Auckland

The flight from the US to New Zealand is a long one, but Air New Zealand entertains us with movies and excellent airline food. Upon arriving in New Zealand we learn that we cannot bring any animal or plant products into the country. We have to forfeit our powdered milk we planned to use in pancakes and have our tent taken totally apart. They even scrape the dirt out of our shoes. We do not have any fruit for their dogs to sniff out, but later we hear tales of folks having to give up their apples.

Once we clear customs, we are on our way to Avondale Holiday Park. It is a good thing our first drive is at night with little traffic so we can get used to driving on the left side of the road. Our mantra for the whole trip is, "Look right! Keep left!"

In the morning we wake up to strange birdcalls. Peeking our heads out of the tent we see these large birds that look like wild turkeys with beautiful deep blue breasts, called Pukekos. Louie begins to assemble the bike in the welcome warm sunshine. Bec explores the campground and strikes up a conversation with a family who lives in New Plymouth, a town we plan on visiting. The family offers their phone number and hospitality but we have to decline because it is going to be a busy three weeks. We are told that people work seven (seevn as they say it) days a week in Auckland and that housing is in short supply due to the many immigrants that have come to the city to get far from any threat of terrorists.

Today we are going to ride Auckland's 50-kilometer signed bike route that is designed to showcase the city. Because we have not been able to get many training miles under our bike shorts, the hilly ride in heavy traffic is a bit difficult for us. This ride should only be done by riders who have experience in heavy traffic and can ride aggressively. The people we talk to are friendly and helpful. They give us tips on how to drive and ride in Auckland's brand of traffic. "Always protect your right side. Keep left. Look right." We stop to buy some "biscuits" (cookies) from some fireside (like girl scouts) girls (geews as they say it). We come upon a postman delivering mail by bike. Why don't we do that here in Portland? It is a great idea. Many of the mail trucks have bikes on the backs of them.

Louie yelps for joy having spied a garage sale sign so off we go in hunt of good New Zealand items. The people at the garage sale welcome us to New Zealand and give Louie the prize he had been eyeballing as a gift. He attaches the key-chain that is made from a now extinct New Zealand penny to Bec's hydration unit.

The ride takes us along the bay where we stop to take a picture of the city and then back into the hubbub of central Auckland. Louie finds a bike shop in the heart of the city for us to purchase a seat collar to replace the one that had broken while putting together the bike. Bec goes in and wanders around a shop chock full of all kinds of bike parts, new and used. The bike mechanics make a fuss over Bec's big calf and thigh muscles that they say they wish they had. She tells them they have to ride 9,000 miles (about 14,500 kilometers) a year to get them!

New Plymouth

Today we are driving, still difficult for us, from Auckland to New Plymouth. We get one finger shook at us for going to slow and then another finger shook at us by the local police for going too fast! Everyone should just be happy that we are on the correct side of the street and have not run into anyone! Some time during the day we loose a hubcap. Oh no! They are going to charge us a fortune for loosing it! But, no worries mate. Louie is a hubcap finding master. He tells Bec that he will find a match before the vacation is over.

We stop at the Kiwi House to get up close and personal with New Zealand's favorite bird, fat little brown Kiwi birds. Bec likes seeing all the native plants. A buzzing sound fills the air. Bec asks a family what is making that noise. They tell her that it is a bug that looks like a brown cricket and pick the left-behind exoskeleton of one off a nearby tree and present it to her.

Mt. Taranaki

We get up early because we want to ride around Mt. Taranaki. We want to go in a counter-clockwise direction but cannot find the turn-off from the main road. There are two ways to ride, take the "high road" or the "low road". Everyone we spoke to told us to take the "high road" because it had better scenery. Bec inspects the map and determines that we can still take the "high road" albeit backward from the original plan.

At one point we have to get off the main road and travel on a bike path. It puts us out on a road with no road sign or directional indicators that tell us how to get anywhere, but Louie figures it out and we are back on track. Soon Louie stops the tandem, hops off and picks up a hubcap! It is not an exact match, but it looks like it would fit our rental car. We decide to pack it on the bike just in case we cannot find a match. Perhaps they wouldn't notice! We are sure that folks must wonder what we are doing riding 150km around a mountain with a hubcap on the back of our bike.

Cows! Neatly shorn sheep! Deer farms! Pasture land! It is beginning to look pretty familiar. We note these strange humps in the landscape today. They must be the result of some type of volcanic activity.

Near the end of the ride we meet Gary, a lawyer, who had just moved to New Plymouth from Wellington. We talk one of his ears off while riding and then go to dinner with him to remove his other ear while we eat New Zealand's version of pizza. He used to think we all lived in huge cities in apartments, from watching American sitcoms. He is amazed that we have wild animals in our forests. He tells us that we have to eat mussels (moosows as they say it). He orders some and we give them a try. They are not too bad. He tells us we have to stop at the mussel capital of New Zealand and get some green-lipped mussels to eat. We plan on it.

