Bikepacking the Tour Aotearoa on New Zealand’s North Island | Rebecca Gross

What is it really like to bikepack the Tour Aotearoa on New Zealand’s North Island? In this midweek episode, Rebecca Gross shares her experience riding the TA, including the Timber Trail, Warm Showers hospitality, lush North Island scenery, and how well the route is managed with clear detours for trickier sections.

If you are planning your own TA ride or curious about what makes this route so unique, Rebecca's update offers up great practical insight into terrain, logistics, the NZ Bike Adventure community, and what to expect when riding the trail.

Later in the episode I also share where our Seek Travel Ride listeners on Instagram are planning to ride in 2026 

Also be sure to check out the  Snailblazers events happening in Ireland by @SnailBlazers.cc - You can sign up for more info about them via their contact form.

Check out Old Man Mountain's Ponderosa Panniers

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello everyone, Bella Malloy here, host of Seek Travel Ride. Welcome back to another midweek episode where I am fuelling your stoke for taking bike adventures. This week I am pumped because we have an update from our intrepid adventurer Rebecca Gross. Fans of the show will know that Rebecca has been giving us periodic updates to her huge adventure, where in 2025 in March she left her home in Austria with her partner Harvey and has cycled continuously east. And this update is going to let us know what it's been like for Rebecca travelling in the North Island of New Zealand. Now, listen, this is a place which I am super keen to explore myself. I love everything about the country of New Zealand. I've been privileged enough to visit it a few times, but I've never actually been to the North Island, so I'm really, really keen to hear what Rebecca has to say about cycling over there. So take it away, Rebecca.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Kia ora from Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand. We are already here for six weeks, and today I want to give you a small update on how it has been on the North Island. We chose New Zealand as a destination to escape winter. Since Japan was already getting pretty cold, but New Zealand summers are definitely not as we would like to have a summer. So especially here in the South Island, we have to deal with a lot of wind and apparently a lot of rain. But still the temperatures are higher, and we already had some really nice summer days. And what is also a bit of a challenge at the beginning, especially, was adapting to a more organized world. Normally we don't really plan ahead, and we haven't had a set route or any plan when we came to the country. But to enter the country, you need to have a return ticket to show that you're leaving the country before the visa expires. So we had to calculate more or less of how much time we would need, but without knowing how much time we need. But we gave ourselves seven weeks to explore the island, and it was enough time to get a good insight of New Zealand. Anyway, it is what it is, and there are also some advantages with coming to a more Western society, and these are the supermarkets. After months without decent supermarkets and only Asian food, it was actually heaven for me. Although we are usually only one or two days away from the next supermarket, I started to buy a lot of luxury food. Chocolate cookies are always in our bag, muesli. And yeah, until the kitchen bag got too heavy, and Javi said we have to reduce food a bit. So I had to reduce my longing for this discomfort a bit. I just realized we are still on a bikepacking trip, but with coming to this country, I somehow had a harder time to step out of my comfort zone. It is really easy to fall back into old habits and enjoying these small luxuries of life. And so I definitely felt a bit tired of the adventure itself. I started feeling like I was ready to go home. Or maybe it was like the other way around. Maybe my mind tried to play tricks on me to make me want to go home. No matter which way around it was, I just felt ready. And I had enough from this uncomfortable adventure. But once I realized that I only had two months left, and also thinking of all the things I am not looking forward at home, I could let go of this seeking for comfort and good food and everything a bit and embrace the adventure a little more. And safe to say, here in New Zealand we are far away from really hard, adventurous days, like for example, in the Palmeers. So after a bit of a stressful journey from Tokyo, flying is just always stressful, we landed in Auckland. And I think I already said it at least once in this podcast. The first day, the first impression of a country is so important for the rest of the time in this country. And we were really lucky. Our first day was just amazing. We got picked up at the airport from our warm shower host John. He picked us up, and it's not just me and Javi, it's me, Javi, a lot of bags, and