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Cancel the Wedding, Grab the Bike
One Woman's Journey Down Paradise "Rode" By Amy Montemarano
rveyed our bicycling mates: two sisters from Connecticut, a doctor and a lawyer from New York City, an ex-patriot couple living in London, a California college kid with a guitar and a Hungarian couple from Hong Kong. Our guides were Lesley, a soft-spoken woman in her 40s, and Monique, her eager and chatty assistant.
We began the trip at the top. Lesley drove us in the tour van straight up a narrow mountain road to Porter's Pass. It was better to start with an "exhilarating" descent, she said.
It was an act of pure faith, that first descent. Perched on an unfamiliar bike, hurtling down the steep winding pass road. Brakes slammed on hard, knuckles white. Helmet askew from the rush of the wind. It seemed as though I didn't take my first pedal for half an hour. And then when the road evened out and I unclenched my fists from the handlebars and looked up and looked around, I knew it was going to be a wonderful trip.
The view was stunning. On all sides, in rich colors of green and gold, rolling hills gave way to mountains and beyond those, still higher ice-trimmed peaks. The sky was translucent blue and immense. The air smelled incredibly clean. There was no sign of industry. Just a wide mountain road and postcard-perfect countryside. And sheep. Hundreds of them speckling the hills. We had been told that there are 20 times as many sheep as there are people in New Zealand. They were to become the one mainstay in the ever changing landscape.
The scenery only got better. Through the mountains, we fought ferocious wind that terrorized our quadriceps. We rode through alpine villages and hiked to a waterfall called the Devil's Punchbowl. Onward to the Tasman Sea, then along the coast, past farms with endless varieties of sheep, goat and cows. We pedaled to symphonies of bleats. Reigning over one fenced-in field was a muttering, bewhiskered billy goat standing bow-legged on an ant hill. A few fields down, a massive snow-white bull, big as a hunter's cabin, stood silent while we nervously photographed him, his great hooded eyes following Rich's every move.
We feasted on gourmet picnic lunches. We wolfed down our hearty dinners with bottles of wine and weary, happy conversation. Every night after dinner, we fell exhausted into bed. Everyone agreed it was the best sleep they had gotten in years.