Tuesday February 11, 2014

Well, here we are back at Chris’s house – for now we have finished our cycling touring of New Zealand.  We will continue cycling, while we are here in Auckland but not fully-loaded.

Yesterday I could not work out why Ralf wanted to cycle to Papakura, when we could have easily caught a train from Pukekohe into Auckland.  Ralf mentioned that Papakura is where we started this first part of the Grand Adventure and that is where he wanted it to finish. (We took the ferry and train out of Auckland to avoid the Auckland traffic and did the same on the return). I am so glad we did.  It was a lovely ride from Pukekohe and incorporated a lot of what we had experienced throughout the last weeks.  Headwinds, hills, flats, rural scenery (no mountains) traffic.

When we arrived at the train station at Papakura this old fella asked us where we had been? where we were going? all the usual questions asked of touring cyclists.  We told him what we had done and this was our last day of touring in New Zealand.  His comment was “Good on ya – because you are no spring chickens are you.”  Ouch!

We fly out to Australia in just over two weeks time.  We have a list of things to do, getting the camping gear cleaned, getting the bikes cleaned and serviced, pack the bikes ready to go to Oz and go over everything we have and decide if we need to keep it or send it back to Canada.

We also have time to do some touristy things around Auckland as well.  We are going over to the islands near Auckland – Rangitoto and Waiheke.  Waiheke island we can cycle on and has vineyards we can tour and taste some more New Zealand wines.  Rangitoto Island is a recently erupted volcano (600 years ago). We will walk up to the crater of the volcano.  We are also going to jump off the SkyTower and have a wander around downtown Auckland.

We are not going up to the Northland, we figure the only way we would have the time to cycle that area is to take public transport north and then cycle south.  We have decided that from now on we will take as little public transport as possible, unless we are advised to do so by locals for example “don’t cycle into Sydney”!

Sunday February 9, 2014

I felt as if we were holding ‘Court’ this morning.  We were the centre of attention as we were preparing to leave the camp site.  Lots of questions about where we had been, where we were going, and lots of questions about the bicycles and the amount of gear we were carrying.

We usually wake up with the sunrise and often are getting ready for bed at sunset.  I have noticed over the past couple of weeks that the hours of daylight is getting shorter.  It is getting light now at 7:00 am and dark around 8:30pm.  It is noticeably the tail-end of the New Zealand summer, although the weather is very hot.  It is a little like our August in Canada, you can sense the change in the season, but really do not want to admit the summer is almost over.

We were given advice on the best way to Pukekohe.  Follow SH 1 until you get to Pokeno (there is a Sunday market there), then take the back road through Tuakua to Pukekohe.   We were not told that part of SH1 becomes an Expressway – a divided highway.  A divided highway with a cycle lane!!

Sunday on the Expressway, was not very busy.

We had not managed to get hold of Matt’s Gran-in-law, so we were unsure whether we would stay the night with her in Pukekohe or carry on to Auckland.  As it happened as we were cycling along SH1 Chris and Kath spotted us and stopped.  They were on their way to Napier and would not be in Pukekohe.  Again the generosity of Kiwis became apparent when Kath offered up her house for us to stay the night, she gave us a key and told us we could stay a couple of nights if we wished.  Kelly my nephew’s wife was in Pukekohe/Auckland for a couple of days as well.  Chris texted her and told her we were on the way.  She was waiting for us when we arrived.  It was lovely to see her, we had a quick chat with her before she had to leave to go back to Auckland.

We stopped for lunch at the Pokeno market and had a little wander around. To get to Pukekohe from the market, Ralf checked the route on his garmin and it had us going north of the highway and then down into Pukekohe.  We had a little discussion about relying on the garmin or following locals directions.  On this occasion we followed the locals direction and admittedly it added about 8 ks to the route, but it was a nice scenic route!  This area is a farming area but primarily vegetables – lots of potatoes, onions and carrots.

We were only going to spend overnight in Pukekohe but decided to take another rest day before heading back to Auckland on Tuesday.

We have realized that we are very close to the end of our stay in New Zealand.  We are ahead of schedule because we didn’t do the west coast of the South Island.  We will spend the next 2 weeks with Chris (Matt’s father-in-law) that will give us lots of time to sort through things, what we need to keep, what we may send back to Canada.  More importantly we have to clean the bikes and all of our equipment.  Australia is quite strict about not importing any bio-hazards and as we have been camping for the last two and a half months we need to make sure the camping equipment is very clean.

