After the excitement of Hobbiton, we took a day off in Tirau. We opened the door to our motel room, letting in the sunlight and letting out the cigarette smell, and just lazed around for the entire day, cropping photos, playing with the internet, and snacking. Aaaaaaaah!
Here’s a gallery of snacks we saw in New Zealand:
I remember "Aero" from Melbourne. The rest of these are new to me...
Have you been bicycling dozens of miles every day for a week, plus hiking, swimming, and kayaking? Then you get to eat CANDY ALL DAY! (Well, along with other healthier things of course.)
I remember “Aero” from Australia. The rest of these were new to me.
These are two things we DID NOT get at the snack shop.
I think there is something lost in translation here – or perhaps gained in translation. Heh heh heh.
Do not touch the giant pythons!!!
There really are snakes in New Zealand: Big yummy ones!
Turns out my friend Andy was traveling at the same time:
Andy:
Hey, man! Are you off gallivanting about the countryside?
Me:
Why yes I am!
Whazzap mah man?
Andy:
Ah-ha! I’m actually leaving Manchester right now. I sent you messages on hangouts. :-). Where are you?
Me:
I’m in Taipu, New Zealand!
The sun never sets on the british empire!
Andy:
New Zealand? I don’t serve New Zealanders.
Me:
Oi, we serve ourselves, mate!
We just cycled to Hobbiton and took 10000 photos
Andy:
That sounds awesome! I want to do that!
Hi, Kerry! The place I ate at last night was out of the leg of lamb and the steak and ale pie, so I had to settle for roast pork and Yorkshire Pudding.
Me:
Well at least you didn’t get argued into eating Bubble ’n’ Squeak
Andy:
I’m here for work, but I missed a connection so I’ve been “stuck” in Manchester for two days. It’s been “horrible”.
Me:
Wow those air quotes are almost as big as the mosquitos in this room! (We have to keep the door open for as long as possible, to git rid of the cigarette stink in the walls.)
Manchester eh … I assume it’s been dark->foggy->raining->foggy->dark, for the last 48 hours?
Andy:
With about 15 minutes of no precipitation, but blistering cold wind, yes. My old Michigan layered-dressing skills came right back.
Me:
Nice! Did you have flashbacks to working in the department of corrections and beating off hippie chicks with a stick?
Andy:
Of course!
So, it’s warm and humid there, with a fog of flying insects?
Me:
Sort of, but the fog is made of small birds, and it’s divided every 1/2 mile by an enormous cyclist-torturing hill. In the north it’s tropical like Hawaii and you get sun-showers all day. We’re in the lowlands now and it’s almost exactly like California between Monterey and Bakersfield, except NOTHING is flat ANYWHERE. There is literally NO flat ground in NZ. The closest you get is the molten mud-pools but they’re not technically “ground”.
Andy:
Okay, so this is costing me like £9,000,000.27 per text. I have free international data, but not text. I just wanted to make sure you’re alive. :-)
Me:
Alive and kickin’ it!
We did leave the hotel room once, to get a huge meal at this awesome cafe:
The Loose Goose had a nice selection of ciders, and gluten-free toast for my breakfast plate! Mmmmm.
That evening we watched one of my favorite animated movies, The Cat Returns, and went to bed early.
Next morning: A bus ride 86 miles east, to Whakatane!
Early versions of our itinerary had us taking the shuttle up to the town of Rotorua and then bicycling down to Whakatane from there, since it was mostly downhill on the map. But the “mostly downhill” shown by the elevation graph just isn’t enough information: A spot-check along the highway using Google Street View revealed that the highway narrows as it runs along the shore of Lake Rotoiti and Lake Rotoma, to the point where there is absolutely no curb at all, with sheer cliff on one side. YEAH, NO.
By day 11, Kerry and I had described our route to probably a dozen different curious New Zealanders, here and there along the way. A number of them responded by shaking their heads and saying “Yeah, no.” I think this is some kind of local catchphrase. A colloquialism?
Pretty hard to miss the Tirau tourism center when it's shaped like this.
The bus departs from the Tirau tourism center, which is shaped like this. No joke. I think the tongue is a giant piece of industrial rubber flooring.
Once we arrived, we reassembled our bikes and checked in. The hotel clerk had some bad news for us: Our scheduled tour of White Island was probably going to be cancelled due to rough seas. Bah! Well, perhaps the weather would clear up in time for the “dolphin encounter” snorkeling trip the day after that.