the two bikes. And he really picked us up and drove us to Hamilton, where we stayed with him and his wife Ellie. And when we arrived, we got welcomed with a freshly baked cake with coffee, and it was a really hot summer day, and they had a pool. So in the afternoon, we could jump in the pool, they had a big garage where we could assemble the bikes without stress, like at the airport. And for dinner they made a delicious barbecue. It was such a wonderful first day. And since we haven't had any idea about the route, John also offered to plan the route for us. He asked me beforehand how far we could cycle and what we wanted to do or see or what we are capable of. And then he tried to think of a perfect route for us. He saw our bikes, we chatted a little bit, and he suggested the TA. It is the famous Tour Aotea Roa. It's a cycling route from the north of the North Island to the south of the South Island, going straight through New Zealand, and its organizers put it in some sections, and you can follow the different sections. There are a lot of trails, but because a lot of parts are mountain bike trails, I already have heard a lot about the route, that it is very technical, that we would need a proper mountain bike and not a lot of gear, and also wider tires would help. And we have nothing from this. We have just our trekking/slash city bikes, we have a lot of panniers, so we thought this route might not be doable with our setup, but it turns out that normal bikes on any bike you have is good enough for this route. If there is a section which is very technical and very hard to ride, the organizers actually organized a detour, so it's perfect for everyone who likes to ride some trails. So after our stay with our first warm shower hosts, we made a small detour before actually cycling to the TA. So we were riding to our next warm shower hosts, and warm shower hosts in New Zealand are just next level. We got again welcomed with freshly baked cookies, we had barbecue and a glass of wine on a beautiful terrace, and we were overlooking the lush green hills, and it was just a perfect sunset. And also these warm shower hosts suggested the TA route. So we were sure that the route would be perfect for us. So these first two or three days, uh, we had some really hot weather, and we couldn't wait to come to the trails to enjoy some gravel roads because the asphalt in New Zealand is of such bad quality that we didn't want to ride more on tarmac. And this is probably the weirdest thing you could say as a bikepacker, but the asphalt melted because it was so hot and it got sticky and stick to our tires. And to prevent the asphalt from melt, they put gravel on the road. So the small rocks from the gravel they stick to our tires, and it was so annoying riding on the street. We were looking forward to come to the actual TA route and cycle on the trails there. And the trails on the TA are amazing. We started with the timber trail, it's a mountain bike route, probably a bit more challenging than other parts of the TA. It's a single trail, some parts are very steep, but it's not a single trail with drops or jumps. So it's a nice single trail which is rideable, and it was going directly through a jungle. And we didn't expect jungle here in New Zealand, but we just had weeks and weeks of beautiful trails leading directly through lush green jungle. We were riding different mountain bike trails through always amazing landscapes. We were riding along rivers, we were riding over some pretty steep hills, but we were also riding into the most windiest place of New Zealand. At least that's what the locals told us, and we like really experienced such a strong wind. We didn't even have such a wind in Mongolia, we weren't able to cycle, it was such a strong headwind and side wind. I got blown over. We had to walk our bikes. We didn't expect this in New Zealand, but it seems that New Zealand has it all. And New Zealand has a lot of amazing rail trails, and they lead directly over jungle hills, and they have like great single trails. And you just expect from a rail trail that it would be along a rail track and flat, but that's not what what the rail trails in New Zealand are. They are hilly, they are steep, and they are in the jungle. They are really, really beautiful. And there is also a story at the rail trail, which is well, in the moment it was not funny. I would say it was interesting and a bit unexpected. It actually started a few days before. So we actually finished the timber trail and we had a break day because of rain. And the next part of the trail, it's called the Bridge to Nowhere, is famous for its gravel road because when it is raining, we got warned to not cycle this track because the mud would turn into clay and would stick to the tires and would actually damage the bikes. So we were sitting there in this small village on a rainy day just before this section, and Javi really wanted to cycle this part, and of course, I wasn't really happy to do this and tried to find excuses to not