NZ Day 8: Hamilton Gardens

Bursting into song about the wonders of New Zealand. "The Russian fort is woody / In this town that's full of goodies / The butterflies, they flutter by / And farts come from their bootys" Not bad for a first draft.

Bursting into song about the wonders of New Zealand.

“The Russian fort is woody / In this town that’s full of goodies / The butterflies, they flutter by / And farts come from their bootys”

Not bad for a first draft? At any rate, it is conclusive proof that I am 100% CLASSY.

Gator #1 invited Gator #2 in for tea, but it was a TRAP!

Here’s more evidence! (Gator #1 invited Gator #2 in for tea, but it was a TRAP)

Anyway, the reason I’m all dressed up in sun-protective gear is because Kerry and I bicycled over to the Hamilton Gardens to spend the first half of the day snapping photos, disturbing insects, and bothering waterfowl, such as these:

Leftover cicada skin, anchored to a leaf.

That’s a cicada skin, left behind on the underside of a leaf after the insect molted and crawled away. And of course, a duck, being ducky.

Hamilton Gardens was, and is, an amazing place to be a photographer. You’re probably saying, “but I can see gardens all over the world; why would I want to waste my precious time in New Zealand walking around a garden?”

Perhaps some of these pictures will help explain why!

The place is a feast for the senses, and that feast has multiple courses. There are themed and curated gardens, kept carefully behind partitions, and large open sections that grow a little more improvisational and merge slowly across each other.

(You’re probably looking at those pictures of thistles and saying, “he totally cranked up the saturation. There’s no way those colors are real.” Nope. That’s how they looked, my friends.)

And now we visit the Hamilton Gardens!

We didn’t pay much attention to the signposts, and just wandered around. I have no idea how many of these plants are native to New Zealand, or even to the same hemisphere.

These bees are busy bees!

The Monarch butterflies were familiar, though! I grew up in a town called Santa Cruz, and during part of the year we could see them hibernating at Natural Bridges State Beach. (Check out this Forestry Service article about their migration routes.) Monarchs were brought to New Zealand from North America, and seem to have a pretty good foothold here, despite the cold winters.

We caught these two doing ... uh ... relations. Eventually they took off and completed the deed in mid-air.
As long as her proboscis could still reach the flower, she didn't mind me messing with it.
Taken with an iPhone 6. Unbelievable.
Monarch on an artichoke!

They were very busy drinking nectar, so as long we we didn’t interrupt them, it was possible to get incredibly close. Check out this iPhone video:

Now that is close! By the way, that loud hissing sound you hear is the cicadas, scattered throughout the foliage and talking to each other. It’s intense, but after a while it fades into the background and you stop noticing it.

It makes me wonder: Do New Zealanders travel to places like North America and walk into the redwoods, and get disoriented because the forest is so very quiet?

The birds let us get pretty close too.

Anybody know what kind of bird this is?

Super-close-up photography with the iPhone! Faaaancy.

That’s me trying to blend in with the local foliage!

OAKTOWN REPRAZENT IN DA FOLIAGE YO

Serious camera action happening here!

OAKTOWN REPRAZENT IN DA FOLIAGE YO.

One of the newer exhibits was this tudor-accented topiary, groomed into precise tessellations, and decorated with carvings of mythic creatures and gods.

Centaur butt! Huhuhuhhuhhhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhhhuhhhuh

I think some of the carvings were deliberately made to look deranged, or cartoonish, to evoke Lewis Carroll’s poetry. I mean, look at that basilisk thing. Is it menacingly reptilian? Or adorably dopey? I can’t decide.

And of course, what mythic garden would be complete without Pan, frolicking in the bushes? (Trying to track down a nymph no doubt.)

Mad watch! Mad watch! MAD WATCH!!

Elsewhere in the gardens, the Lewis Carroll influence was obvious!

The heat from the gravel and stones in this particular garden was mesmerizing, and the desire to sit down on that bench and lose a few hours was intense. The place had a sense of comfortable timelessness to it, like it would remain early afternoon for as long as you cared to linger there.

By contrast, the “productive” garden area – full of edible plants, and decorated with signs discussing composting and suggesting recipes – brought feelings of growth and renewal. Everything in it looked like it was just about to be pulled up and chopped into a salad bowl, or stirred into a stewpot. Mmmmm!

It looked delicious and I caught a few fellow tourists reaching into the exhibits and plucking out onions, or tomatoes, or peas, and sneaking them furtively into their pockets or mouths.

Even the things that weren’t technically edible looked delicious.

This time, surprisingly, the good framing is by me, not Kerry. Hah!