We went walking out around the town to pass the time, and spotted a thai restaurant. Optimists that we are, we asked the waitress – a young woman who turned out to be the daughter of the owner – if she could make us a thai iced tea. She went into the back and brought out her mother, who said, “you’re the first customers we’ve had who even know what a thai iced tea is! Where did you learn about it?”
We explained that we loved to eat thai food back home near San Francisco, and that almost all the thai restaurants there had it on the menu.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I have the ingredients in the kitchen, since we use it for our family meals. I’ll make you some from that.”
We were very grateful and excited. I actually did a little dance in my seat!
The tea, and the rest of the meal, was excellent. While we chomped we saw this out the window:
Sometimes you gotta do some shoppin' in Whakatane, so you drive your Belarus 611 tractor into town...
Sometimes you gotta do some shoppin’ in Whakatane, so you drive your Belarus 611 into town…
The weather stayed windy and grim well into the night, and we weren’t optimistic about our chances of a White Island tour the next day. We consoled ourselves by watching The Venture Brothers and taking a bath in the absolutely gigantic bathtub that came with the hotel room. Rough life, o woe is us! Etc.
YOU BEST CHECK YO SELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YO SELF, YKNOWHMSAYIN'?
YOU BEST CHECK YO SELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YO SELF, YKNOWHMSAYIN’?
Today we set out for Hobbiton, on a lovely 13-mile route zig-zagging past farms and pastures. Our tour was scheduled for late in the day so we had plenty of time to look around.
Well, it looks like it might be tai-chi, and I’ve done it before, but in this case I was just posing for the camera. Check out that beautiful countryside in the background! Sometimes it reminded me of California wine country, but less constricted by walls and highways. The hills can really stretch out and get a good roll going here.
Caution while crossing. Your mother will guide you. She knows how important safety is, having apparently lost her left hand crossing the road earlier...
Also, beware Crawford Road. Once you go in, there's no exit.
“Caution while crossing. Your mother will guide you, while she searches for her severed left hand.”
I've often wondered... On a farm, trees often have a clear space beneath them that's a very exact height. Is this because the farmers groom them that way, or because they grow that way naturally, or because the animals nibble off all the low-hanging leaves?
If it's the animals doing it, then you could actually figure out what the tallest animal in a field is by the size of the gap...
On farmland, trees often have a clear space beneath them that’s a very exact height. I assume it’s because the animals nibble off all the low-hanging leaves. This means you could actually figure out how tall the tallest animal in a field is, just by looking at the trees.
Kerry and I both had the same thought when we saw this bike: "If this were Oakland, that would be gone in 20 minutes or less."
We're city-folk, ayup...
Kerry and I both had the same thought when we saw this bike: “If this were Oakland, that would be gone in 20 minutes or less.” We’re city-folk, yup…
FREELOADER!!!! Get off!
Our picnic stop attracted a FREELOADER!!!! No free rides! Get off!
Kerry and I were mystified by these clinging dust clouds, until a local explained that they were dumping massive amounts of lime on the hillside to fertilize the soil and re-grow the grass.
Kerry and I were mystified by these clinging dust clouds, until a local explained that they were dumping massive amounts of lime on the hillside to fertilize the soil and re-grow the grass. Here’s a video of us coasting down the road, with lime distribution happening to our left:
When the wind’s at our backs, we barely have to pedal. If only every day was like this…
And, if only every day you could meet a grumpy long-haired long-horned old goat by the side of the road, and feed him snacks! Check out the video:
Bread! Bread bread bread give me the BREAD. I am the goat, so bread is mine.
OOF! As soon as the goat realized Kerry had bread to feed him, he wriggled his way through the fence and barreled into her, knocking her down. I grabbed one of his horns and held him in place, and Kerry was back on her feet in a few seconds, no injuries.
It's a good thing that a goat's strength isn't proportional to his smell, or I would have never been able to hold him!
OOF! As soon as the goat realized Kerry had bread to feed him, he wriggled his way through the fence and jumped at her. Kerry’s reactions are quick, so she fell backwards before the goat could make contact, and I grabbed one of his horns and held him in place. Kerry was back on her feet in a few seconds, no injuries.
It’s a good thing that a goat’s strength isn’t proportional to his smell, or he would have been unstoppable!
Nom nom nom nom tasty bread is there any more? More? More more more more
This is MY cabbage! Take a step near it and I will CLOBBER you!!
“This is MY cabbage! Take a step near it and I will CLOBBER you!!”
