CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN
The couple biking the world
Hippos, gun-toting police, long drops, wild dogs… New Plymouth woman Diana Wynyard reels off her holiday highlights.
Hers is definitely a life less ordinary and one the 69-year-old isn’t about to give up any time soon. In fact, the former cancer patient, along with husband Rhys Masters (63), is in the process of planning the next holiday, through the Himalayas. By bike.
It’s a far cry from 40 years ago, when biking in Nelson, they inadvertently wound up in a nudist camp and accidentally “joined the natives”, as you do.
The couple, whose two sons Eddie and Wyn are professional mountain bikers, have been travelling on two wheels in some of the world’s most inhospitable terrain since 2011, when Diana spotted cheap flights to Rio de Janeiro and suggested it might be fun to ride a recently opened cycleway in Buenos Aries – all 100km of it.
They’d initially planned to cycle the ‘Death Road’ in Bolivia – where Auckland man Emile Vollenhoven was tragically killed in January after his bike went off the edge – but the fares were too expensive.
The Buenos Aries trip was reasonably benign – “just enough to give us a taste for it” – except for the last day when their bikes were stolen and their taxi broke down three times on the way to the airport.
Argentina was followed by
Sri Lanka (2012), India (2013) and Cuba (2014). More recently, they’ve biked the Danube, through Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania to the Black Sea; visited India, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; trekked into East Africa, spending five weeks “outpedalling” hippos; ventured into the Xinjiang (north West China) and Pakistan; and crossed the French Massif Central on their way to meet their sons in La
Bresse, where they were competing in a world mountain bike championship.
Thankfully, there have been no more stolen bikes, though there has been blood, litres of sweat and the occasional tear.
“There haven’t been any broken limbs, but there have been bloody knees and things. There’ve been a few close shaves and I’ve fallen off quite a bit – the roads in Africa are like something out of nowhere,” says Diana, noting the main challenges are roaming dogs, heat, cold and hunger.
“There are strategies to deal with dogs, most of which require a bit of bravery. One is stopping and putting your bike between you and the dog, and telling it to p*** off!”
Police get a special mention, especially the ones in China’s Xinjiang province. The couple, plus a young Swede who cycled with them for several days, attracted a four-car police escort – flashing lights and all – at one stage and at the border into Pakistan, a special law enforcement car was called to follow Diana as she walked to the toilet. “It was ridiculous,” she says.
For Kiwis used to an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, adapting to local diets proved difficult and on some days, there was very little food. A post from Rhys on the second day of the Pakistan trip notes that even the local dog that was hanging around wouldn’t touch the “supposed sardines… totally foul”, they had bought for lunch.
Yet they have also had the most unforgettable meals. “We had just come over the Kyzylart Pass in Tajikistan,” Diana recalls. “It was snowing and the riding conditions were terrible. We were headed to a road worker’s house and when we arrived, we gave the host all our food.
“She cooked this memorable mishmash meal over
a tiny
wood burner. It tasted so good!”
They travel cheaply – $20 to $40 a day – and carry their gear in panniers. Rhys is also loaded up with a tent and a laptop, used to document their travels on the crazyguyonabike website, a global online community of like-minded intrepid travellers.
The accommodation can be a bit hit-and-miss and there are times when any attempts at glamour are best forgotten, tells Diana, explaining a photograph of a sunburned Rhys having a “bath” in a large plastic handbasin in Nura, a remote village in northern Pakistan. “We had done over 100km of really hard cycling and were absolutely exhausted. The place we’d been told was a homestay didn’t look like it still was, so one of the villagers had directed us to someone else. Even though they turfed family out of the best rooms because we were paying, it was very, very basic!”
She adds, “Rhys sometimes does a ‘Don Brash’, only taking one pair of underpants, and he religiously washes his clothes out every evening and hangs them out to dry. He’s ecstatic in the morning putting on his beautifully laundered gear.”
While Diana has always been active – horse-riding has been a lifelong passion, and she still competes in show jumping and dressage events – two bouts of breast cancer in the early
2000s, followed by breast reconstruction, prompted a renewed interest in keeping fit.
Aside from cycling, she and Rhys are keen walkers, using tracks on Mt Taranaki as training for their cycling expeditions.
Their New Plymouth lifestyle block is also home to milking goats, rabbits, horses and occasionally but appropriately touring cyclists, whose accommodation fees go into Diana’s travelling fund.
“Biking is a fantastic way to meet people,” she enthuses, “and to learn about other countries and culture. The memories we bring back are wonderful.”
BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR DIANA LIKES TO PUSH HERSELF