Doesn’t that flower just look good enough to chomp? (As an aside, I’m very pleased with the framing of this photo. It’s on par with the framing that Kerry manages to get almost all the time. I don’t know how she does it…)

Azolla: Free-floating water ferns. Contains a nitrogen fixing bacteria (Abaeberia azollae). Used as a mulch on the garden, and also makes good chicken feed. Azolla grows rapidly and is a pest to lakes, ponds, and waterways, so it needs to be contained - like in this bathtub - for garden use.

Azolla: Free-floating water ferns! They contain a nitrogen fixing bacteria (Abaeberia azollae), and can be used as a mulch on the garden, or as chicken feed. Azolla grows rapidly and is a pest to lakes, ponds, and waterways, so it needs to be contained – like in this bathtub – for garden use.

The “productive” area was even more saturated with insects than the other gardens.

Among the “productive” gardens was one of more local origin called the Te Parapara Garden. Here’s me pretending to be one of the wall carvings.

The guy on top is ... striking an interesting pose

Dig this: Te Parapara was originally the name of the pre-European Maori settlement in what is now the centre of Hamilton Gardens!

The section is part tribute, part reference, and has two sub-sections, one presenting the uncultivated food the Maori gathered from the forest and grassland, the other presenting the system they developed for organized farming of these and other tropical crops in a sub-tropical climate. When Europeans showed up in the 1840’s, this system was well-established in plantations all over the islands.

Speaking of tropical, another highlight for us was the tropical-themed garden. 200 different species of plants, according to the documentation, hardy enough to be grown outdoors but still giving the appearance of the tropics.

Lots of drip irrigation going on here!

The colors were intense, and many of the plants had a thickness and stiffness to them that made the garden feel as much like a sculpture or a carving than something grown from the soil.

I wonder what it would take to grow these in my back yard? I have a bunch of succulents there already – perhaps it’s time to add to the collection when I get back home?

This door was locked - but it looks so ornate and tempting!!

Even the doorways were interesting here…

…And each of them led to something new and unique, like this Italian Renaissance-themed garden with many pockets and sections to explore.

Having so many distinct styles so close together, but confined to their own sections, appealed to my OCD nature. It was like browsing a collection of trading cards or figurines neatly organized on a shelf. Sharpened borders, matching sizes, and no intermediate space becomes just as important a part of the structure as the content itself.

We ran out of time and only got a glance in here... Lovely area.

I assume this is why most of my plants back home are in pots. They’re all together in the garden, but they’re also distinct and – in a very real way – protected from one another. Plants will happily fight to the death for root and sun space, and I don’t want to lose any “weaker” species to “stronger” ones. I gotta catch ’em all!

Perhaps this is why I was so impressed by the Victorian Flower Garden:

All the plants seemed to be co-existing, even though they were placed together in what looks like a big tangle. I assume this is a combination of careful selection and careful grooming.

I see you!!!

The effect was lovely, and the open setting – colorful and layered without being overwhelming – made this garden my favorite, slightly outranking the Tudor garden with the weird topiary.

We both wanted to stay longer, but we had a bus to catch. There were three or four sections that we just didn’t have time to see. It would also have been nice to set down a little picnic blanket and have lunch somewhere. Nope! Got to get going.

There is so much of New Zealand to see – including dozens of things Kerry and I already know about and deliberately decided to skip – that it’s unlikely I’ll ever return to the Hamilton Gardens to finish my tour. Plus, the sections are always in flux – their contents are literally growing. A return visit would not be a return to the same sights as before. So if you think you can skip it just because you’ve seen my pictures, well, it just ain’t so!

Kerry and I returned to the Albert Court Motor Lodge and fetched the rest of our luggage from the garage near the office, which the clerk had graciously let us use for our visit to the gardens. A while after that we were riding the bus out of town, towards Tirau. This would provide us a flatter approach to Hobbiton than the route we’d originally planned.

Tirau turned out to be a collection of shops strung out along Highway 1 where it briefly merges with Highway 27 and Highway 5, with a few motels scattered in like eddies in a river. Like speedboats in that same river, big trucks would come roaring up and down the highway through town at all times of day or night, with little regard for pedestrians or the wake of noise they left. We went out for dinner and watched them zooming by as we ate.

Kiwis think this drink is awesome, but to us it tastes obnoxious. We've decided the "L&P" stands for "Lemon and Puke".

Out of curiosity, Kerry bought a popular local drink, called “L&P”. Kiwis think this drink is awesome, but to us it tastes obnoxious. We’ve decided the “L&P” stands for “Lemon and Puke”.