do it. But luckily, the decision was made for us because parts of this track were closed due to a homicide in this area, which was really unexpected. But the advantage of the TA is that the organizers always plan a detour if there is a section which is closed. So instead of cycling the bridge to nowhere, we were cycling the Fisher Trail, which was just beautiful. We were going through really dense jungle over some steep hills, and it was so so unexpected and beautiful. And after the Fisher track, we cycled the Ohakune rail trail, and it was already getting late, and finding a wild camping spot in New Zealand is actually one of the hardest things we have to deal with. It's really hard to find a spot, but this night we were really lucky. We were at the rail trail and there was a picnic area, and it was perfect to put up our tent. And since it was a rail trail, we knew or we thought we knew it's not very accessible for anyone, just for walking or with bikes. So we were sure that we are alone. And we weren't alone. Just when I was about to sleep, I heard a car coming. We didn't even know that this trail is accessible by cars. So this car was coming and knowing that there was a murder some days ago, I just knew it. I knew that in this car there will be the murder. This is a great example of how my brain works while camping. I normally choose the safer side of the tent. So I always choose the side where the murder would not enter the tent, and Harvey always has to sleep on the murder side. We already call it the murder side, and he normally always knows where he has to sleep. So I am normally very safe at night, but this time I just realized that a tent is doing nothing. No matter on which side I'm sleeping, well, the murder would come anyway. So I woke up Javi telling him the story that the murder from two days ago is now here with his car and is about to murder us. Javi was so sleepy that he just turned around and kept on sleeping. So it was me. I had to stay awake. So I thought if the murder is coming, I would discuss with him that we want to stay alive. So this was my job this night. Luckily, the car left and I could get some sleep. The next morning I was happy to be alive. I told Harvey the whole story, and I mean it was just so stupid. And I I could laugh about it, but in this moment, and I mean I knew that it is stupid, I just was so so scared and felt stupid the whole time and afterwards. But now we can laugh about it and we have a story to tell. So New Zealand so far has had not only incredible trails and beautiful landscapes, it is also very adventurous, just in a slightly different context. After four weeks on the North Island, we hopped on a ferry to the South Island, and since everyone told us that the further south we will get, it will get just more and more beautiful. So I am eager to find out how the South Island will be.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Oh, thank you so much, Rebecca. I always get really excited whenever I receive your updates because I love the way that you share your adventure and just the way that you share exactly what it's like in the moment, what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and everything in between. New Zealand's a country that I'm super excited about, and it sounds like the warm shower hosts there are also next level. I love the hospitality that you have received over there. I mean, being picked up from the airport, given an amazing meal, having people actually help you plan what route to take, warm cookies on arrival at your next warm shower's host, yeah, this sounds exactly like the type of experience I would love to seek out for myself. And I have to say, like hearing you talk about the Tour Al Toroa as well, it's funny because I've interviewed a couple of people who've written it and I've spoken to a few people who've written it, and I've actually always just discounted it as something that would be just slightly a little bit too technical for me to do. But it sounds like my thoughts are unfounded and it's totally something I should give a go myself. Listeners, I've been watching both Rebecca and Harvey share on the Instagram stories that the visuals behind being on these trails, and you know, they're riding with fully loaded setup as well with panniers, but these trails look amazing. And Rebecca, like hearing you talk about, I think you call them the jungles in New Zealand, I would always call it like a rainforest or something, but seeing you in that lush green, dense treed environment, oh my goodness, it looks absolutely magical. And I love that the people that are managing the tour Al Toroa Trail have actually even thought about areas that they need to detour people around if it's a little bit technical, that there sounds like there is an alternate option. I must say I had a huge chuckle hearing you talk about wild camping, uh the having the murder side of the tent that you make Harvey sleep on, the thoughts in your head when a car turns up. I mean, this is exactly what I