Little Pink Bike

Well, it may seem as though I fell off the face of the earth, but I didn’t. I spent a lovely 2 months in Akaroa, NZ working and sailing on the FOX II, a sweet old gaff ketch made out of Kauri. Good times, but unfortunately, not very productive in the writing department. I’ll attempt to get around to adding a summary of my time there.

But for now, I’m in Kaikoura, NZ. I came to Kaikoura to see the sperm whales, but the whales have been a bit “flukey” recently and hard to find. Given that, and my short time in Kaikoura, I decided to go swimming with dolphins instead and had a “whale” of a time. Enough with the silliness…

Anyway, swimming with dusky dolphins was an awesome experience. We went out on a little launch, found a pod of ~250 dolphins, drove in front of it, jumped in the water, the dolphins swam by, we got back on the boat, drove in front of the pod again, jumped in the water, lather, rinse, repeat. All in all, we had four swims with the dolphins The first, I took my camera in its waterproof case, but all the shots were way close…hard to get a good shot down there… I did actually touch a dolphin, not really intentionally, but it was still amazing. They’re supposed to run away if you touch them, but it’s not like they were sticking around for long anyway. I also made eye contact with one dolphin and got it to swim in a circle with me briefly. Good times…

As a side note, the dusky dolphins are quite common and easy to find and claimed to be the most acrobatic in the world. (Who knows?) We did see quite a few jumps, slaps, and backflips. I even got a great shot of one mid jump even though it’s a little out of focus due to the camera case.

The dolphin trip also had some great sea birds. We saw plenty of Hutton’s Shearwaters which only breed..right there, in the hills of Kaikoura… Common for Kaikoura, but rare for the rest of the world. We also got up close and personal with a great Wandering Albatross that was just chilling out. The skipper of the boat had to harass it for a good 5 minutes before it got up to fly. From my experience in Akaroa, the albatross were pretty skittish, but Kaikoura has a boat that does albatross tours that go out and feed them, so I think they’ve been a bit desensitized to boats and humans because of that.

After the dolphin trip, I rode a borrowed bike down to the “Beachside BBQ” for a crayfish. Crayfish being the local rock lobster. I’d actually had rock lobster before from Christmas Island, while working on the Kwai, but having it BBQ’d was a different experience. It was a bit expensive for NZ$ but basically, they charge world market prices, so it really jacks up the NZ price. It was definitely worth it, though. I do always have qualms about eating overfished sea food, but there are very strict harvesting rules, so I know they’re not completely ransacking the population.

The other “rare” NZ food that I tried in Kaikoura was Paua. Paua is a New Zealand abalone with a pretty shell and very dark meat. I had a paua patty at the local fish & chips shop and it tasted like a mild oyster. Now Paua have been overfished to the point of very low populations, and have super strict rules, only 10 Paua per diver per day, even commercially, and they can only be harvested by free diving. Of course, there is plenty of Paua poaching for the Asian market and one of the few murders I’ve read about in the papers here was over illegal Paua poaching. I think it is probably beneficial to support the legal Paua trade, because the legal trade helps to keep pressure against the illegal trade. I feel like if there were no legal trade, there would be even less interest in protecting the Paua for the future. Maybe this is a week argument, but it helps me sleep at night.

“What’s next?” you may ask… Well, I’ve fallen back into the sailing world, which means I may disappear again. I’m heading to Brisbane, Qld Australia to spend approximately 3 months on the Duyfken, a replica of the Dutch Jacht that “discovered” Australia in 1606. How this all occurred is a bit convoluted, but let’s just say it seemed like a good idea at the time. In theory, we’ll be leaving Brisbane in early May stopping at 3 ports along the way and then reaching Cooktown for a festival the first weekend of June, after which, we’ll head back down to Cairns… At least I’ll have a month to figure out how sketchy they are or are not.

Apparently my role will have something to do with assisting the “grumpy old bastard” of a bosun they’ve got. It could get interesting, as I’m not one too take much crap from grumpy old bastards.