When she saw us paying attention to the goat, the owner came out of her house with some cabbage we could feed him. She also told us a few stories about him. The general theme was: “Don’t try to mess with the goat!” “Ouch, I got injured!” “Hey I warned you didn’t I?”
It was a very lovely visit. But Hobbiton awaited! So we left the goat chomping cabbage and rode on.
The most important thing here is that you be alarmed!!
The details of the message can be buried in grass, for all we care...
The most important thing here is that you be alarmed!! (The details of the message can be buried in grass, for all we care…)
Even if the trees weren't trimmed this way, I'm sure the passing trucks would beat them into shape pretty soon!
Even if the trees weren’t trimmed this way, I’m sure the passing trucks would beat them into shape pretty soon…
These sharp little things fall off the trees. You don't have to throw one very hard to injure someone... Which Kerry found out the hard way. Sorry Kerry!
Breaktime! Nom nom nom nom nom.
Stopping for a snack and an awesome view.
Break time! Let’s chomp some snacks and look at stuff…
Are you excited? I'm excited!
The first highway sign pointing the way! Are you excited? I’m excited!
Cloudy weather, but oh well. It'll still be awesome, even if the pictures aren't perfect!
We made it to the visitor center, where we’ll catch a shuttle into Hobbiton. Cloudy weather, but oh well. It’ll still be awesome, even if the pictures aren’t perfect.
The Hobbiton gathering area was awash in Japanese and Chinese tourists, each with approximately 3.5 cameras, including the obligatory cellphone screwed onto the end of a selfie-stick.
The Hobbiton gathering area was awash in Japanese and Chinese tourists, each with approximately 3.5 cameras, including the obligatory cellphone screwed onto the end of a selfie-stick. I felt right at home among them, fiddling with my own avalanche of camera gear.
This was the only item I saw in the shop that looked cool enough to buy, but then I imagined it sitting at home on a shelf, and realized I might as well leave it here on this one.
Ten bazillion shirt designs on display...
We took a look around in the gift shop but, to our surprise, there wasn’t anything particularly special for sale. Lots and lots of t-shirts and exactly the same things you could buy online. I was hoping to find something novel to send to the nephews back home. Dang.
About half an hour later, we got in line, and were the first to board the shuttle. It glided across the road and over a hill, arriving at an official-looking gate.
One of our guides has to jump out and open the gates.
One of our guides had to jump out and open it for the bus.
Too late, maaaan, I'm already waaaay digging it.
In case you're wondering, the electrified wires are to scare all the grazing sheep away.
The sign reads, “before you dig, see site management.”
Too late, maaaan, I’m already waaaaay digging it.
In case you’re wondering, the electrified wires are to scare all the grazing sheep away. Nothing to do with corralling small children. Though I wonder… Do the Hobbits try to escape?
If it rains, they have an army of umbrellas standing by...
If it rains, they have an army of umbrellas standing by…
Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! (Can't you tell I'm excited in the picture?)
Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! (Can’t you tell I’m excited in the picture?)
The first thing you see stepping around the corner...
Here’s the first thing you see stepping around the corner. The guide took one look at my Twoflower-style Hawaiian shirt, my huge camera, and my even bigger grin, and pointed at me and said “You. Go first.” So I walked ahead of the group and got to stand and compose this nice shot with nobody in the foreground.
The perks of looking like a dork. Perhaps I reminded him of that dorky actor in the video that Air New Zealand shows you when you’re preparing for takeoff.
We have arrived!
We have arrived! The tour has begun!
Very excited photographer; can't decide what to point at first!
Very excited photographer; can’t decide what to point at first!
Check out this little video panorama Kerry made, to set the scene:
Lots of things to check out here!
Hobbiton is maintained like a farm. All the gardens are real, and all of the produce on display is grown from those gardens.
Hobbiton is maintained like a farm. All the gardens are real, and all of the produce on display is grown from those gardens.
The attention to detail is very impressive, especially since all the plant life is genuine.
For example, the trees are all heavy with fruit this time of year, but you won't find a single one on the ground, since that would imply an absence of hungry hobbits. It really does feel like they all just stepped out of sight for a moment as you happen to be wandering through.
The attention to detail is very impressive, especially since all the plant life is genuine.
For example, the trees are all heavy with fruit this time of year, but you won’t find a single one on the ground, since that would imply an absence of hungry hobbits. It really does feel like they all just stepped out of sight for a moment as you happen to be wandering through.