Our motel room reeked so much of cigarettes that we had to keep the windows open and even move the bed closer to the windows, but at the same time the noise from the trucks was punishing. Sleep wasn’t easy.

But who cares! Today was amazing, and tomorrow we’re going to Hobbiton!

NZ Day 7: The Cat Bus (Or at least, The Bus To The Cat)

Even without the reconfiguring, our schedule always included one very long bus ride from Waipu down to Hamilton, so we could get off the northern peninsula of the island and reach the interior, close to the Hobbiton movie set. Kerry and I had to see Hobbiton, of course. If we went all the way to New Zealand and then skipped it, we would be beating ourselves with sticks at the end of the trip — and when we got home our friends would probably beat us with sticks too. And it would serve us right! Hah!

Ready to load up!

We got up with plenty of time to spare, and packed up the bikes lazily. We both knew we’d just be going half a mile and then re-packing them underneath a bus. In seven days we’ve had to switch our gear between:

  • planes
  • kayaks
  • bicycles
  • hiking trails
  • a shuttle
  • a boat
  • and a bus

… with four hotels and a post office in between. Sometimes it feels like it’s the gear that’s on vacation, and we’re just chaperoning it along. “Here, let me fluff that pillow for you, camera. Is that seat comfortable enough, repair kit? Be sure and give me a good Yelp review after your trip.”

(As an aside, it’s day 7, and we’ve already been personally reminded by employees at two establishments to go online and review them on Yelp. That service has quite a foothold here.)

The bus churned and rumbled way, waaay up into the hills along Highway 1. We never even considered cycling on this part of the highway, and I was very glad for that. We could have been squished by this very bus! I dashed back and forth between the windows on either side, giddily snapping photos, but afterwards I looked at them and almost none were usable. I was countering the motion blur by shooting at 1/8000-second, relying on the amazing sensor in the camera to keep the photos from being grainy, but every time I saw a pretty scene at the roadside it flew out of range before I could compose the shot. I am spoiled by bike touring in multiple ways.

No idea what this is, but I am amused by the design!

No idea what this is for, but it's pretty cute!

Vaguely disturbing ... But tasty.

I caught a few interesting things, but after an hour or so I just put the camera away and chatted with Kerry, and then listened to The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents while she took a nap. I’ve discovered a third thing that causes her to instantly fall asleep next to me: Riding a bus. The first two are watching tv, and reading fiction out loud to her. (Non-fiction doesn’t seem to work.)

After many hours, we arrived in Hamilton, and set out to accomplish the day’s mission: We were going to visit Diesel, the Rototuna Countdown Cat. Yes, that’s right, we’ve traveled thousands of miles around the curve of the Earth in order to roll up and visit a cat that lives in front of a supermarket. We’re perverse individuals that way.

We had to ride pretty far north from the bus stop – also the opposite direction from our booked hotel – to get to the right Countdown supermarket, and when we got there, one of the clerks told us that the owners of Diesel had in fact moved away at the end of last year and taken the cat with them. This was pretty disappointing, but the side-trip turned out to be worthwhile, because the very same shopping center had a pet store in it with another kittycat wandering around outside!

Welcome to the shop! My name is Ginger Boy! I'll show you around.

“Welcome to the shop! My name is Ginger Boy! I’ll show you around.”

These are some of my favorite things! Actually everything in here is mine, and it's all my favorite! Let me show you more!

“These are some of my favorite things! Actually, everything in here is mine, and it’s all my favorite! Let me show you more!”

My best favorite thing is the food thing. Now you may pet me while I eat. That's two best favorite things at the same time, which is also my favorite thing. (Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom.)

“Welcome to my apartment! My best favorite thing, is the food thing. Now you pet me while I eat, and that’s two favorite things at the same time!”

(Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom.)

“Then afterwards, we sit and watch the Zebra Finches! If you want one, they’re only five bucks each.” (Ginger Boy was right, they’re fascinating. I took a short movie of them darting around.)

After that visit, Kerry and I ate some mediocre fush’n’chups and cycled back across town to the Albert Court Motor Lodge. Hobbiton was only two days away, but before that we were going to explore the Hamilton Gardens! Fancy stuff! But before that: Lots of sleep.

NZ Day 6: Waipu Wandering

We got a decent amount of sleep, and it was all downhill into central Whangarei to catch the shuttle directly to Waipu. This would mark our first diverging from the schedule we’d meticulously prepared over the previous two months. We would be skipping the Waipu caves and their dark ceilings, sparkling with glow-worms, but we would also be skipping another several thousand feet of hills, as steep as the ones that punished us on that first day of riding. Now we knew our limitations, and we knew this was a necessary change.