And because I’m sitting here in Starbucks(I know, I know, but there’s not anywhere local to go, I’m not even drinking coffee), not on the internet ($10 an hour is just too much), I’ll give a small rant on kiwi culture. Everyone here has this habit of saying confidently “Yep!…Yup!…Yep!…” about every 15 seconds as you talk to them. They will do this even if they have no clue what you’re talking about and it drives me insane. Let’s say I’m asked a question and I answer it in nautical terminology, the person will then reply with a resounding “Yep!” So, I’ll ask if they know about such and such and their answer is always a resounding “Nope!”… WHY???

And now I’ve been distracted by a beagle puppy chewing on its leash…

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I took the Overlander train from Otorohanga to Wellington.

It was a long ride, but very scenic. We even went around in a spiral and several hairpin turns to climb up onto the volcanic plateau. Also included were incredible views of snowcapped peaks and some beautiful gorges carved by meandering rivers to create extraordinary limestone cliffs.

In several places the gorges made incredible 90 degree turns.

I met a nice older gentleman named David and we talked a bit about sailing. He sailed from England to America and then through the Panama Canal, down the coast and on to New Zealand. Now, he owns a horse farm as far inland on the North Island as you can get. But itching to get back to sea, he already has plans to go sail with a friend in the Mediterranean. I bet he lasted longer than I did though. I couldn’t make it 3 months.

Once in Wellington, I was picked up by a family I had met while surfing.   They fed me dinner and set me up in a room downstairs.  It was great.  They live in a very nice house at top of Tinakori hill.  I was glad to not be riding my bike with the trailer on the hill though; narrow winding lanes with barely room for a car.

The next day, Thursday, I got a ride downtown and explored the city a bit.  I had a nice walk along the harbor and went to the Te Papa museum, the national museum of New Zealand.  It was set up in the newer style of museum with lots of interactive displays and really good interpretation.  I walked through rather quickly, but enjoyed the many and varied displays.  They had a good exhibit on earthquakes and volcanoes that I enjoyed even though I already knew the underlying geology.  They also had a gread exhibit on the changing flora and fauna of New Zealand and how/who introduced each alien species.

After the Te Papa, I stopped for a lunch of Nachos and Ginger beer.  The Nachos were just what was handy and inexpensive along the waterfront.  I wasn’t interested in a sit-down lunch.  I’m discovering that New Zealand has a fine selection of brewed ginger-beers.  Non-alcoholic, but the real stuff, and really good.  Much better than the “soda” you get in the states. Near my lunch spot was a self powered crane barge that had steamed all the way from Scotland with the crane up! in the early 1900s. Craziness, but they survived.

Now, like most historic vessels there is an ongoing effort to save here.

The next museum on the agenda was the Wellington Museum of the City and Sea.

  Downstairs was a timeline and artifact from every year in the 1900s.  I read the first half before I started to lose interest.  I’m still getting over how “new” the European settlements in New Zealand are.   Upstairs was the “sea” exhibit with a lot of information on shipwrecks, including an extensive exhibit on the Wahine, an interisland ferry that wrecked during a storm in 1968.   It was the wreck that attracted the most attention, but it wasn’t even the deadliest shipwreck in New Zealand history.  Only 51 of the over 700 passengers died, despite the ship developing a heavy list and many of the passengers having to jump in the water.  Fortunately, they weren’t too far from shore.  Perhaps I have too much of a cynical outlook towards shipwrecks… Also of interest was a drawing of the wreck of the Delaware

After the museum, I saw that the Cable Car wasn’t too far away and the Carter observatory was in the botanical gardens at the top.  The cable car was quite an impressive steep ride up the hill at about a 45 degree angle.  They also had a nice little museum at the top with some old cars and the original cable pulling mechanism.   Unfortunately, the observatory was closed for renovations, but I looked at the map and saw that I could walk down through the botanical gardens, and up Tinakori hill through part of the Wellington “green belt” and be back at the house.  It wasn’t very far but there were some hills to navigate.  I didn’t do much exploring of the gardens, but what I saw was nice.   Walking up Tinakori hill, I saw a lot of birds I can’t identify (probably just introduced songbirds) and a goldfinch (another introduced songbird).

