& finally - the really detailed planning

Having decided on a basic route, divided into 38 cycling days I then set about the task of detailed planning.

First job was to book all accomodation. I joined the NZ hostel group BBH, getting discount on all bookings and wherever possible tried to book into their hostels as they seem to be good, popular, good value (I think my average price per night landed at under 20GBP/200SEK) and they have a review/scoring system so you can see what fellow travellers thought of their accomodation.

With that taken care of next step was to fine-tune the route planning. For this, ridewithgps.com is great. I could check on road surface, gradients, make detours to take in points of interest, find suitable lunch stops etc. Then upload it all to my Garmin and I'm all set.

Then finally I've downloaded a few useful apps onto the iPhone to help when I'm in New Zealand - local online newspaper, weather app, what's on guide, tourist app etc.

My plan is to cycle early each day, therefore getting settled in to each new destination by mid afternoon, leaving lots of time over to explore so having some research apps to help find out what's in town will only help.

Then of course if all else fails I can always talk to the locals and fellow travellers - which is THE reason I'm staying in group dorm rooms in backpacker hostels!

Anyway - planning over. Let the journey begin!