would be thinking, and I think a lot of people, Rebecca, would be thinking the exact same thoughts as you. I've spoken about wild camping a fair bit now with guests that I interview each and every week, and there seems to be sort of two camps. There's people who take to it to like a duck to water, but there are many people who do it, but don't necessarily do it having the best, most restful sleep at night. Some people don't feel any fear, some people fight fears every single day. Some people sort of flip in and out of whether they feel calm when they're wild camping or not. And I think that just hearing what your experience was like there, just hearing a car, thinking it's the person who murdered someone, now they're coming to get you, like these are totally rational thoughts. I mean, they're irrational thoughts, but they're thoughts that I would have rationally in my head as well. And I love that you're sort of sharing it openly. You can laugh about it now, but yeah, in the time, my goodness, it sounds hilarious. Oh, and the windy section in New Zealand. My goodness, so I actually saw a reel that someone had put up and it was showing a really, really windy section of a country, and they'd actually said they'd travelled in Patagonia and they thought they'd experienced high winds and this is next level. And then when I found out it was actually in the North Island of New Zealand as well, and I wonder whether it was in the same section that you were at. Like they were hunkered down, they could not walk. You said you were blown off your bike. Oh my goodness, I'm sure that uh you are well and truly over the wind, and I hope that you weren't in that area for too long. I know that you have endured a lot of wet weather as well now, and as you said, like New Zealand summer is not the summer weather you were expecting. Uh I'm recording currently from Australia where we are going through one of the most intense heat waves the country has ever seen. There are parts of the country that are going to be approaching close to 50 degrees, which is absolute madness. And I know that the North Island of New Zealand just a week or so ago had huge rainfall and landslides. So these sort of weather things that come up when you're on a bike make you that little bit more vulnerable as well. But um, listeners, I'm happy to say Rebecca and Harvey were not on the North Island in New Zealand when the extreme weather hit there. They are currently on the South Island still though, and uh yeah, dealing with constant rain by the looks of it. Yeah, it's interspersed with a few days of blue sky sunshine. But they're having a ball, and uh I hope that you enjoyed this update. And if you are like me, you're probably G'd up to pack some stuff on your bike and get over to New Zealand and start riding the tour out to Rowa. Thanks for the Stoke, Rebecca, and I can't wait for your next update. Now, listeners, speaking of riding and stoke and where we're going, I actually put the question out uh a few weeks ago now on my Instagram about where are people planning on riding this year? So I want to share some of those replies here, and I got a fair few of them. Okay, first and foremost, we're gonna keep it in Australia. Eddie.explore, you said Tasmania and a deep dive into Southeast Queensland trails. Oh god, that sounds awesome. And uh listeners, Eddie cycled the entire, well, north to south of the mainland in Australia, I believe, Eddie. You went from the very top in Queensland all the way down to Melbourne, so yeah, you're obviously filling in the gaps, which will be dreamy. I have all right, girls, Slauka, previous guest of the show. You said unfortunately is definitely less than I would love to take. Oh, but Slauka, I know you're gonna be taking some amazing adventures, and I think you're scheming to go on an adventure with your beautiful golden retriever dog Henry as well, so I can't wait to see some dog packing come to life there. Milikov, you said London to Croatia. Whoa, that's a huge journey. That will be absolutely mega. I've just recently released an episode with Anna Rudderman, and uh she rode London to Croatia. I mean she she and her girlfriend Fran, they ended up going to Turkey, but she had lots of fun in Croatia. We talked at a lot of ferry crossings, so lots to look forward to there. Alison R.dowling, the Wild Atlantic Way, Alison. Oh my gosh, this is like my absolute dream. Listeners, you've probably seen that I've been interviewing a lot of Irish people lately, and the Wild Atlantic Way is an itch that I personally need to scratch. So who knows, Alison? Maybe I'll see you there as well. Rodovello underscore naught, you have said I'm gonna be dot watching the indie pack wheel race 2026 and hoping to catch them out on the roads. Oh, that's coming up in just over a month and a half time, I believe. And uh yeah, it's an amazing event which you yourself have ridden in, so I'm sure you can't wait to speak to the people taking it on this year. Following Margot Polo, Tara Weave, another previous