After a beautiful trip around Brazil to visit the family, friends and reload the energies, we got back to Greymouth, our city here in New Zealand, a city in the country side very easygoing, charming to our point of view, it rains a lot around, in the winter get really cold, but on the sunny days, everything is gorgeous, the birds, the green grass and the sea, the most beautiful of all, among all the good adjectives, Greymouth is and will always be really important to us, it was where indeed that we manage to reach our goals, grown and evolved as persons, for that our gratitude on the lived moments.

After we returned to NZ, we stayed for a week at Brenda’s and Roger’s apartment, to recover from the jetlag and get ready for our big trip, those days was very important, we want to say thank you one more time for the hospitality and friendship.

It was on September 18 that everything started, after Brenda’s birthday breakfast, we said farewell on tears and a mix of feelings that was taking us, but the will on be living this dream was bigger then anything. Our ride started at the wilderness Trail, a bicycle track on the West Coast that connects Greymouth to Ross, is 139km of beautiful trail, in the middle of the rain forest and gorgeous lakes, an unique landscape which only New Zealand can offer to our eyes, is a nature that speaks loud and clear. Our first day started cloudy, however, step by step the sun was coming out and after 39km the body was getting tired, a camping site, a lake and a vanilla sunset gifted us, the perfect combination and right there we decided to pitch the tent, in front of the Kapieta resevouir in a peaceful night under the thousands stars hotel.

It was a beautiful dawn, our second day of pedal was about to start, we had a big breakfast, on the night before we have not eaten properly as we were to tried. One of the most difficult days for me, where I felt a lot of pain because I am too sedentary and the intenses uphills, we did only 28km and arrived on our final destination at 7pm, a place in the middle of the Wilderness Trail called Cowboys Paradise, was a light at the end of the tunnel after an intense day.

The third day was cloudy, but we were excited, because is known that after a uphill has a downhill and was some kilometers like that, what an amazing day towards Hokitika, 36km in total and there we had our first experience as guests with WarmShower, a website of exchange for bicycle travelers. At the time we was living in Greymouth, we have hosted many cyclists through it and this time we were being hosted by Kevin, an amazing person already famous among us for the reason of many cyclists that we hosted had stayed with him or would be staying with him. It was like we already knew each other, was two nights of a lot of great conversation, stories and knowledge. He is a senior with a lot of life experience on tramping, mountaineering and cave explorations. In exchange of that we did what was settle and the best thing we know, cooked with love many good things to eat together.

We left Hokitika after two days, we were unsure about our final destination on that day, so we decided to pedal to the end of the Wilderness Trail, we did one part on the road and the other one on the trail, unfortunately it was not a good experience to pedal on the road as the drivers don’t respect the cyclists. The day was great, blue skyes, head winds and we did 45km until we found a farm village. The dusk was getting closer and we asked to a couple who was mowing the grass to refill our water bottles.

Felippe went to ask about to refill the water bottles and I was waiting outside, this family had a big yard and we thought about to ask them if they could let us to pitch our tent on there, as we did not have find a place to sleep yet and Felippe come back saying that we could pitch the tent there, OMG what a day, we were so happy! We were surprised by two caramel color dogs, they got really excited with us and was on that time that Veronica and Bruce invited us to sleep in one of the rooms that they have there. That was the highlight of this trip, Veronica and Bruce are a really strong couple, they are building their own home, they also are living in a Campervan on a shed and even living with little, they offered us a room, hot shower and a cup of tea. We do not have enough words to describe what we felt on that day, so much love for them and today the only thing that I could wish to them is that they could receive it back all the love that they give to us.

The feeling today is freedom and gratitude, thanks to everyone that is following us, sending good vibrations to us and our trip.

A big warm hug to everyone.

Mari and Felippe