Kiwi hospitality, air miles and self-made sandwiches: family cycle touring on a budget

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Biking with two young kids and six months of gear garners a lot of second glances and spontaneous Q&A sessions with curious passersby. Generally it’s how far we’ve cycled from (Cape Reinga NZ, which takes folks by surprise now that we’re in Australia), how far we’re going (whatever our answer, the follow-up is, “With the kids?” (No, we’re leaving them here at this playground until July), then “Whew, it’s hilly / chilly up there!”, how far we go in a day (50 to 70 km), and “Do the kids really help pedal?” (You betcha!)
Every so often, the script takes an unexpected turn – like one Sunday morning as we’re leaving a campground on New Zealand’s north coast.
“Ah yous goin’ through Dah-ga-ville?”
“Well then, yous gotta come stay at ah place then! Come pitch yah tent in ah yahd. We’ll cook yous up some snappah!”
A rule of etiquette in New Zealand, we’ve learned, is to never say no to snappah.
And so a week later, we camped out on the beautiful back lawn of Gerrard and Lorraine, two delightful souls with a magnificent view and a fishing boat. We had hot showers, fascinating conversation about Kiwi culture and politics, and at least for Ed (our designated gratitude eater who suspends his vegetarian lifestyle for generous local offerings), some killer breaded snapper.
We’ve been treated to extraordinary hospitality on past travels – on the Camino de Santiago in Spain, villagers seeing our baby son in our backpack carrier would rush out from their quaint homes with freshly baked goodies; on our cycling honeymoon from Vancouver to Mexico, a sweet retiree named Cliff picked us up with a broken spoke, took us to dinner and paid for the repairs the next day.
But in New Zealand it seems that proactive, grand generosity is a national ethic.
We once stopped to ask a farmer directions to the locals campground, and a half-hour later we were installed in his guest rooms with a beer in hand and dinner in the oven. Another time, we arrived in teeming rain to a campsite, where the strangers in a pickup truck were waiting with a massive order of takeaway fish and chips and a bottle of fine Maori wine. “We saw you biking and it looked like rain, so we dipped into town to get you some tea [kiwi for “supper”].”
Twice we met fellow cyclists on the same north-to-south route in New Zealand, who gave us their phone numbers and made us promise to come stay when we passed through their hometowns. Those visits were among the brightest highlights of our trip.
These startling acts of kindness are fine examples for our sons, aged 8 and 6, of the very best of humanity. They introduce us to new people to share a splendid evening with. And on a slightly less enlightening note, they’re fantastic for our tight budget.
We are also part of the amazing online cycle tourist community, Warmshowers. We’ve hosted cyclists passing through New Westminster over the years in our home, providing room, meals, laundry and local route ideas; and we visit other members when we’re on the road for the same. New Zealand is packed with Warmshowers members, so we were guests about once a week with some fascinating people and families – who are now dear new friends.
It’s not just the grace of strangers that has helped us keep our Oceania Odyssey budget to a tight $100 a day (to cover everything from food and accommodation to bike repairs and adventure parks). We’re running on a combination of savings from living a low-cost lifestyle in New West (we live in a co-op and don’t own a car, opting to cycle instead) and what’s left of Jocelyn’s line of credit from med school (our trip is celebrating her graduation as a naturopathic doctor), so it’s been crucial to keep costs down, while keeping the fun maxed out.
Here are a few ways we’ve made it work:
Air miles flights. We once read about an American who bought 30,000 collector dollar coins on his credit card, got the air miles, then deposited the coins in his bank account and paid off the bill. It wasn’t so easy for us, but we stumbled on a credit card offer (thanks, Uncle John) that gave 25,000 points for signing up, and 10,000 for each friend you recruited. Free first year, cancel any time. So we read all the fine print and both went for it. Boom – 100,000 points (thanks friends who signed up – we’ve eaten a triple-scoop New Zealand ice cream in your honour). After we cancelled the card, we saw the promotion was still on, so we applied again (referring each other of course). If it wasn’t allowed, they wouldn’t let us through, right? Boom – 70,000 more points… and on (and on and on!) until we had enough air miles to fly to Auckland, then Sydney, then Tahiti, then Toronto, then home (plus enough points to fly out East for the next three summers!). “Just let us know if you would like to re-join” they would say when we called to cancel the cards, just weeks after getting them and securing our free points. “You betcha!” we would reply. Our flights for this adventure would have cost $40,000, but with fees and taxes cost us only $1,500. (Note of caution: one of our flights en route to Sydney got cancelled and Aeroplan forgot to tell us, leading to an all-nighter in Auckland waiting on hold to fix the problem. So call to check in the day before – always!)
BYOT. Camping is the way to go – pricier in parts of New Zealand than we expected (charging per person instead of per site), but still much more affordable for a family of four than backpackers. When it’s cold or rainy, campgrounds have cheap-esque cabins with bunkbeds and a heater that feel like a Hilton when you’ve been tenting for weeks on end. And most have camp kitchens with stoves and fridges, saving on cookstove fuel! Camping also allows us to “self-cater” – we cook up hot suppers and breakfasts in camp, and pack up a big lunch for the ride, avoiding the expense of eating out. In Australia we’ve seen campgrounds that provide the tent for you, already set up – but they ran over $300 per night, so bringing your own is worth the added weight on the bike rack.
Cycle! New Zealand and Australia are packed with campervans, which look like fun, cheap alternatives to hotels – but when you consider rental costs ($100 a day for a four-berth), insurance, paying for the space to park it (higher price than non-powered tent site), and gas (er, “petrol”), better to let your legs do the moving. Then again, sometimes as we exited grocery stores with overflowing carts, we wondered if maybe campervanners ate less than ravaged cyclists.
Get kids in on the budget. Our sons know that we have $100 a day, and any time we spend less, we can save for an adventure of some kind, like mini putt or kayak rentals. So Heron and Sitka are the most conscious school-aged shoppers ever, even checking the price-per-100g on the shelf tags to be sure we’re getting the best value from our avocados, trail mix or gallon tubs of ice cream.
Just say Yes. This is hard for us hyper-polite Canadians, but accepting generosity is a virtue on a social and budgetary level. People offer because they want to give. So practice saying Yes and enjoy the human connection that follows. On a recent Warmshowers visit, our host offered to give the boys a surf lesson. We imagined he had better things to do the next morning, but it turned out it was exactly what he wanted to be doing. Rod was a fantastic surf coach and cool-uncle-for-a-day, genuinely revelling in helping the boys catch their first-ever waves. And, as budget-conscious Heron pointed out later, “Best surf lesson ever, and $100 cheaper than paying for one!”
The key to accepting hospitality is to give back. In Whangarei, we repaid our hosts by volunteering ourselves and our tandems to deliver 50 pizzas for a fundraiser at their church. In Hokitika and Wellington, we made home style pizzas for our hosts. In Wanaka, we brought beer. And we always at least endeavour to do the dishes. We’ve heard of super-guests who do art or design a garden plan for their hosts – whatever their skill is, they give back.
And when in doubt, commit to yourself to pay the kindness forward. We have an awful lot of karma to pay back upon our return to New Westminster – thank goodness we now have a spare bedroom!