The bicycles fit sideways into the luggage compartment under the bus without any acrobatics, and we piled our bags around them, except for our backpacks which we were too paranoid to relinquish. My rough estimate is that we were carrying about $11000 worth of gear in those backpacks, mostly in the form of camera lenses. That’s pretty absurd, especially since we could have left half that gear at home and barely changed our enjoyment of the trip.

The green countryside scrolled by, and we found ourselves in Waipu before my stomach had a chance to notice it was on a bus and get upset – a childish behavior that it picked up years ago when I was riding commuter shuttles to work. We stepped off into an early autumn day with a fresh breeze and just a hint of ocean salt, and a few minutes later we had our gear reassembled and were riding back down the main street of Waipu, looking for our hotel, and for a place to get snacks.

Whoever's been shooting at that sign has had consistently bad aim...

The motel room was cheap, but dingy and cramped. The single-pane window opened directly onto a parking space. All the usual hardware was stacked in a corner – television on top of VCR on top of mini-fridge, unplugged and dusty. We stripped the bikes down, hauled the bags inside, then hauled the bikes in after. The room was now incredibly cramped, but we didn’t care – it was time to go out and get snacks!

The restaurant across from the hotel was excellent. Actually, it was as good as the hotel was bad! We ate burgers and salad, and drank cider at a spacious table. Encouraged by the weather, we decided to go out riding and see what else we could find. What we found was a pastoral paradise.

We rode out through a ragged patchwork of lush green fields, crisscrossed by slow rivers along soft banks of mud and sand, and threaded by dirt roads with deep ruts and high shoulders of tangled late-summer grass. Dark horses, cream-colored sheep, and speckled cows meandered their way along, nibbling on grass or lounging in the sun, between fences of rusty wire and wooden posts. Across all this blew a steady coastal breeze, fresh but not cold, weaving into the trees and carrying the scent of the sea, and higher up, carrying along an army of fleecy white clouds, sailing like galleons in the sky. It was like riding around inside everyone’s collective hallucination of the perfect day in the countryside. A living daydream, filling up every kind of sense.

It was a feeling like the one I felt in western Kansas, on a particular day when I was bicycling there three years ago. Not exactly the same; the Kansas air had been warmer, and pungent with the smell of old grass and wet soil. A Halloween smell. Waipu was bringing me a younger, lighter smell – something like Easter. Looking around, I would not have felt surprised to see little pastel eggs tucked into the hollows of trees, and peeking out from rabbit holes.

Savoring this vivid impression, I stopped by the side of the road and dug a chocolate bar out of my saddlebag. A hundred feet away, Kerry pedaled up to a horse behind a low fence, but it saw her coming and backed nervously away, intimidated by the combined size of bicycle and rider. Kerry chastised the horse for being a scaredy-cat, and giggled. “Silly horse,” I said, talking casually over our headsets. “Doesn’t it know that bicyclists always have snacks?”

Once again, all the effort of hauling these awkward bicycle contraptions around felt absolutely worth it. We were traveling within, not just passing through.

We pedaled around the area north of town, then came back and made a left turn, headed towards the sea. The road curved around and undulated over a few gentle hills. Nothing intimidating like what we saw the day before, thank goodness. We stopped in a random spot, peed behind some bushes, then flopped down in the grass and chomped through a bag full of bubble gum. This is how a day of cycling is supposed to go! Not a death march, but a long string of roadside picnics.

Industrious NZ spiders!

“I’m still getting used to the idea of spending an entire day riding a bike,” Kerry said. “I mean, not pedaling the whole time obviously, but… It’s strange being ‘in transit’ for so long, you know? I’m used to riding a bike to get somewhere. So I get this feeling of impatience, like, we should just never stop, and pedal hard, so we can hurry up and get to the next town, the next thing. But I know that’s not the right way to think about it, so I’m pushing back against that idea in my head. That’s taking effort, but I think I can get there. We’ll see. Still, it’s good that we’re doing other stuff too and not just bicycling day after day like some of the trips you’ve taken.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t expect you to like bicycling as much as I do. You’d have to be as crazy as I am; and that’s pretty crazy. But I’m really happy you’re here with me.”

“Awww,” she said, and gave me a hug.

We rode on, and about a half mile later we rolled around a corner and found the water – a long shallow inlet with pasture on either side, sweeping out to connect with the deeper ocean, kinked by a few bars of white sand, and with a thin crest of surf sketching out the interface between the incoming waves and the receding tide. Just up from the shore on our side of the inlet was an old graveyard, the headstones bleached and weather-beaten in some cases and sharp and shiny in others, all behind a fence with a single strand of electrified wire strung along it in plastic brackets, to keep the cows from crapping on the dead. We parked our bikes and went strolling around.