guest of the show. You have said Oman in March and April. Well, Tara, I have heard amazing things about Oman from a fair few people that I've interviewed who've gone there. So you have lots of awesome ahead of you. Then I have Anne Renoir, and you have said the great divide mountain bite route for my 67th birthday. An this is incredible. Oh my gosh, if you're hearing this shout out, do me a favor, keep me updated. I would actually love to have you on afterwards and hear all about it and share it with everyone. What a way to spend your 67th birthday. Jojo K.core, you have said Southeast Asia. Oh, lots to look forward to there. Listeners, you will know that my mind immediately goes to food whenever I hear Southeast Asia mentioned. Uh Jaina.lpal71, you have said Ireland. Oh, another vote for Ireland there. Maybe you and Alice and Dowling can head up together and uh meet up on the Wild Atlantic way. I have Where is Marcello? You have said a Nordic tour, the Faroe Islands, West and Central Norway, Sweden, Ireland Islands, and Finland. Oh gosh. Now, Marcello, I know that you are based in Finland and you take some amazing adventures there in the Nordic countries. We always go back and forth because I need to get you on the pod. I need to stop talking about it and just get you in my schedule because I want to learn about all these places myself. And then last but not least, we have Kurt Werby, who, listeners, we have featured on the show before telling us all about his Moroccan adventure on Route of Caravans. And Kurt has said, I'm trying to get over my mentor block and I want to go to Kyrgyzstan. Well, Kurt, I hope you get there. It sounds like a huge adventure ahead of you. Uh, listeners, where am I planning on going? Well gosh, I've got so many thoughts in my head. Island is really high up there. And can I just say, if people are keen on exploring Island, there is a fantastic new event there put together by previous guest Sertia Potty. It's called Snail Blazers, and she's got it's all about creating an inclusive community around the idea of bike adventure travel for all levels of experiences and helping people also who haven't tried things before try it out in a space that helps them sort of ease into it. So there's three events as I'm aware of it. The first one's actually a bikepacking festival, which is being held in Kenmare in Kerry, and that's on the 2nd to 4th of May. They've also then in Cork at Glengareth got an introduction to bikepacking, and that's going to be held in mid-May, the 16th to the 17th of May. And then this one I'm super excited about. It's in the north in Belfast, and it's called the Northern Narnia Way Rally, which is in the 1st to the 3rd of August. Oh my gosh. So these sound fantastic. I think the way that Sertia has set it up is to be inclusive for all levels. You don't necessarily need to camp. It's all about community vibes. They're also going to have people at the very first event in the bikepacking festival do talks and shows on maintenance and tips as well. So if you want to find out more about it, well on Instagram, it's snailblazers.cc. But yeah, if you're keen like me to check out Ireland, Snailblazers, there's three events there which sound absolutely incredible. Okay, listeners, now it's time for me to give a shout out to you, my dead set legends of super fans, who have gone ahead and bought me some coffees. This week I want to give a shout out to Lauren. Lauren, you said I only started bypacking a few years ago at 40, so I'm a bit late to the game, but it's fair to say I'm now obsessed. Thank you for showcasing such a diverse range of guests, especially who those who have just picked up a bike and given it a crack. You got such a natural way of interviewing. Every episode is like listening to two friends having a chat. Thanks, Bella. Oh, thank you, Lauren. What an awesome message to get. And uh I don't think you're picking up too late. Who cares what age you get to bike travel? It's just discovering something new that you absolutely love. And I've got a long list of guests who have decided to give this bike adventure thing a go with zero experience and had nothing but a great time. Sure, there's some moments that you've got to get through and problem solve, but the thing that I've learned from my guests, Lauren, is that people do, and you do problem solve and you have amazing stories to tell about it all at the end of the day, and you get to experience some amazing places that you get to under your own steam turning pedals. So I'm stoked that you love the podcast and that you're giving it a go now. Thank you so much, Lauren, for supporting me and the pod. And listeners, if you want to be like Lauren and support the show as well, you can do so simply head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash seek travel ride. Buy me a few virtual coffees and let me know what is it that you love about this podcast and where will your next bike adventure be taking you. Until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.