Cycle Touring Accomodation

Best Accommodation for Cycle tourers in New Zealand

There is a wide variety of accommodation to choose in New Zealand on your ride depending on your budget and preferences. One of the attractions of cycle touring is that you travel at a speed where you get a greater opportunity to meet and talk to the locals than you would if you traveled by car.

Your choice of accommodation can also have a bearing on who you meet on your journey. Traditionally cycle tourists have stayed in tents in camping grounds and there are lots of these to choose from right up and down New Zealand. In the camping grounds there is often a choice between a camp site or a cabin. If you are traveling in a group a cabin is a good choice based on cost and convenience. In the camping grounds you will usually find reasonable showers and cooking facilities.

Cabins at Danseys Pass

It is also possible to freedom camp in New Zealand and this will be mainly in the rural areas and there may be occasions where you have to on your journey.

 Freedom camping info

There are also motels in most towns but these tend to be expensive and impersonal so that if you use these you will not get many opportunities to talk to the locals. There are also backbackers and hostels located in many towns and these offer accommodation at a reasonable cost with better opportunities to meet people.

One option often overlooked that should be considered is staying in pubs especially in rural areas. They are cheaper than hotels in the cities and have good food and you get the opportunity to meet the locals.

Matawai Classic Kiwi Pub

Albury Hotel - South Island

Becks - White Horse Hotel - South Island

Matawai Hotel - North Island

Cycling Protected Intersections

When riding in cities bikeways do a reasonable job when you are riding along a city street but what happens when you get to an intersection? Both motorists and cyclists do not know. What purpose do the little boxes with a bike on them serve?

The attached link to a video has some good suggestions on how to get around this problem.

Cyclists Protected Intersections

Cycleway over the Auckland Harbour Bridge

A resident in Northcote has voiced his concern in the Herald that the proposal to build a cycleway across the Auckland bridge will result in a cars blocking up the local streets. This is view seems to overlook that cyclists usually will ride to the bridge rather than go by car and then use their bikes to get across the bridge. However his concerns are not a surprise given the car centric vision of many Aucklanders.

Cycle Helmets

In New Zealand cycle helmets are compulsory. Some cyclists argue that making the wearing of cycle helmets does not contribute significantly to the cyclists safety and that debate on this issue is a diversion from the more important cyclist safety issues such as ensuring that cyclists obey the road laws and improving cycleways. 

Yurts

While cycling in the USA last year I noticed that in many of the State Parks they have Yurts which are a round semi-permanent structure that uses insulated canvas around a wooden frame with a domed roof above it all. There are also Yurts to be found in Central Asia.

The reason I mention these is they are perfect in my view because they are not like the home away from home palaces that New Zealanders tend to build at the beach. They are better than a tent but do not take up a lot of real estate and can be relocated at minimal expense.

 They would be a welcome addition to our holiday accommodation especially for cyclists.

Link to see how Yurts are used:

 http://fatcyclist.com

Bollards on Bikeways

In Auckland there are an increasing number of bikeways which is great but there is a problem of safety. To restrict the bikeways to bikes only there are bollards in the middle of the bikeways and there are a significant number of these. Not all of them are near roads so it is difficult to see why so many of them are required.