IT'S JUST SO CUTE!!!!
It’s all just SO CUTE !!!!
This pond was here before set construction began. During filming, a handful of frogs moved in, and made so much noise they had to be relocated.
This pond was here before set construction began. During filming, a handful of frogs moved in, and made so much noise they had to be relocated.
I've always enjoyed little self-contained idyllic scenes, left unpopulated, as though one could step inside them any time.
I’ve always enjoyed little self-contained idyllic scenes, left unpopulated, as though one could step inside them any time.
This environment totally reminds me of walking around the Santas Village amusement park, back in Scotts Valley in the 1980's.
At times, this environment eerily reminds me of walking around the Santas Village amusement park, back in Scotts Valley in the 1980’s…
Some of these scenes remind me of a very old fantasy computer game called "Below The Root" that took place in a forest of enormous trees with houses built into them. Fun times...
… And at other times, it reminds me of a very old fantasy computer game called “Below The Root” that took place in a forest of enormous trees with houses built into them.
Every dwelling is decorated for a particular occupation and it's fun to guess what they are. See the drying rack on the right? This is probably the local herbalist.
Every dwelling is decorated for a particular occupation and it’s fun to guess what they are. See the drying rack on the right? Perhaps this is the local herbalist?
I really started to wonder… What would be the logistical problems of a dwelling built into a hillside, instead of over it? Would you have problems heating the place? How would drainage and insulation work? And since I’m from California, how would it fare in an earthquake? (Very badly, I suspect…)
And yet, with all the drawbacks… Wouldn’t it just be SO CUTE ???
Just think, you could grow produce on your outside walls, as well as your roof!
Our intrepid tour group!
It’s amazing how much variety the designers managed to cram into such a small chunk of land.
It looks appetizing... But the bread is made from colored cement!
It looks appetizing… But this bread is made from colored cement! Sits out here all year-round.
In fact, it’s a pretty close rendition of Terry Pratchett’s “dwarven bread”.
Wood decorated too look aged, using a combination of yogurt, wood chips, vinegar, and paint.
This is new wood decorated too look aged, using a combination of yogurt, wood chips, vinegar, and paint.
I've no idea if this is actual honey, but there were actual bees crawling all over a few of the jars.
I’ve no idea if this is actual honey, but I assume it is, since there were actual bees crawling around on the jars.
I'd say these were supposed to be beehives, but elsewhere in Hobbiton is a beekeeper's house with some boxes out front that have removable sections of honeycomb. So... If not beehives, what are these?
I’d say these were supposed to be beehives, but elsewhere in Hobbiton is a beekeeper’s house with some boxes out front that have removable sections of honeycomb. So… If not beehives, what are these? Bird houses? Special hives for Middle Earth “giant bees”?
Hobbits need to build better ladders if they're going to avoid injury!
Hobbits need to build better ladders if they’re going to avoid injury!
Kerry is better at framing shots than anyone else I've met!
Practicing my pottery skills!
More fabulous framing by Kerry.
Bilbo's house!
The central Hobbiton attraction: Bilbo’s house!
We made sure to take plenty of photos around it.
The other big attraction was the Green Dragon Inn, where the tourguide invited us to sit down and have a drink. We had the cider and the ginger beer, then mixed them together. The result was fantastic!
Here we are, basking in the warm glow of Hobbiton!
I know for a fact the cider stain is genuine. Heh heh heh.
Check out all that fancy design work!
One of the trees in this shot is actually artificial. Can you spot it?
Hobbiton was gorgeous, and worth the price of admission. And for us, it was the high point of a lovely day spent riding through the same scenery that encircled the attraction for miles around. I think it would have been a lesser experience taking a car here. But I’ve been a bike snob for most of this century, so of course I would think that.
Heading home from Hobbiton, plotting to return again soon...
On our way back to Tirau and our hotel we were already plotting about the next visit, and what our nieces and nephews would think!
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.
The slow grind of plate tectonics separated New Zealand from Gondwanaland about 85 million years ago. A dramatization of the event would go like this:
Gondwanaland:
“Dang, I feel like I have way too many hills. There’s got to be something I can do.”
Hill:
“Hey, I’ve got an idea! How about if you bundle a huge pile of us together, and shove us out to sea, and we can make our own island?”
Gondwanaland:
“Are you sure? Wouldn’t that be kind of suspicious, having an island made completely of hills?”
Hill:
“Tell you what – throw in one flat piece. And a few lakes. If anybody asks, you say it was an accident.”