You can tell we're only out for the day because the bicycle is lacking about 55 pounds of extra gear. (It's back at the hotel.)

You can tell we’re only out for the day because the bicycle in the picture is lacking about 40 pounds of extra gear!

Seeing this coastal graveyard and this blue ocean and these huge clouds brought a lot of other associations to mind. Some musical, some literary. Sting’s “The Soul Cages” echoed through my ears. Fragments of poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson. Images etched into my imagination when I read “The Sea Wolf” in the 7th grade. I felt detached from my own era, but it wasn’t a disorienting feeling; it was a comfortable one. This graveyard by the sea was telling me something.

“Here is an environment, a source of sensations, that you cannot make your individual stamp upon, no matter what you try. Even solid stone, etched with descriptions of who you were and what you did, and placed here, will simply wear away into an anonymous blob in a thousand years, and it will be millions more years before this place even begins to look slightly different, from exactly how it looked a million years before you passed through. Maybe the shoreline will have a different shape but it will still be the same shore. All the poems written, all the ships built and launched, all the perfect picnic days and garbage left behind in human history compresses down to a thought … an afterthought, even … and I could be anyone standing here. Or no one.”

“But is that really true? Humans do have a collective impact, after all. In seven thousand years we managed to create the Sahara Desert from grassland, with help from domesticated animals. Some people say that 15000 years ago the Great Plains was forested and only became grass because humans kept setting fires. Others say the forest retreated naturally as the glaciers melted away. And, we’re certainly good at mass extinction…”

Abruptly I realized I’d been staring at the same distant sandbar for an entire minute. I walked back to my bike and stowed the camera. Time to ride out for snacks!

Kerry chatted with a few people sitting around in lawn chairs, dangling fishing poles down into the water. They told her that if we wanted to swim at a proper beach, we should cycle only “a kilometer or so” down the road and we’d find one, along with a general store. That sounded good.

Of course, “a kilometer or so” turned out to be four or five miles. We were both rapidly coming to the conclusion that New Zealanders could not be trusted to give accurate estimates of distance. It’s probably not Kiwis in particular, it’s probably just people who drive cars and don’t bicycle. Back home, most people have at least tried bicycling. In New Zealand, people ride mountain bikes on tracks, but touring seems to be strictly for tourists. The idea of using a bicycle to get from one town to another seems absurd to just about everyone we’ve talked to here…

Eventually we did find a nice beach, and a nice general store. Many snacks were snacked upon.

I've never seen such a perfect demonstration of a beach forming from billions of discarded shells.

I’ve never seen such a perfect demonstration of a beach forming from millions of discarded shells!

How's this for a beach!

The Waipu Cove beach was littered with whole shells. I collected a few for a photo, then left them behind for kids to play with.

We collected a bunch of them and took a few photos, then left them around for kids to find. No sense hauling them back to the hotel.

As the afternoon moved on to evening, the shadows got deeper and more lush. Even though we were riding back the way we came, along the same road, everything looked different.

Whenever the temptation came upon us to stop and eat a snack, or take a photograph, we just went with it. The landscape seemed to be taunting us to find the right collection of buttons and switches that would capture the perfect photograph. Vacation with gadgets! Fun stuff.

Even the clouds got in on the act!

That's a pretty bunched-up stand of trees!

When we got back to town, I felt hungry and Kerry felt tired, so she took a nap and I walked over to the same restaurant, and went though the day’s photographs.

Waipu locals watching the cricket game

Kerry’s nap didn’t last long, though: A bunch of Waipu locals gathered in the pub to watch the latest cricket game. Their shouts and laughter went straight through the thin walls of the hotel. Minus one star!

Lots of places to go from Waipu!

In the original schedule, Waipu was just a handy town to spend the night after exploring the Waipu Caves, but it turned out to be a fun place to explore in its own right, and very restorative. Kerry and I went to bed feeling a lot more refreshed than we’d been the previous night in Whangarei.

Good thing too, since the next day we’d be stuck in shuttles for six hours!

NZ Day 5: Snorkeling the Poor Knights

To get to the harbor we had to do an early morning ride, which was a lot more hassle than we expected due to the big hill between Matapouri to Tutukaka. A lot of tight curves, with no curb and almost no shoulder, and the two of us huffing and puffing at 3mph to climb our way up. On the positive side, the drivers were clearly doing their best to help. They would consistently slow down and give us most of the lane, swerving to the outside. It was nice to know they were allies.

