shreyas) buying nice gravel bikes which don’t get used. Unlike our last solo bike trip in January, which we planned several months ahead of time, this all came together the week of, when I realised we could leave on Friday since I was done with work. 

“The bus is always the worst part,” muttered Shreyas, a notorious bus-disliker, as we watched our bikes wobble on the 8 bus to Lyttleton. Despite multiple adjustments to the bike’s security being required, everything made it in one piece, and it was a smooth transition onto the ferry in the afternoon sunshine. I was mostly feeling smug about the little bag I had haphazardly sewn that morning to hold snacks and my phone, replacing a very ugly one. It was a Friday afternoon and we had a whole weekend of biking ahead of us! I had just waltzed out of work to go biking and was feeling so spontaneous and wild and free! 

It was very charming to bike through Diamond Harbour and Purau, where there were an abundance of wildflowers! Spring is truly an exciting time to be biking. The plug up The Monument was steady but pretty relaxing with low traffic – there were no significant numbers of cars until we reached State Highway 75 above Little River. 

We had a little wander around Koukourata – hopping over the creek, walking around the church and looking at the birds on the beach then started biking up the hill. After about 5 minutes we had to stop because I had a flat tyre… I was not happy about this but I decided to be calm and after half an hour we were on our way. Summer biking means no stress about daylight.

Biking down to Pigeon Bay was not that fun on my commuter bike with its skinny tyres, and it started an ongoing theme of Shreyas pointing out how much I could benefit from a gravel bike…or building a bike… ideas are percolating in this direction. Two kererū swooped past us just before the campground, demonstrating why it is called Pigeon Bay. 

Pigeon Bay campsite is basic but really nice. I scrabbled over some bony rocks for a somewhat grotty but warm swim then we had a dinner Shreyas had dehydrated several months ago (based on a Shar recipe). We moved our tent to a spot with slightly juicier grass and fell asleep. 

Saturday morning was extremely chill, lots of lying down and reading books in the sunshine. I brought Engagement by Gun-Britt Sundström, the kind of talky novel where everyone is reading Kierkegaard. Thank you to the Christchurch City Libraries for buying it for me!! After swimming to the Pontoon and wandering along the wharf, we were heading back to our tent when we spotted Ivan, Terra, Hannah and a couple of others who were biking to Hinewai for a party! We had a lovely chat with them (but declined to go to the party, since the point of our trip was to write our wedding vows). 

After lunch and packing up, we biked a couple of kilometres up the road then perambulated through the Hay Reserve – heaps of native birds and a cute little stream which I decided to swim in, knowing I would soon be very very hot going up the hill. There is something so magical about shady, tannin-stained pools – I feel so grateful to the people who decided not to chop down this section of forest. 

And indeed it came to pass: Middle Road got steeper and steeper until all we could do was push. I looked behind me to remember that we had actually made some progress, and there was the finger of Pigeon Bay, shining aquamarine below us. These brief distractions were needed whenever slogging through the loose gravel got too much. Shreyas stubbed his toe and started bleeding; I ate a gummy bear and felt sweat drip off my nose. 

But then… at the top of the road there was the best part of the trip! We were following an abbreviated version of Le Petit Brevet, a Banks Peninsula cycling event which was on the same weekend. A woman in an SUV was parked at the top of the hill, waiting for her friend who was biking the brevet. “Do you want an ice block?” she said. 

I have given many people iceblocks through the last few years as a big fan of making ice blocks. (Top recipes: pina colada, coconut-kiwi-strawberry, lemon and ginger, raspberry blackcurrant, horchata, peach and sour cream. Give avocado-cacao nibs and blackberry-paprika a miss). I don’t believe in karma but if I did I would think this was proof of it, and I now hope that women with popsicles in their chilly bins will be at the top of every hill I bike up. People are so nice!!! 

The view from Summit Road above Akaroa is magnificent: bright blue harbour, green hills, the forested buttresses of Montgomery Peak. After a brief stop to go and see a large tōtara in the Montgomery peak reserve, we turned back onto a gravel road for more miserable gravel downhill riding. I lowered my seat, which helped, and felt very encouraged by some of the brevet riders who were riding uphill, who said things like ‘wow, I can’t believe you’re doing that on skinny tyres”. Extremely validating. I didn’t fall over but I did have to stop when I steered into soft gravel piles at the side of the road quite a few times. We stopped to say hi to some donkeys, then got to Little River and had some drinks and hot chips at a cafe. This is definitely an advantage of bike touring over tramping: more of the comforts of civilisation. 

The Little River campground is great, just what you would want a campground to be. I found some nice walks through the bush in the process of putting some burned chocolate pudding in the fridge and went for a very frigid swim in the stream. More reading –Martina and Gustav, the main characters of Engagement, had just broken up for the second time –) then we had dinner and walked up in the forest behind the campground to watch the sun start setting over Wairewa. Couldn’t recommend more tbh. There was another bikepacker at the campground who needed to borrow our toothpaste and we talked to him about bike trips and his work with Doubtless Conservation. There weren’t even that many mosquitoes or sandflies! 

On Sunday we biked back home. The flat Little River Trail is not quite as exciting but it was fun to think about how it used to be a train line, and there were lots of spoonbills around Te Waihora. I hadn’t been to Lincoln before and also finally figured out where Middleton is. Shreyas had decided not to bring a raincoat and it was threatening to drizzle all day but he totally got away with it, so that’s on me for being prepared.

Shreyas: 

Part of the appeal of this trip was how minimal the preparation was. Nothing was locked in or confirmed until a few days before when we booked the campsites. Obviously we had done the work earlier in the year to dehydrate a couple of meals, but being able to jump on public transport (in hindsight we could/should have biked over the Port Hills) with bikes was ideal.

The hills were relatively short and punchy and a fun time with the right gearing. The roads were super quiet until SH75 on our return day but the Little River cycling route is pretty decent past this point, a highlight was passing several large farmsteads with huge rose bushes lining the road. 

I didn’t even end up reading all that much on this trip, instead preferring the quiet of our surroundings or the methodical set-up and pack-down of our campsite. Both sites in Pigeon Bay and Little River were extremely relaxing, and having dehydrated meals to look forward to (even though the consistency was a bit homogenous) was a treat.

Perhaps it was a little too relaxing, as my brain switched off and I only managed a first draft of my vows (but it was a good draft!).

Note to self: say yes to Shanti when she offers to take pictures of you.