Cycling the South

National Geographic Traveller editor, David Swanson, takes in the spectacular alpine scenery – and some icy cold Speights – on a two-week bike tour of the South Island. “[The] rain stopped, and the world went almost silent. It was at that moment that I began to appreciate where I was. A glacier-fed, iris-blue river paralleled the road, merino sheep meandered in a valley, and the mist started to rise above the flanks of the peaks, revealing a light dusting of snow. This was the New Zealand I had come for.”