Nevertheless, even the most polite driving can’t eliminate that terrible feeling a cyclist gets when a two-ton metal monster is rushing up behind their back!

Whoo! Ten dollar wetsuit rental!

Gettin' suited up for snorkeling!

But we made it safely, stowed our bikes at the storefront, and walked onto the boat, ready for adventure! Here’s a video of the journey out:

Whoo! Jumping into the water!

The Poor Knights Islands are pretty amazing, even if you’re only experiencing them from slightly off the coast, which is uniformly steep and rocky. This is just as well, since the island group is a protected habitat, and the Department Of Conservation will fine you hundreds of thousands of dollars for merely setting foot on it – and far more if they catch you removing any of its unique species for sale on the black market.

Our boat dropped anchor about 100 feet from the nearest rock wall, and we got a polite but firm lecture on what we were allowed to do: Scuba, snorkel, swim, and paddle, but don’t touch anything, and definitely don’t pick anything up. We could dig it! The only thing we planned to take was awesome video!

I hadn’t been snorkeling in many years, but it came back to me easily. Ever since splashing around in the pool as a child, I’ve always been more comfortable slightly under the water – pretending I was a submarine – than on top of it. And for ten bucks each, Kerry and I got wetsuits, making the water feel nice and comfy.

Handy tip: Cold wetsuit? Empty that bladder! Aaaaahhhh. It only feels unsanitary if you forget that most of our sewage ends up in the ocean anyway…

There were a few sea-caves within swimming distance. Dark, angular, foreboding holes in the rock, sucking in rivers of seawater and then spitting them out. I ventured inside one for a few minutes, swimming with the current and then bracing myself against a rock when the current reversed, so I could keep my progress. It was like being inside a slow-moving mosh pit: Every second you think you’re going to get slammed against something, but the current surges with you, up against the obstacle, turning the impact into something less dangerous.

I didn’t stay for long, since it was too dark to see much, but before I left I pointed my mask down and saw a group of scuba divers, creeping along the bottom of the cave with a flashlight. The water was much calmer down there – no current to jostle them around. Maybe I’ll learn to scuba some day, and do the same thing? I hear the Monterey Bay back home has some great stuff…

The sea critters were delightful. I wanted to follow every fish I saw and tickle it! But even more interesting was the vegetation. Since we were right up next to an island, the water would slosh back and forth in long, languid motions like the sway of a gigantic pendulum, causing me and everything else around me to move gently within it. It created a kind of optical illusion, where all the rocks of the sea floor and the wall were moving, but all the long tendrils of seaweed that drifted out from them were standing still, with the fish and myself suspended nearby. The entire world was weaving dangerously around, but this little bubble of space was perfectly calm.

The temptation to swim over the top of a big crusty rock and just hang there, undulating in perfect sync with a curious little cloud of fishes, was very strong. We only had a few hours to explore a wide area, but I couldn’t resist just hanging out for a while, at least a few times. Chillin’ with my fish, yo. What an amazing experience.

Back on the boat, with our wetsuits off and our regular clothes back on, our next amazing experience was a sea cave, called Rikoriko. The guide claimed it was the largest sea cave in the world, but I honestly have no idea how accurate that is. It was a spectacular sight in any case – weird stuff growing from the ceiling, flickering lights reflecting from the water and dancing across the walls, long reverberation trailing every sound…

Here’s a video of the tourguide putting more accurate numbers to the size of the cave.

And here’s what I saw when I took a glance at the ship’s console:

When we entered the big cave, the boat GPS went dead. Awesome!

When we entered the big cave, the GPS signal went dead. Awesome! WE’RE LOST!

After the cave, we spent some time motoring around and between the islands, while the guide gave a history lesson, including a few different versions of the story behind the name “Poor Knights”. My favorite version is that when Captain Cook first saw the islands in 1769, the native bushes were all in bloom, creating a reddish fringe all along the top that reminded him of a traditional seafaring meal called a Poor Knight’s Pie. He had been sailing for quite a while at that point, so he’d probably eaten one recently, because the main ingredient of a Poor Knight’s Pie was old moldy bread. The ship’s cook would fry it up and spread jam on it, creating a greenish-brown slab with a reddish fringe. It must have looked just like a little island on the captain’s plate.

Ah, the life of the sea! There wasn’t any Poor Knight’s Pie on our boat, but they did provide hot drinks, instant soup, and several big pyramids of pre-made sandwiches. I was feeling very hungry, and even though the sandwiches had wheat in them, I figured, “hey, it’s been a long time since I felt a reaction to wheat, maybe my body is past it now?” So I grabbed three or four of them at least – probably more – and devoured them.