Saturday February 8, 2014

A very late start this morning.  Darby had indicated last night that they usually like a lie-in on a Saturday morning.  We got up around 8:00, Darby and Tammy didn’t get up until well after 9:00.  We had a relaxing breakfast with them and eventually left at about 11:00 am.  We had time to look at their work – Tammy does some lovely work and won an Award at the Hamilton Art Show recently.

The first part of the ride was drizzly, not real rain but a fine mist.  It cleared up to a lovely warm sunny day.  It was only a short distance to ride and most of it on SH39 which was quite scenic and rolling hills.  Some of the Village names make me laugh. Whatawhata – How did this Village get named?

We got into Huntly by 3:30 and found our camp site quite easily. It was another Council run campsite, which means it is reasonably priced and very clean and well maintained.

Not sure what sort of bird this is.  The next one is a Heron.

The site was located next to this wetland, it had a 4 km path around the small lake which was being well used by runners, bicyclists and walkers

Friday February 7, 2014

We woke up to rain pattering on our tent this morning.  Fortunately my mum’s saying of “rain before 7 cleared by 11” works in New Zealand as well.  We took our time over breakfast and by the time we were ready to pack up the tent it was almost dry and it had stopped raining.

Sometimes you spot odd things when you are on a bicycle that you may miss if you are in a car or on a bus.

The wind had picked up and we had a windy ride to SH3.  Fortunately we were only spending about 8 kms on SH3 and then following SH39 to Ngahinapouri to our warmshowers hosts Darby and Tammy.  Our plan was to get to Hamilton today and then on to Matt’s Gran-in-law for Sunday.  Darby and Tammy live just outside of Hamilton so that is where we ended up.  They are both artists, Darby is a metal-worker/Blacksmith and Tammy is a potter – they both work part-time as well.

They weren’t going to be home until 5:00 pm so we took our time and stopped at the Town of Pirongia for lunch and a wander around.

Pirongi has a small historic museum which tells of the Maori wars and the European “invasion”.   Often these small museums are not open when we go through the Town or village as they are primarily run by volunteers. It also had a redoubt which is similar to a small fortification to protect the European settlers from any Maori incursion.

The redoubt was a lot smaller than we thought it would be.

We arrived at Darby and Tammy’s place at 4:30 and they arrived home just after 5:00pm.  Bimbo the dog was protecting the property.

Darby made us a great dinner of green-lipped mussels, lamb kofkas, coleslaw, sweet corn – lovely.

We stayed up late chatting to them about New Zealand and some of their travel experiences.  They ride a tandem and have cycled a lot in Europe.  We are looking forward to going to some of the Eastern block countries after talking to them about their travels.

Thursday February 6, 2014

Michael (the German cyclist) offered us his telephone so that we could call Intercity and find out what is happening with my pannier.  It was put on the Waitomo Caves bus and I was able to pick it up here.  It felt awful to think that I had almost lost all my clothes, I will definitely have to be more careful for the rest of this trip.  The ride would have been over for now, I would have had to replace everything and we would have had to go back to Auckland to buy new stuff, an expense we didn’t need.  19 hours of panic over.

After we had picked up the bag from the bus we were walking down the hill back to the campsite and met a couple from Detroit, Michigan.  They were visiting New Zealand as part of their 40^th wedding anniversary celebrations.  This is a small world.  Jim mentioned that his longest bike ride was cycling from north of Detroit to Ohio, cycling GOBA and then cycling back to Detroit approximately 806 miles (approx. 1,300 kms).

We had previously met Jim in a little museum on GOBA in 2012, and chatted to him about his trip to GOBA.  It’s a small world after all.

After we had picked up the pannier we carried on with our plans for the day and booked our Blackwater Rafting adventure – we had a couple of hours to spare and took advantage to relax a little.

What is blackwater rafting?  It basically means that you are rafting in a cave.  In this instance it is ‘rafting’ on individual inner tubes in caves and as we came to an underground waterfall, we had to jump from it, into the pool below – in the dark, a little scary.

\”This is the original Waitomo subterranean adventure that will have you climbing, black water tubing, leaping and floating through Ruakuri Cave\”.

