Having accidentally abandoned the boaty blog, largely because I forgot about it, I have decided to make an epic come back in the form of a spin off: ‘The Biking Blog’. This could triple my number of readers, and see me hit double digits for the first time, or it might be the last ditch attempt to salvage a (trigger warning) sinking ship and see me decline into a spiralling state of irrelevance.

I am currently eight hours into a 14 hour flight, having already sat on a plane for 10 hours prior. I also have another one hour flight after. I’ve lost sense of time. I spent a four hour layover in Vancouver. I have never been to Canada before. It looked nice from the plane window. The airport was also fairly lush inside and boasted some pretty views of the mountains. I feel like I have done Canada now. I feel no need to come back.

This second flight is strange. We are flying East and crossing the international date line. I took off on 16th January and will land on 18th. This means I will never experience 17th January. I hope it wasn’t a good one. At the time of posting, perhaps it is 17th January where you are reading this? What’s it like? Tell me. Though, admittedly, I’m less concerned about your experience and more concerned about what this will do to my Duolingo streak.

I am yet to have mentioned where I am heading. The answer is New Zealand. Specifically Cape Reinga (opting for written media for the next six weeks in order to avoid failing to pronounce Maori place names). This is the Northern tip of the country. I will then cycle down to Bluff, the Southern tip, which I was told by a man on my previous flight is a bit shit.

I was spoiled on flight one. I managed to land myself with an extra leg room seat despite being too cheap to pay for a seat choice at all (I am currently paying the consequences for this on my second flight). I filled the gap by a family of three. The father was a delight. We got chatting. He’s a Northern fella who has spent the past 15 years living in Wellington and Auckland. After a few minutes, I had my printed itinerary out and we were annotating it together as he recommended his favourite fish and chip shops, beaches and detours. I was also informed of the imminent bank holidays. This apparently matters a lot in New Zealand. The conversation was informative and got me excited for my travels.

On this second flight, I have ended up with a middle seat, which doesn’t recline properly and enjoys minimal legroom. I have not slept nearly as much as I had intended to. I land in Auckland at 5:30am. Originally, I was going to catch a final flight to Kerikeri. This is an airport in the North of the North island with a bike shop 5km from it. Perfect? Apparently not. I emailed them over a week ago and they replied the day before I left informing me that they had no bikes. They’re a bike shop and they have no bikes. Consequently, I had to conjure up a plan B at 10pm local time (because owning a bike is important for bikepacking).

Plan B: I will arrive in Auckland. I will then “forfeit” my final flight, as the woman from Air NZ put it on the phone. This was cheaper than amending the booking and means that my luggage will go on without me to Kerikeri. I’ll then catch a bus into Auckland, buy a bike (I have checked and this bike shop does indeed have bikes), dismantle it in the shop, then take it on a plane with me to Kerikeri and collect the last of my luggage (which I have warned the airport will be left unclaimed for a few hours extra). Is this genius? I can’t wait to implement it in six hours and see how wrong it goes.

It doesn’t feel surprising to me that there have been hurdles to overcome right at the start of this adventure. I’ve ambitiously planned to cycle 2000 miles in less than six weeks, mainly off road. There are going to be more things that go wrong. I just hope that I can deal with them and the highs I experience will outshine the lows.