My entire post just disappeared? Yay… It was even supposed to be saved as a draft? Oh well…

Today I went blackwater rafting to see phosphorescent fly larvae poo, uh, I mean glow worms.    I was fortunate enough to get a ride from a nice Australian couple who were also staying at the campsite and going on a cave trip (although a different company).    At the trip, we strapped on wesuits, booties, and helmets, grabbed an innertube and then jumped backwards into a small creek.  Then climbed out and got back in the van??  It was a quick trip…  Actually, we then drove to the cave entrance crawled down, and got to caving.  We did quite a bit of walking as the water levels were low, but there was some floating as well.  Twice we turned off all the lights and just floated by watching the glow worms glow like a great view of the milky way on a clear night, deep underground.    We also jumped backwards off a couple of waterfalls (the creek at the beginning was merely practice).

Anyway, I met some more great people on the trip including a woman originally from South Africa who now lives in Hamilton.  She was on the trip with her son and afterwards I went with them to go on the Ruakuri bush walk.  It was quite spectacular as well, but quite as much as the glow worms and underground karst features.

And to the change of plans…  I’ve gotten the opportunity to go work on a sailboat on the South Island in Akaroa called the Fox II.  It means I’ll have to stay put for a month or two, but it might put a little extra cash in my pocket and it shouldn’t be too strenuous.  It sounded like, the only requirements were sailing trips and not maintenance???  Maybe I’ll be diligent enough to get up early and go biking every morning.  We’ll see…

I only rode about 23 km today and I’m still exhausted.  Maybe it’s because the first 11 k was straight uphill to 333m…  Turns out that the “one big hill” in my book was actually 390m…   Sure is a big hill.  It was at less than half that, I kept thinking that I must have reached the top because the road would go down a bit, but no it would then go back up plus some.  170-160-190-180-200-190-220-etc.   At least at 333m there was a nice rest area to sit at.  I tried looking for a geocache there as well, but there was too much random trash dumped in the area that I didn’t want to be picking through.    Well, as I was just about to continue my struggle uphill, Bill from Bill’s backpackers and Oparau Roadhouse showed up with his box truck.  I decided to be kind and accept his offer to drive me out of the hills.  So the bike and trailer went in the back and off we went.  It was then I discovered that the hill was 392m to the summit.  I could have made it up that last 60m but it wouldn’t have been any fun.  Although, I also missed the long 10km  downhill ride as well.    I got dropped off about 12km from town and just had a few rolling hills to traverse.  At least now I know that it will take me all morning but I can ride/walk up 330m.  I think I’ve planned not to have to go up that far though.  Here to Te Kuiti is a short 20km over low hills.  Then a couple 200m hills between Te Kuiti and New Plymouth.    After getting into Otorohanga today, I went to the Kiwi House.  It was a little expensive ($16) for what it was.  I arrived just in time for feeding though and the female kiwi was insane bobbing around everywhere trying to get to the food.  I’d seen a kiwi before in the National Zoo, but it was just sitting there, so seeing a great spotted kiwi running around was pretty cool.  The rest of the aviaries were so/so and some of the more rare birds were sleeping?missing?hiding?   I did see a giant New Zealand pigeon.  They’re huge, but apparently not the bird I’ve been seeing everywhere in the trees.  I still haven’t figured out what that bird is, and they’re a bit skittish so I can’t get close enough to them to get a good look.  Oh well…

The road from Raglan to Kawhia was an interesting one…  Lots of up and down, but nothing too high.  About halfway through it gets really tough though as it turns to gravel.  I was getting pretty tired at this point and while fixing one of my fenders was called over to Te Papamatu Marae to have a drink of water.  While I was there, I was invited to spend the night, so I peeled some onions and carrots, had a shower and went to sleep…  good times…  Also there was some police action on the beach across the harbour, that also belonged to the family.  We watched for a while with binoculars, helicopter landing and all, but couldn’t figure out what was going on.  The helicopter had a strange vertical metal cylinder hanging from it as well??

Next day I got up early and rode into Kawhia by 11am.  It was rough going over the gravel road, but I made it.  I had a popsicle right away, explored the harbour a bit, had fish and chips, took a nap in the park, had an ice cream, then headed back out of town towards Oparau.  In Oparau I stayed at the Oparau Roadhouse.  (Thanks Bill for all your hospitality.)  I also had my first “New Zealand Pie” here, steak and tomato.  It was pretty good as far as meat in a pastry goes.  I’ll have to sample more pies along the way.  Most of the places that I see advertising them, don’t actually have them?  Maybe they’re always just out when I arrive?