The Blackwater Rafting was awesome, the two guides Miko and Nicki were really good and a lot of fun.  We all got kitted out in wetsuits, boots and helmets, then we were driven to Ruanaki cave.  First we had to practice jumping into the water backwards with an inner tube around your bum. Once we got into the cave we floated along for a while looking at the glow worms.  When we stopped, Miko gave us some information on what glow-worms actually are – they are the larvae or maggots of this particular insect that only lives for 4 days to reproduce and do it all over again.  Her comment was that if they had called it the maggot caves it may not have been as successful as the glow-worm caves.

We walked through another cave and saw a fossil of a whale and then jumped from our first underground waterfall, it was about 2 feet high.  The next waterfall was about 3 feet high and the last one was about 6 feet high.  It was quite scary but when I successfully jumped from the 6 feet one it was awesome. The last thing we had to do was turn our lights of and follow the glow worm lights to the exit of the cave, floating on our inner-tubes.  Now that was scary.  At one point I couldn’t hear anyone around me and the water was pushing me against the rocks.  I looked up and the glow worms were to the right of me, I paddled towards them and kept saying to myself follow the lights, go towards the lights!! From being 3^rd in the group I had moved up to first and was the first one Miko greeted at the end.  Ralf had drifted to the back.

When we got back to the Blackwater Adventure building we were given hot soup and a bagel.  We could buy photos that had been taken throughout the trip, but they weren’t very good.

We were taken back to our campsite and then met Jim and Irene for a drink before going to bed at about 10:30.  A good day.

Wednesday February 5, 2014

There comes a time as a touring cyclists when you really cannot face another day of hills, traffic and cycling.  Today was that day and we both felt the same way.  We decided to take the bus to Waitomo and have a good rest day and touristy day tomorrow black water rafting.

The bus left at 2:30 and we were on it with the bikes and gear.  It would have been a hilly 85 kms to Waitomo, I at least was pleased to take the bus, Ralf took this time to edit some of his photos.

However, disaster struck when we arrived at the Big Apple – Hangatiki (the bus stop) at Waitomo.  The bus driver hadn’t seemed too keen on taking the bikes and quickly got everything out of the luggage compartment and away he went.  The disaster, one of my panniers was still on the bus.  Panic….. All my clothes.  I quickly made phone calls, there was another bus coming south that might be able to connect with our bus and get my pannier on the bus.  No – too slow on the communication front.  Perhaps the next bus going to Auckland could communicate with our driver.  No – too slow on the communication front.  Contacted the office in Auckland again, we might be able to get it on the bus coming to Waitomo tomorrow.  Could I call in the morning around 7:00.  We don’t have a cell phone with us. What a nightmare.

We cycled to the campsite at Waitomo set up tent and met a nice German touring cyclist (Michael) who we chatted to and explained our predicament.  He is also cycling around the world but taking little chunks out of it.  Canada – Newfoundland to Montreal; Chile; now New Zealand. (1xumdiewelt.jimdo.com) his blog address means 1 times around the world.  He has written it in German with the help of google translator for the English.

Tuesday February 4, 2014

We were woken up by the sound of helicopters going over the tent.  It was very misty, not sure how they could see where they were going.

Thank goodness we decided not to push on yesterday.  The hills kept coming this morning.  At least we started today with fresh legs.  It would have been a tough ride yesterday, it was a good ride today.

This section of the road often reports slips.  They have built a berm to stop major slips covering the road, but there is a warning sign not to stop on this section as slips can occur at any time.

Today should have been a rest day, but Taumaruni is not a Town worth staying in too long.  I think the only reason you would come to Taumuruni is because the Forgotten World Highway starts/finishes here and you can tramp (hike) from here through the National Park to the volcanoes. Taumuruni does not have a lot to offer.  In the iSite there is a map which shows that Mount Tongariro erupted in 2012 and is currently considered an active volcano.  The lady at the iSite said “Not too worry as it is still smoking which means it is letting off steam and not building up to explode”.  The information sheet states “Another eruption could happen without warning, the main dangers are burning ash clouds and flying rocks”.

If we are counting natural disasters, we have avoided two earthquakes (Eketahuna), the tail-end of a cyclone (Auckland), 2 landslides (Haast) and now an active volcano.  What could possible go wrong.  This country may not have beasties that can hurt you but it certainly has some natural hazards.

Taumuruni is a little on the run down side and appears to have some gang related problems.

