Biking New Zealand - thanks to our angels!!!

So we rented bikes in Christchurch, thinking we would ride for 5 days straight, all the way up to Picton, and then hang out there for a few days. And then things started happening in different directions...just about 30km into the first day, one of my spokes (Speiche, for you Germans) broke. Since it was clear that there would not be a repair shop for at least 150km, we had to go back about 14km to a town we had passed over an hour ago.

Fortunately there was Andy. Andy was sitting at a red light in his truck, and we didn't really give him a chance to say no, when I asked him whether he would give us, and our bikes, and our bags, a ride back to the last town.

Thank you Andy!!! You made our day!!!
















After a few happy days of riding, it happened again: I heard that sound, and another spoke had broken! This time we were in the middle of nowhere, in the Marlborough Sounds...so we started pushing our bikes, thinking we were only a few kilometers away from the place where our water taxi was to pick us up to take us to our next hostel...

And then Emma and Malcolm came along and saved us! Thanks for the ride! You made our day!
















Now we were stranded at Hopewell: the most beautiful hostel we have ever seen, at a wonderful location (more about that separately) - not a bad place to be stranded!!! How to get out of here, to Nelson, a 5 hour drive away, to the nearest bikeshop?

Along came Kathrin and Markus, our next angels. They offered to pack our bikes and bags, and us, into their van, and take us along to Nelson. In the morning, the next problem arose: their van had a flat tire. So Mark and Markus put on the spare tire. We started driving - and soon realized we were losing air in the spare tire - so off we went to the next garage...So here we were at the garage, our bikes in the back of the van, getting the spare tire repaired...

Thanks Kathrin and Markus for saving us!