Gondwanaland:
“I’ll do it!”
And so, the South Island was created.
Gondwanaland:
“That went really well, but I’ve still got a bunch of smaller hills to deal with.”
Smaller Hill:
“Hey no problem – just do it again! And since we’re smaller, you can pack even more of us closer together! We’ll enjoy it. We’ll have a hill party!”
Gondwanaland:
“Hahaha! You little guys are crazy. But if that’s what you want, I’m totally doing it.”
Smaller Hill:
“Closer! Cram us even closer together! Yeah!”
Gondwanaland:
“You got it! Have fun out there…”
Smaller Hills:
“Wheeeee!”
And so, the North Island was created.
Okay, so there’s a difference between historically accurate and dramatically accurate. But it’s still accurate. Kerry and I got direct verification of this New Zealand hill thing on day 3, when we attempted our first day of fully-loaded bike touring.
On paper it looked like a long, but manageable day, if we took our time and paced ourselves.
34 miles, which is just a little bit over my standard budget of 30 miles a day for touring. I figured it would be okay, since we had all day to ride, and the day after we would just be hanging out at the beach.
I WAS WRONG. I was so, so wrong!
WRRRROOOOOOOONNNNGGGGG.
Finishing touches to the bikes before setting out...
Kerry's good luck charm!
We started out in high spirits. We put the finishing touches on our bikes, including Kerry’s good-luck-charm leaf from Limestone Island.
Bike shipping boxes all wrapped up for sending to New Plymouth.
We left them in the hotel lobby and the shipping company picked them up for us the next day. Very handy!
Then we spent a while taping up the bicycle shipping boxes for delivery to New Plymouth. We left them in the hotel lobby, and the shipping company picked them up for us the day after we left. One of the perks of cycling in a “first world” region!
Ready to go! Head-mounted camera activated!! DORK ALERT
Ready to go! Head-mounted camera activated!! DORK ALERT veep veeep vreeeep
It looked dorky, and the footage it recorded was very shaky, but after running it through Adobe Premiere’s stabilization routines (which took a very long time) I got a nice video of the first few minutes of our ride in fast-forward, as we crossed Whangarei to Mainfreight Transport (shipping out a few more items) and then made our way north out of town, towards the dreaded Highway 1:
The first thing you’ll notice about this video (aside from riding on the left) is that the road appears to be nice and flat most of the time. That’s New Zealand lulling us into a false sense of security. Oh, you evil, deceptive country…
Our first snack stop of the trip!
Our first snack stop of the trip!
We were late getting on the road, so it was lunch time when we reached the edge of Whangarei. We’d already experienced the hassle of roundabouts, and had to push the bikes up one really steep hill that was being used as a traffic detour, making is especially noisy and hazardous. But we were still in good spirits.
We chatted on our helmet intercoms the entire time, exchanging directions and making jokes, or just making fart sounds. Those intercoms completely altered the experience of riding together – suddenly it was extremely easy for us to hear each other, all the time, no matter what the traffic noise or the wind was like, or how much we drifted around on the road. We could just chat like we were sitting together at a restaurant.
It got to the point where, when we got off the bicycles and shut down the intercoms, we would have to say “what?” all the time, because we were so used to being heard loud and clear just by muttering. When the batteries died – which would only happen after 7 or 8 solid hours of riding, or when we forgot to charge them the previous night – we felt the lack of communication acutely. We were riding together, but we weren’t really together.
Long story short, those things kick ass.
I'm not sure what "Mother & Lift" is, but it's for sale here.
Anyway, we had snacks! I’m not sure what “Mother & Lift” is, but it’s for sale here. We bought the first of many fistfuls of candy, and ate some “fush and chups” spread out on greasy paper, on a tiny table by the roadside. Salty and delicious! A few birds landed nearby, including one who kept scaring the others by doing that same “RAAaaaaaaahhhh!” thing we saw yesterday. We tossed food scraps to the other birds, just to piss that one off. Hah!
Then we rode … And hit Highway 1 … and rode, and rode, and rode. The hills got really big, and the traffic got really dense. Often the trucks couldn’t move aside because some other driver was sitting in the adjacent lane, so they roared by us at close range, as we sweated our way up yet another hill on a shoulder that was so narrow it barely existed at all. We took frequent breaks but it was hard to keep morale up, since it was obvious how much danger we were putting ourselves in.
