Welcome

Welcome to the journal of Pam and Matt as we embark on a bicycle tour of the South Island of New Zealand.

Who are we?

Pam and Matt are an avid bicycle touring couple. Whenever possible we are out seeing the world at about 10mph from the Brooks Saddles on our bicycles. Funny enough we are not major cyclists when we aren't touring the world, we don't ride hundreds of miles each week unless we are touring or training for a tour.

Together we have toured over 5,000 miles including the USA Pacific Coast from Canada to Mexico, and the USA Southern Tier from San Diego,CA to Pensacola, FL. In 2014 we launched PMCycleTouring.com to share our knowledge and love of bicycling touring to the world. In the future we hope to open up our site as a place for other tourists to record their journies. This journal is being written using our journal platform as test to see how it works in a real-world tour.

About the tour:

We will be touring for about 45 days in the South Island of New Zealand

Why New Zealand?

This will be our first tour outside our own country and wanted to go somewhere with the same language and general way of life. Being in the Southern Hemisphere was a plus since we are going during the fall months in the Northern Hemisphere and the days are getting shorter/colder up here.

Here is a short list of the reasons we are heading to New Zealand:

• Beautiful scenery
• The Lord of the Rings was filmed there
• Nationally promoting bicycling with "New Zealand Great Rides"
• Being an island makes route planning and returning to starting location easier
• It is in the Southern Hemisphere and neither Pam or Matt have been

Why the South Island?

Being a little nervous going to a foreign country the south island is particulary appealing because it has about 1/5th of the total New Zealand population. Also the southern island is rather large, giving us just enough road to explore for 45 days and enough side sites to keep us entertained. Plus if we breeze through the South Island we can always head to the North for any remaining time.

How are you getting your bicycles to New Zealand?

Check out our article on our blog about the Co-Motion bicycles we are riding and how they can be packed up into a special suitcase!