322 kilometers, snow-capped mountains in the south, past turquoise lakes to the Pacific: This is just one of 22 new bike paths that stretch across the two islands – and take travelers to places that hardly anyone else discovers.
The Aoraki doesn’t live up to its name that day. The cloud piercer, as the Maori call the highest mountain in New Zealand, towers unveiled on the horizon, its angular twin peaks shining in eternal white above the turquoise of Lake Pukaki. A sublime sight that forces you out of the saddle again and again. To look, to photograph. But that’s exactly what this path was built for.