In the early evening we finally turned away from Highway 1 and drifted into the town of Hikurangi, and planted ourselves in front of a convenience store, considering our options, and eating snacks to try and brew up some more energy. Here’s a movie of me “enjoying” chunks of licorice that looked like pavement:
Deliciouthh!
Hikurangi had a motel that looked alright, but if we spent the night there we would lose a day in our schedule, and lose our chance to hang around on the beach in Matapouri Bay. We’d booked a bunch of really cool stuff at the beginning of the trip, in a short span of days – kayaking, the beach, snorkeling, a waterfall, some caves – and it wasn’t flexible. That was a mistake.
An even bigger mistake was hauling so much gear around. We both overpacked, and that amplified the pain of climbing hills. If you can keep your momentum it doesn’t matter so much that your bike is heavy – but when you glide to a stop at the foot of every hill and then have to haul everything hundreds of feet up, then burn all that energy into your brake pads on the way down, it’s just punishing. The question “Why am I doing this to myself?” plays over and over in your head with every turn of the pedals.
Kerry very gamely agreed to push on towards Matapouri and our fancy reserved cottage, even though it was getting late and the route promised additional hills. I told her I was overwhelmed by the difficulty of the route so far, and if I’d known, I would have cut the day into thirds, and avoided Highway 1 at any cost.
“I know,” she said. “I can tell you really want me to like bicycle touring as much as you do. You wouldn’t have deliberately scheduled a first day like this, because this sucks. It’s a terrible first impression.”
She was right!
Of course, we pedaled out of Hikurangi and immediately hit this. Another crazy hill, followed by several more.
Exhausted with still many miles to go, but in good spirits!
This first day of biking was murderous. Way more hills than I expected, and the Highway 1 traffic was brutal.
Miraculously, we both kept our spirits up, even though we cursed the hills and the traffic regularly. I think it helped that we were high on endorphins and could eat all the sugary snacks we could handle.
Dark, spooky forest. Elves in there, no doubt.
We took another long break at around 8:00pm. The sun was below the horizon but still coloring the sky with pastel rays, and the air was still warm. From the road we took this picture of some very dense and spooky woods. Back home, trees don’t usually grow this close together. We imagined small children wandering in there with baskets of goodies and vanishing forever. WooooOOOoo!
An after-sunset shot. We were taking a break partway up the last of the nasty hills, debating what to do.
When we took the next break, half an hour later, it was almost fully dark. (The shot above was a long exposure.) We were both quite exhausted and very worried about making it to the cottage without simply weaving our bikes into the ditch along the way – or worse, over a cliff. It didn’t help that I had to stop for quite a while and lay down in the road to try and fix my rear fender, which was making a very unpleasant grinding noise.
On the plus side, the cars had tapered almost completely away. Most of the time we had the road to ourselves, and we rode in two glowing pools of light, feeling the wind move softly around us. No engine noise, just our own voices and the occasional bleat of a sheep, the whinny of a horse, or the moo or a cow, and a crash in the bushes as some mammal or bird dove aside. It was like going on a night-hike while camping, but more comfortable. At one point we shut off our headlights and looked up, and saw a night sky crammed so full of stars that it was hard to pick out any of the usual constellations.
And of course, we found roadkill. This is dead possum. They look a bit different than the possums we’re used to back in California. Less rodent-like and scruffy. For the health of New Zealand, a dead possum is actually a good thing. You can read about it here on the Department Of Conservation website.
Finally we reached the seashore, close to 10pm, after eight hours of very hard riding. It would take another hour to get past the remaining hills to Matapouri, but we celebrated here anyway. Whooo!
Finally we reached the seashore, close to 10:00pm. Since Whangarei, we’d been riding hard for almost eight hours. We lounged on a bench, breathing the salt air and resting, while the surf crawled endlessly into the cove below. There was still more ground to cover.
The road turned south, following the coast along several more long, rolling hills. We moved slowly and it took another hour to reach Matapouri and find our little beachside cottage. We barely had enough energy to haul the bikes inside and creep into the bed.
In retrospect, I can say without a doubt that this was the hardest day of the trip, by far. Even the brutal Tonragiro Crossing in -8 degree wind chill was much easier than this, because we weren’t each hauling a hundred pounds of gear up multiple mountains – just snacks and water. The next day, on the beach, I thought for a while and made a short list of the toughest days of bicycling I’ve ever done in my whole career as a bicycle tourist, and this day came in second.
(In case you’re wondering, the day that came in first place was this one in Missouri.)