Here’s a hyper-speed tour through an arch during our last few minutes at the Poor Knights islands:

After that we motored back to the harbor. Kerry and I were not looking forward to another round of cycling, and we were also feeling the subtle onset of “land sickness“, which is a kind of reverse sea-sickness that creeps up on you and makes you dizzy when you get off a boat. It made me think of all those old cartoons I’ve seen where sailors weave around on dry land as though they’re perpetually drunk. I wonder how much of that stereotype – of sailors as drunks – was established just from watching them try to deal with this unanticipated problem, or the more serious long-term version of it, a debilitating psychosomatic disorder known as “Mal de debarquement“?

Even though we weren’t feeling our best, we managed to get ahold of a shuttle driver who was between jobs, and convinced him to carry us and our huge awkward bicycles down the highway for half an hour to Whangarei. We had to stack the bicycles on top of the empty rows of seats, so it was a lucky coincidence that none of the seats were booked except for one, and that passenger graciously agreed to ride up front with the driver. It rained a little during the drive, making Kerry and I feel extra grateful we weren’t out there pedaling. We made sure to leave a generous tip.

We checked in and scattered our gear around the little detached cottage, and flopped down on the bed. It would have been nice to sleep the rest of the evening away, but we needed dinner. At least we had plenty of food choices nearby. I located a thai restaurant only a few miles from the hotel and we crept reluctantly back onto our bikes.

Just outside the hotel we stopped to admire the Whangarei Falls, and I got a nice shot of a parasitized tree. It was my first up-close look at one, and I found it fascinating – more so than the waterfall, which was crawling with tourists.

Half a mile later, the road went sharply downhill. Every foot of descent was another foot we would have to climb back up on the return journey, and as the bicycles plummeted, my stomach did too. I was exhausted. I knew Kerry was even more exhausted, and already stressed out from riding too much over the last three days. She was not enjoying the trip right now, and it was all my fault for underestimating the New Zealand hills, and she was going to be angry with me for accidentally leading us down yet another one. I just knew it. At the bottom of the hill I slowed to a crawl, and still it seemed like a very long time before Kerry caught up. We rode the rest of the way to the restaurant in bleary silence. I felt panicky, and depressed, and altogether much more upset than I could remember feeling in a long time.

There was a bus stop nearby, and I stared at the schedule with the faint hope that we could ride a bus back up the hill, but it was too late at night. We locked our bicycles and shambled into the restaurant. I ordered the food. Kerry excused herself to the bathroom, saying she needed some time alone, and was gone for so long I began to get worried. I stacked our luggage up underneath the table and went looking for her. Each bathroom was enclosed behind a lockable door, so I knocked on the one that was locked, and she let me in. We both sat on the floor for a while, arms around each other, nauseated and tired.

We talked, and I told her what seemed to be going on with me: I was having a wheat reaction. The first one I’d had in a year at least, and it was no coincidence that I was having it on the day I’d decided to believe I was “cured” of that problem, and eaten a huge amount of bread. I was obviously not “cured”. All the usual signs were there, chief among them the intense, sudden feelings of depression, plus the elevated heart rate, the double-rings under the eyes, and the total inability to calm down or think clearly. A kind of free-floating panic attack that doesn’t stop. When it’s especially intense, all you can do is lay on the ground and let time pass. Your rational mind knows that it’s possible to stand up, but the panic is like a hot coal, burning the line between your head and your legs.

Kerry was dealing with her own panic attack, brought on by land sickness, hunger, and fatigue. She was upset about the hill, but not upset with me. It had been her choice to let me set the pace, and her choice to continue on it, and she told me so. We were both in bad shape but we were also both more interested in reconciliation than in conflict, and that was a big help. Eventually we got to our feet together, and when we walked out of the bathroom we found our food waiting at the table, and we sat down and devoured it. It was delicious. We stuffed ourselves and slowly began to feel a bit better.

I hauled out my phone and poked at Google Earth and other mapping tools for a while, and found an alternate route back up to the hotel that made the ascent much more slowly than the huge, steep hill we’d gone barreling down. We packed up plenty of leftovers and set out feeling much calmer. The night air and the lack of traffic helped as well.

It took about an hour to get home, but we chatted on our headsets the whole way. I told Kerry an improvised story about a weasel and a beaver who learned about each other through a newsletter, and had to fight off a bunch of romantic rivals to track each other down. When we reached the hotel we were both in much better spirits.

While unloading the bikes, we saw a huge orange cat and had to take a few pictures, even though we were tired!