Sometimes we get to see the poorer side of life in New Zealand, it isn\’t always beautiful scenery and nice picturesque towns.

The history of this area is primarily Maori, the European settlers pushed the Maoris back into this area.  The Maori King reportedly through his hat onto a map and claimed it as Maori.  It is called King\’s Country.

We have decided to push on tomorrow and get to Waitomo Caves (85kms).  This is where we are going to do the Blackwater rafting, we will have our rest day on Thursday.  I think we are both ready for a good rest day.

Monday February 3, 2014

The day started of very misty and damp, but by the time we had eaten breakfast and packed the wet tent away the sun was burning of the mist and we knew it was going to be another gorgeous day.

The scenery once again was right out of my school text books.

However, there were no Towns between Whangomomona and Taumaruni, we were in the back country, 70 kilometres with no place to stop for lunch.  That was o.k. we had peanut butter and bread and made our own lunch.

Twelve kilometres of this State Highway is an unsealed road, which means it is gravel.  Have you ever heard of a major road in any country being unsealed (gravel).  This section is in a National Park with the Tangaraku gorge running along side the road, it is beautiful, but really …. unsealed.

At some stage in the \’design\’ of this road, the engineers decided that instead of going over a hill, they would put a tunnel through the hillside instead.  The road through this tunnel was lowered in 1983 to allow for the triple-decker stock trucks to go through.  Note the wooden arches and single-lane.

An interesting incident on the way today Ralf noticed a cow on the side of the road, it had apparently fell of the cliff above the road – poor thing.  Ralf said it was still alive, we stopped at the next farm house to tell the farmer about it.  He asked Ralf  “Do you think she will stand”  Ralf replied “Not with at least 2 broken legs – it was a big cliff that she had fallen from”.   About an hour or so later the local vet passed us in a van and gave us a wave, I am not sure if he knew that we had reported it or was just being friendly.

The ride was a lovely ride – up until the last 20 kms when the hills kept coming one after another – the sun was hot and I was exhausted.  I had it my mind to get to Taumarunui (89 kms), but when Ralf saw that there was a DOC (Department of Conservation) camp site 20 kms outside of Taumarunui he suggested we stop for the day – it was 2:30 our usual time to stop.  I wanted to push on, surely we could do another 20 kms. Then another hill presented itself which had a 14% grade (I thought I was back in the Coromandel) and it literally became a push up the hill.  I was done for the day.  Although as we went down the very rough gravel road to the camp-site, I thought to myself surely we aren’t going to have to cycle another 5 kms on this stuff. Fortunately it was only 500 metres and we were at our very basic campsite.  Celeste, you would have definitely quit at this campsite – rustic toilets, water from a cistern and an outdoor kitchen.

As soon as we got the tent set up we went for a swim in the river – to get the grime of the road of us – Ralf and Jacky polluting New Zealand’s waterways (sorry New Zealand).  The water was cold but felt great.

We chatted to an older couple who were in their camper van and asked how we found out about this rustic site – we have noticed that sometimes Kiwis like to keep these little gems to themselves and don’t want a lot of tourists finding out about their quiet country getaways.  I can understand why.

No internet here – just peace and quiet.

Sunday February 2, 2014

We were up at our usual time of 6:15 and both of us left the cabin to go for a quick wash.  Ralf forgot that it had a Yale lock and closed the door, effectively locking us both out of the cabin.  There is a disadvantage of running a campsite, some ‘idiot’ is going to wake you up at 6:15 am on a Sunday morning so that he can get back into his cabin.  Apparently the owner was very understanding and gave Ralf the spare key and we were able to carry on with breakfast and the regular routine of a touring cyclist.  I hope the owner of the campsite was able to get back to sleep.

The Forgotten World Highway is a narrow highway with no shoulders, hilly and very winding.  It is an awesome road for cyclists, motorbike riders and tourists, not so much for people who need to get somewhere in a hurry.  The few cars gave us plenty of room, and even waited until it was safe to pass.

We knew we had three fairly big climbs today before we stopped at Whangomomona but they were all very manageable and because the road was not busy it was a great ride.

The scenery was what I had thought all of New Zealand was going to be like.  It is what I remember seeing from my geography lessons in school.  Now I know a lot of you are saying – that was a long time ago.  I think that is why this highway is called the Forgotten World Highway.

