Huw Kingston and Laurence Mote are putting the mountains in mountain bikes for a cause.
Coming to a ski field near you this winter, two guys on bikes. They will probably look tired. If you see them, say hello, offer them a cuppa, and maybe a bed.
They’re calling it Alpine Odyssey Aotearoa. Odyssey is right. Save the Children Australia Ambassador Huw Kingston and former New Zealand national representative cyclist Laurence Mote (Kāi Tahu) are planning to spend this winter skiing 24 of New Zealand’s ski fields, and they’ll be making the trip between them, and up them, by bike.
It’s all for a good cause. The pair’s goal is to raise more than $75,000 towards a Vanuatu-based pilot project building climate resilient classrooms. Vanuatu has been increasingly impacted by cyclones and was hit by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake last year.
Huw, 61, isn’t new to this sort of thing. In 2022 he skied and trekked 700 kilometres across the Australian Alps for the ‘Alpine Odyssey Australia’ project, dropping in to ski at a dozen ski areas along the way. The trip took 52 days and raised more than $75,000 for an Our Yarning, a First Nations-led collection of stories written by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.
It was a long way, but will be even more challenging, in part because Aotearoa’s landscapes and weather patterns are unforgiving, and in part because Laurence is 10 years younger than Huw. According to Huw, “Alpine Odyssey Aotearoa is bigger, tougher, and even more adventurous.”
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Starting in late June, the 90-day journey will cover 4000 kilometres from the tip of the North Island to the bottom of the South. (It wasn’t originally going to be quite that long, but apparently a late evening and a bottle of wine added 1000 kilometres to the trip when the pair decided it would be best that they go the whole way, starting at Cape Reinga and finishing at Slope Point, the most southerly point in Aotearoa.) Huw and Laurence will ski tour between some of the ski fields and are planning to sail across Te Moana-o-Raukawa / the Cook Strait. But they will spend the majority of the 4000 kilometres on their mountain bikes, towing trailers with skiing and camping gear lashed to wherever it will fit.
Quite the mission, obviously, but for Laurence, it’s an even bigger ask. A competitive cyclist who raced at National and World Cup levels, Laurence suffered a near-death brain injury in 2013. It wasn’t a bike crash that did it, it was a bee sting. Stung while helping his family with some beehives, he went into anaphylactic shock and suffered a stroke – when he came out of an induced coma, he initially couldn’t walk, talk or see. His vision is still impacted significantly; Laurence is legally blind.
Not to worry. “Combining two of my favourite things, skiing and biking, had me convinced from the start. Traversing the length of this beautiful land, in deepest darkest winter, seems both crazy and exciting. I wasn’t going to say life-changing, but we’ll see,” Laurence says. “I’ll be closely following Huw’s lead as an experienced adventurer – and no doubt his back wheel at times.” Visiting ski fields does feel apt, as the snowsports industry is highly vulnerable to climate change. Plus, it will be educational, which suits the spirit of the fundraiser. “Three months should just be long enough for me to teach him to pronounce place names in te reo Māori.”
As for the size of the mission, “I’m not entirely sure what I’ve got myself in for. But any winter where you ski for over 20 days is a good season.”
Learn more about Alpine Odyssey Aotearoa at alpineodysseyaotearoa.nz
PHOTO: Mark Watson / Highluxphoto
