We kiwis are an independent bunch. We’ve spent our lives travelling intrepidly across the globe with nothing but a few dollars in our account and an oversized backpack on our back, armed with a copy of Lonely Planet’s ‘Europe on a Shoestring’ travel guide (yes, in printed form. An actual book that weighed a ton, but it was our bible of the day). We’ve taken on the world one overcrowded tourist attraction at a time, so we know how to travel on our own, thank you very much.
This is very true. But it’s also true that some kinds of travel are a little bit different, and as many of us are not in the prime of our youth anymore, we want things to be a LOT easier. And a bike tour is a little bit different (and more than just a little bit amazing). There’s a heap of organization that goes into a bike tour, particularly a multi-day one like our E-bike Trail Tour of the South Island. All of the different destinations, cycle trails, bikes, itineraries, accommodations, food, safety requirements, vehicles, trailers (the list goes on) that is needed to run a tour like this, needs to be run by people who not only know how to put a beast like this together, but also make it special, fun and an unforgettable adventure that you’ll never forget. (Hi, that’s us!)
So we completely understand the need for independence (yes, that was us lugging that Lonely Planetaround Europe) and we also understand that we know what we know, and we don’t know what we don’t. So we need to kind of marry the two in order to make a tour like this right for you.
Each day on the tour is planned out around timings, any restaurant reservations or other things that we need to be in a certain time or place for (such as the jetboat transfer in the Roxburgh Gorge) but we can’t and don’t want to plan out everything to within an inch of its life. The timings are a guide only, and we want our guests to feel like they should ride within their abilities and at their own pace, stop as many times as they want or need to, take all the photo’s possible (yes, please stop before you do this ) but at the same time, know that their lunch will be ready for them when they roll into town and the toiletries bag that was accidentally left at the last hotel will have been safely retrieved and will be winging its way back to its owner. So it is a bit of a balance between a daily schedule and allowing for lots of unplanned things along the way. I’ve always said that a tour is a little bit like a wedding day – you spend forever planning it, something is bound to change on the day, and it’s how you deal with it that is the true measure of your worth.
And now to get down to the nitty gritty of it and address the issue I know you’re all REALLY thinking about: I haven’t travelled with other people before and I’m worried I might not like them. Well, there’s no magical answer to this. The chances are really high that the other people booked on your trip are going to be of similar interests – you’re all there for the same thing, right? You booked into a trip because you are interested in travel, you’d love to experience some of these cycle trails you’ve heard so much about, you’re pretty active but want an e-bike for a trip like this because you’re not a glutton for punishment, you love new experiences and you’re willing to give something new a try. So those kinds of interests are usually a good starting point for a small group of people to get to know each other. And what’s the worst thing that can happen? After all, you’re still on holiday in one of the best places in the world. Things can’t be too bad, surely.
So this was a pretty convoluted way of answering why an E-bike tour is right for you. If you like nature, the freedom riding a bike gives you, perhaps ticking off a few things from your bucket list, meeting new people, riding the best parts of the best cycle trails the South Island has to offer, whilst being looked after by the best tour guides in the business, then I would imagine that an E-bike tour is definitely right for you. The real question, is what are you waiting for?