It is almost as if time has stood still in this area.  The farming is predominantly family farms, and primarily beef cattle and sheep as opposed to dairy cattle, the villages are small, blink and you will miss them.  Ralf said after one village we cycled through that the dot on the map was bigger than the village.

At one of our rest stops we found a blackberry bush.  I had space in my front pannier, Ralf had an empty plastic bag. Ralf picked about half a pound of blackberries for us to have for dessert – very nice.

When we got to Whangomomona, I spotted a couple of Bike Fridays (bicycles).  I have only seen these in the States before, so we got chatting to the owners, who told us about a lovely place to stop 20 kms further on.  We had decided to stay in Whangomomona because it had a domain campsite, a pub and other things to look at.  At 1:30pm the weather was also getting quite hot (over 28 degrees) we had already cycled over 3 saddles and we would have to cycle to the top of the next big one before we stopped.  So we decided to stick to the original plan and settle in the domain campsite.  It is very basic, but has every thing we need hot showers, toilet, and a kitchen.  We had interesting neighbours – 2 French girls and a guy, who had a very unique way of airing their clothes.

We now have a passport for the Republic of Whangomomona.

Whangomomona decided to become a republic after the local government changed the District borders effectively splitting the area into different Districts. The stubborn streak came out in local residents and they struck their independence if only for one day every year or two to show that they did not like this decision being made without consulting the residents first.  The major decision to celebrate their independence was originally made within the four walls of the local hotel back in 1988.  It is now used as a fundraising event for the local community.  The first president lasted 10 years before taking early retirement, the second president “Billy the Kid” only survived in the position for 18 months before the pressure of power overwhelmed him and he died in active duty “weed eating” on the Town hill (he was a goat).  Tai the poodle resigned after an attempted assignation.  The current incumbent (Murt Kennard) was duly elected in 2005 without a single tax dollar being spent.

Another Town with a sense of humour.

Small world as it is we met a couple tonight from Sheffield, they live at Peniston which is a couple of miles from where we had our pub in Oughtibridge.

No internet service in this area.

Saturday February 1, 2014

Yesterday, while I was doing the laundry, Ralf went into the Town of Patea and got the fixings for our evening meal.

While there he spotted a giant whale bone, a replica Maori canoe and a lovely church. He wanted to stop at these sites this morning to show me and take a better photo from the lookout over the black sand dunes and the coastal cliffs.

Because we were in a cabin we had everything ready to go last night and we were able to make an earlier start. The whale bones were a sculpture that represented a Maori legend.

This area was the site of Maori land wars in the 1800’s. The canoe is a replica of Turi and his Aotea canoe from which the local tribe are descendants. It was put into place in 1933.

Today\’s ride was quite hilly, but we had the wind at our back and were able to move along quite quickly. We started the day at an elevation of 65 metres and finished the day at 310 metres with a lot of ups and downs in between.

We were in Hawera by 11:15 and decided to stop for lunch. We spotted this little old lady (probably in her 70’s) checking out our bikes which were leaned against the café window. She was particularly interested in Ralf’s. Ralf suggested that she might hop on and try to ride away with it, I suggested that she might just be looking for some fit young man to make a move on. I was right, she came into the café and asked Ralf how far he had come and where we he was going to, definitely making a move on him. I answered her questions just to let her know that he was taken:)  She wished us safe travels and went on her way.

There is a water tower in Hawera which you can climb the 215 steps to the top.

Anyone who knows Ralf will know that if there is a tower that he can climb he will climb it. It costs $2.50 per person to climb the stairs which of course we did.

Fontera is one of the largest co-operative dairy producers in New Zealand they produce over 1 billion litres of milk a year.  That\’s a lot of milk, you would think milk would be inexpensive in New Zealand, but it isn\’t, because it isn\’t subsidized.   They also export a tremendous amount of powdered milk to China.

After lunch we headed to King Edward park which has the extremely rare Wendy statue in the park. It is one of only two in the world.

We arrived in Stratford at 2:00pm and were at the campsite by 2:30. We asked the price on a cabin, and got a deal. Not as cheap as last night but still a good deal. Tomorrow we are heading of on the Forgotten World Highway and may have to freedom camp for a couple of nights. We have now been on the road for almost 2 months and have cycled 2,768 kms. Awesome and still loving it.

We often see blackboards outside of cafes with funny slogans on them, here is the funny for the day.