Wellington

Today we drive to Wellington to catch the ferry to the South Island. It would have been better had we been able to call ahead for tickets, but we do not want to be tied to any sort of schedule so we just pay more money to catch the ferry when we want, not when it is cheapest.

Today is the first day that Bec is going to drive. Having spent the last three days yelling at Louie, "Keep left! Look right!", she is ready. It is now Louie's turn to keep her on the left side of the road. To her surprise she does just fine, even negotiating a few roundabouts while Louie naps.

Picton and Queen Charlottes Highway

Riding the bike on Queen Charlottes Highway feels as if we are riding through a jungle. Huge broad-leafed palm trees climb up the sides of the hills. We look down and see the blue green sea sparkling in the sun below. Boats dot the harbors. Every so often we pass a decaying boat, whose bones are bleached white by the sun and sea. We wind our way along narrow roads.

Greymouth

On our way to Greymouth, we stop at a roadside holiday park. The owner also runs the local bar and grill. We have to set up our tent right outside the tavern, but we have hot showers and hot food from the tavern. Life is good. We take off again early in the morning. There are not too many cars on the road today, thankfully. The mountains on both sides of us are covered with managed forests. All the trees are the same height, and all in a row. Bec, who likes her nature to be chaotic does not appreciate them the same as Louie does (he is a typical neat Virgo). It startles us a bit to look at a nearby hill and see it covered with deer until we realize that it is a deer farm. We go over many one-lane bridges, some shared with trains, and some out of planks of wood that make the bridge look like a train trestle modified for cars. The road signs do not tell us how fast to take the corners so we have to figure it out for ourselves. The local people figure it out about 20 kph faster than we do.

The roads are not well marked through towns causing us to get lost a few times. For some reason our compasses have not been working. We have three of them and they all tell us north is a different direction. We have to stop and ask directions several times.

Pancake Rocks

Back on the bike, one side of the road is jungle and the other side is black sand of the Tasman Sea. We are starting to get used to the narrow roads winding around the hills. We climb bluffs and roll back down towards the Sea. At the top we look down at huge haystack rocks.

Pssssffffft. Flat tire. No problem, Louie can change a flat in 3 minutes or less. Little tiny biting black bugs pester us when we stop. Louie pulls off the wheel, strips off the heavy duty touring tire and finds the hole. Bec hands him the patch kit. Oh no! The security people at the airport have removed the glue! They had called Bec to the security phone and asked her about the flammable stuff in the tube. She told them it was probably tire patching glue and we needed it or we would be out in the middle of New Zealand with no way to fix a flat. We thought they put it back in, but it was not in our patch kit. Thank goodness we always carry a spare tube. After getting back on the road we stop at a gas station and buy another patch kit to get some glue. We make a vow not to use it to terrorize anyone.

Arriving at Pancake rocks, we see the very same group of cyclists that we had trouble passing in the mountains on the way to Greymouth. We hope that they do not recognize us, but they end up in the same line for food as is Louie. He almost gets a free lunch because the person handing out sandwiches thinks Louie is part of that group.

We forgot to bring the bike lock so we take turns walking down to see Pancake rocks. They are like Oregon's Devil's Punchbowl on steroids! We have never seen anything like them. The water rushes in, slaps up against the rocks, makes a huge boom like a firecracker, and shoots up into the air. There are blowholes in the rocks where water shoots up in a fine mist with a big whoosh of air. The rocks are layered like pancakes, but nobody knows what made them that way.

Glaciers

Otago Peninsula

Today's bike ride takes us around the Otago Peninsula. The road hangs onto the side of the hill to keep from tumbling into the bay. It is a popular cycling venire. It is also popular for the local cranky sea gulls. They mill about in groups giving each other the what-for. We climb up a hill to look down at the sparkling blue water of the bay and the town of Dunedin.

We climb up a 12% grade to go visit the penguins, but once there decide that we want to keep riding so back down we come and on we go to the Albatross Reserve. The albatross are all somewhere else, but we have fun going through the exhibits and gift shop. We learn that the area was once an army post, which explains the large cement pillars that once held a gate and the gun turrets that dot the area. It reminds us of the gun turrets in Astoria, Oregon.

Back in the town of Dunedin, we want to do some shopping, but it is Sunday and everything is closed. We are very impressed with the old, ornate train station. Sadly, a gentleman tells us about the train bombing in Spain.

We stop at a McDonalds for a Kiwi Burger that has beets in it. The food is taking us a bit of time to get adjusted to. We find out that we prefer to make our own rather than eat out. In the grocery store they do not refrigerate eggs so we have trouble finding them at first.

Christchurch

We enjoy the drive from Omaru to Christchurch because we are on straight roads again. There is lots of pastureland and tree farms. Huge tree hedges separate the fields. We get lots of practice passing trucks and get to dodge a runaway sheep. The rivers in this flatter area are wide with many rivulets making up the whole riverbed. Deer farms dot the hillsides. Copious cows lounge about in pastures alongside the road. All these cows make the best ice cream we have ever tasted. The government requires that the butterfat level be 4%. That must be why it is so good.

