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It's downhill from here

A meandering bikepacking journey

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Huaraz, Peru to Ushuaia, Patagonia

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Peru to Patagonia (26)

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Eileen on Instagram

Making an early getaway from a sneaky camp.

Free, fresh food that doesn’t need to be hauled for days – a cyclist’s dream come true. After many stretches ridden through barren, treeless landscapes carrying days of oats, pasta and stale bread, the bountiful foraging during the NZ summer was pretty damn exciting.

A really sweet bonus of touring in your home country is that your friends can come and ride with you. An awesome few days riding the Timber trail with some of the gang a few months back 🙌

Andy on Instagram

Central Otago kinda feels like the last gift in a long line of beautiful gifts from the hills. • A few years back I woke up one morning and Eileen was half alive, half dead next to me. She looked like a deeply hungover person who’d found an espresso machine and smashed 13 double shots in 13 minutes. • She’d found the @pikesonbikes Andes by Bike website and told me we were going to ride down the Andes. She’d been up all night reading blogs and it was going to happen. I suppose in the great Kiwi tradition I said something like ‘sweet’. • Some time later we packed in our jobs, and left Wellington for 12 months on bikes with moderately skinny tyres. Three years later almost to the day we’re on the way home. Our bikes now have fatter tyres and we didn’t just check out The Andes. • When we reached Ushuaia the mountains and back roads and people we kept meeting just seemed too good. We had to go and look at the Tian Shan, Pamirs, Himalaya, and Southern Alps of New Zealand. All special, all memorable, all so different. • It’s time to do some work. As much as I love trees, and I really love trees, I’ve not found one of the money growing ones. • We’ll see how long this working not biking *all the time* thing lasts 🤔

After WhatsApp flirting with Neeson, a friend of a friend, we finally met up and rode some sort of alternative Alps to Ocean route together. • I highly recommend Flanagan’s pass between Twizel and lake Ohau. • Also be weary of chasing cyclists downhill who after a couple of descents casually mention they used to be a downhiller. Melted brake pads and one warped rotor later...

Pūkaki and Aoraki doing their evening thing.

Latest posts

Tailwinds and trespassing: Puerto Natales to Ushuaia
Big Patagonia, little Patagonia: El Chalten to Puerto Natales
Gear review: better than the rest, worthy of note and would avoid
Into the funnel: Coyhaique to El Chalten on the southern Carretera Austral
Clouds of hell-death and other fun: Trevelin to Coyhaique
Bliss and bustle on the national park shuffle: Pucón to Trevelin

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