RUH ROH !
Dueling cameras! Sony versus Canon! Night-time NZ edition! GO!
Maurice the cat says: "I own all these things!"
Maurice the night-time prowler!
Kerry providing some supplemental grooming to the Whangarei Backpacker's Lodge cat. Mmmmm! Pffft pfffft hairball

I think we named him Maurice!

We had the most interesting transportation on the lot!

Here’s a shot of our bikes – the most interesting transportation on the lot, I’m sure – before we hauled them inside the cottage for the night.

NZ Day 4: Maxin’ and Relaxin’ in Matapouri

I’m not actually sure what “maxin” means in this context. But I’m a 30-something so the phrase is wedged into my brain.

Gotta multitask when you're on the move! Flossin' and a walkin'

The first thing Kerry and I did – after a long sleep of course – was to walk slowly to the general store. Kerry flossed at the same time, because we are true heroes of efficiency.

Along with the usual candy and soda, we found enough ingredients here to make a decent Indian dish for lunch and dinner.

Along with the usual candy and soda, we found enough ingredients here to make a decent Indian dish for lunch and dinner.

So far all the roads we've been on have been scrupulously well maintained. We told a couple of locals how impressed we were, and each of them laughed and said "Naaah".

So far all the roads we’ve been on have been scrupulously well maintained. We told a couple of locals how impressed we were, and each of them laughed and said “Naaah”. Maybe there was a recent push to improve the roads?

On the other hand, sidewalks and curbs are rare here, and the lanes are narrower, and most of the bridges are one-way.

Kerry’s leg was feeling cramped and sore, so we walked very slowly to the beach. There were only a few people around, and the weather was fantastic! Here’s a video of some of our antics, using the helmet-camera planted in the sand:

Whoooo bodysurfing! I almost lost my hat a few times.

Kerry went back to the beach house to rest some more, so I decided to walk to the Mermaid Pool formation in the meantime.

Go quail go!

[/ptwsgallery]

I think this little kerchief is supposed to mark the beginning of the trail … But it might just be a lost swimsuit!

This is a STEEP trail. In some places you have to hold on to ropes to stay upright.

The trail, by the way, is steep. In some places you have to haul on ropes to stay upright.

At the top of the climb, you enter a lovely chunk of tropical forest. The cicadas get so loud they drown out the ocean, and the trail twists and curves so much that you can’t see it beyond the next 15 feet.

I wouldn’t want to carry a surfboard or a cooler through here! Of course, first I’d have to drag it up the hillside…

I can’t remember the last time I’ve wandered in a forest like this one. Perhaps this is the first time. I was fascinated by the texture and color of the trunks, and kept brushing my hands across them as I walked.

Eventually I emerged and saw the ocean again.

That's where we're going tomorrow!

In the distance I could spot the “Poor Knights Islands”. That’s where we’re going tomorrow! Sweeet! Then I looked down, and saw the pools…

First sight of the Mermaid Pools, from the top of the hill.

Quite lovely! And due to the lateness of the day and the season, I had them all to myself.

It's a very colorful place...
There are strange things growing in the Mermaid Pool. I suspect it's a mixture of salt-water and fresh-water organisms.
I didn't spot any mermaids, but I did spot quite a few snails!

The pools are filled up slowly by the high tide, then drained slowly by the low tide. The water is a bit warmer than the ocean, deep enough to swim in, and a lot less turbulent than the surf. And of course the colors are amazing, even on a less-than-perfect day like today…

This is an example of why modeling the physics of water is difficult.

Here’s a handy example of why modeling the physics of water is difficult!

The waves would constantly send water thundering up the rocks and just over the edge, causing a little bit to flow into the pool on the other side.

A classic Mermaid Pool shot. Farewell, pools. Gotta get back before nightfall.

I lingered for quite a while, enjoying the wind and the light, and the all-encompassing boom of the surf. Eventually the sun dropped below the horizon and I reluctantly started back. Here’s a little video I took while creeping through the forest:

Tromp tromp tromp!

Trekkin' back to the beach house...

Anyone know what this is? It's very light, like bleached bone.

Eventually I wandered back to home base, and had a lovely dinner with Kerry. This little critter spied on us for a while, until I tossed it out the door:

This tiny little fellow flew into our room, so we shooed it out.

First time I’ve ever had a praying mantis wander into the house!

All in all, our stay in Matapouri was very restful, which was just what we needed after the previous day’s ordeal. We weren’t looking forward to the early-morning bike ride that would take us to the snorkeling activity, but we couldn’t find any good alternatives to it. In retrospect we could have hired an independent shuttle operator to pick us up, and probably our bikes too, if only we’d known the contact number for one in advance. Oh well… Knowledge gained for the next trip!