We stop at another Garage Sale where Louie buys an antique leather tool pouch and Bec talks herself out of buying an antique spinning wheel. "How would she get it back?" she laments.

Once we get camp set up in Christchurch, we get on the bike to take a ride around the city. To our surprise, the downtown area looks very much like Portland with a "Saturday Market", Cathedral Square (like Pioneer Courthouse Square), and antique trolleys. The Avon River runs through a beautiful park in the middle of the city. At the square, Louie gives a man in a turban a ride on the tandem and Bec explores the Cathedral. We like the old English style phone booths.

Ferry back to the North Island

In the morning we drive back to Picton to catch the Ferry to Wellington. The scenery changes from a valley to a mountain pass. In the mountains we pass many cyclists. We go through very small tunnels and wonder how the cyclists would negotiate them. Some of the one lane bridges are so long that they have stop lights at the end of them so one group can cross one way, the light changes, and then another group can cross the other way. Back at the ocean we spot some porpoises playing and stop to watch them. They leap and jump about.

In Picton, we have a 4-hour wait for the Ferry so we go have some more of their irresistible ice cream and go shopping. We find some wonderful New Zealand bike jerseys and have to have them along with some matching socks. After shopping, we get to laze about until the Ferry arrives.

Rotorua

In the morning we have another drive ahead of us to Rotorua so we leave early. The camp office is still not open. We put what we believe the cost would be in an envelope and slip it in the door of the office and head out. The Ocean is on our left and the jungle-covered hills are on our right. We are starting to feel like gypsies, spending only one night in any one spot and then moving on. Louie pulls the car over to pick up another hubcap, but it still does not match, but it fits so we put it on. The quest for the match continues.

We spend some time shopping in Levin where Bec gets a wool New Zealand pull over and Louie finds some bike grips in a small bike shop.

We get to Rotorua in time to see the Maori concert, which comes highly recommend. The family concert we see is very authentic. They explain all about the Maoris. Bec gets to talk to one of the children from the show. They trade stories about American Indians and Maoris. Originally the Maoris came from Polynesia on boats. They have been assimilated into modern New Zealand, but are trying to keep their traditions and identity through song and dance.

The next morning we ride the bike to the Waiotapu thermal area. On the way there we pass a golf course where the steam vents and boiling pots take the place of the sand pits! All along the road on the way to Waiotapu, steam hisses out of the rocks and hillsides. We see yellow sulfur clinging to the plants that dare to grow next to the bubbling holes.

Waiotapu thermal park is very much like Yellowstone, but we are able to get up close and personal with the thermal activity. The Lady Knott Geyser, primed by the park ranger with soap to break her film, gushes for 45 minutes. We walk around the park where everything hisses and steams around us. The boiling thermal holes are close enough for Louie to reach down and test the water gingerly with his finger. We walk right up to steaming lakes. Sulfur fills the air. At some places we get the feeling that we shouldn't be there, but see that we are still on the designated path. It looks as if the whole place would explode at any moment.

Pahia

Pahia is situated on the Bay of Islands, aptly named due to the number of islands that punctuate the bay. The first part of the ride is on a gravel road that ends at Herkuai Falls. From there we take a paved road back to Pahia to board the ferry to Russle. In Russle a group of kids talk Louie into giving them each a ride around the block on the back of the tandem. Their smiles were all the reward Louie needed. They wanted to follow us on our journey to the next ferry, but we did not want to worry their parents so we had to make a run up the hills to leave them behind. We climb up and down the hills. We have breathtaking views of the ocean on both sides of us. The ferry back to Pahia is $2.00 New Zealand, but the ferry from Pahia to Russle was $6.00 New Zealand.

On our way into town we stop at a farmer's roadside stand. He lets us know that he does not like cyclists due to the narrow roads. It makes it difficult for him to transport his produce if cyclists are in his way. New Zealand is trying to fix their roads, but it is going to take a long time and a lot of money. Perhaps when that happens he will be kinder to cyclists.

Return to Auckland via Portland

On the way back to Auckland, we spy a sign that announces, Portland. We have to go there and see what Portland, New Zealand, is like since we are from Portland, Oregon. We look for a city hall or some building with the name, Portland, on it so we can take a picture. We drive up to the firehouse and start taking pictures. One of the firemen drives up and insists that we take a picture of his shiny red fire truck parked in the garage. He opens the door so Louie goes in and snaps away.

He tells us that Portland used to be larger and was named for the cement factory that owned the town in the past. When a new company bought out the factory, they automated and reduced the work force from 300 to 100 people. They ripped up all the houses except a few that people bought. You can't even tell houses were alongside the road.

We drove down to the dock that was used to bring coal to the plant and then took a look at the outside of the factory. The fireman is right, there is not much left of Portland, New Zealand.

Observations from the cyclist's perspective