By Jacinta Clark | Posted: Monday November 30, 2020
Earlier this year, John Clark, Miss Clark’s dad, cycled from Cape Reinga to Bluff. On Friday the 27th of November, John came to Room 13 to talk about what happened.
John participated in a brevet called Tour Aotearoa. It took him a total of 26 days and 3060km to go down Aotearoa. John’s bike had 14kg of supplies on it. The total weight of the bike was 26kg.
For the first five hours, it was just a beach, nothing to look at. A while after, John made it to Auckland. After that, John went on the timber trail, then made it to Camp Epic. During the discussion, John said this was his favourite place he stayed for the night.
Soon after, John made it to Palmerston North, and met a cyclist, who had to go to the hospital. After that, John went to Wellington, where John took a boat to the South Island. John went down the West Coast to go to Greymouth, then Kumara, where Miss Clark, Mr Russell and Sue (John’s wife) surprised him. John cycled down to Wanaka, then Queenstown, then to Bluff, where he finished cycling.
John said that he’d only do it again if Miss Clark wanted to do it and needed someone to cycle with. Along the way, John ate a lot of big breakfasts and pies, at one point when he stopped he even drank a whole 1.5 litre of coke with no sugar. Over the course of the trip, John lost 4kg of body weight because of how much he was biking.
Written by Cam George, Adam Stewart, and Chia Omidi