Instead of biking today, I decided to go for a surf lesson.  We picked up some boards and wetsuits then rode down to the beach in an old station wagon.  The instructor had a dog that insisted we play fetch with him and would constantly leave branches in front of you.  Nevermind if you had both hands full of surfboards.   The actual lesson part was pretty minimal with a paddle paddle, one knee, stand, instruction.  Then we had a good 2 hours  in the water until everyone seemed a bit exhausted.  I stood up on my second wave, and managed to get up quite a bit.  Of course, it was even better if the instructor gave you a little shove as the wave came to catch it better.  I was reasonably ok at catching them myself though, so I didn’t get much help.  I tried to get on a few of the larger waves farther out, but I always ended up flipping over.  Apparently, I was catching the “wrong” part of the wave, whatever that means??

The place I’m staying at, called Solscape, is really nice and peaceful with birds and rabbits roaming around.  For those wanting to sleep inside, they’ve got little cabins made from old train caboose’s and then your standard dorm/lounge/kitchen.  I’ve been using the outdoor kitchen in the tent area since it’s much less crowded and just feels nicer.  It’s all wood…  In the counter tops, where the knots were, instead of just filling in with expoxy, they have clear expoxy will shells and bits of glass embedded in it.  Quite a nice idea if you’ve got a big hole to fill.

Monday Jan 19, 2009

I decided to make it easy on myself and am doing too nice short ~20km rides for my first two days. Then the torture will begin. I took the train from Manukau to Pukekohe $6.70 for the whole trip. Then, I biked from Pukekohe to Pukekawa, not to far but the last 8km is straight up a 200m hill. (I apologize to all of those non-metric Americans out there, but I’m trying really hard to think in m and km so you have to as well.) I ended up walking a few bits of the hill, but I was expecting that.
I’m not in any kind of shape to be hauling all the gear I’ve got. It’s hard to plan to have the right stuff for an entire year and not have too much. I’ve got too many warm clothes, but I’ll need them in a few months, plus I’ve got a pair of carharts for working in…it all just takes up bulk. The bulkiest of all is the pack, I put all my gear in while the bike was in the suitcase. It takes up a lot of room, but I’ll need it to do any hiking or if I decide to pack up the bike again. Then there’s food and bike tools, etc. I seem to have one too many books at the moment, but no time to read…
After arriving at the Shekinah backpackers, Penny, one of the owners, said she was going to milk cows, so I asked if I could go with her. (It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?) Well, I got to go along, milk some cows, get covered in shit, etc. Another girl from Israel was staying at the backpackers and came as well. The first thing we did was go open the gate and walk the cows to the milking shed. I got the honor of opening the gate since they don’t have electric fences in Israel. It wasn’t hard or anything, just hold the plastic handle, but I guess if you’ve never touched an electric fence, they can be scary. Anyway, the cows go pack themselves in and line up at the shed. The first batch file in on two sides and line up with their rears to a trough. In the trough, are giant 4 teat breast pumps on flexible hoses. So each line of cows gets hooked up, pumped dry, squirted with iodine, and sent on its way. That is where the shit comes in. The cows don’t really care where they shit or pee, so if you’re in the trough, and they gotta go, you better move. Of course, you can’t usually move in time and will get splattered. I believe there were 25 cows per go, but I don’t know how many we did, maybe 300 or 400? It took quite a long time. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to do more of. Just you and the cows…
I ended up cooking my own dinner as the backpackers charged $15 for dinner. I guess that’s not bad for a full meal, but I could eat for a few days on that. I think I’ve maybe spent $20 on food that I’m still eating. I do need to get some spices though, even just garam masala or some curry powder to spice things up a bit. I guess even a small bottle of hotsauce would work. I should have thought of that when I was still in Auckland, I was even in an Indian grocery. Oh well, I’ll figure something out. I don’t even have salt and pepper…. But I did make something good enough with a boxed rice mix some fresh broccoli and canned chicken.
The backpackers’ had a very sad kitten as well. It wanted milk from its mother, but the mother couldn’t really be bothered. It also wouldn’t go for cow milk. Just cried constantly and chased around its mother.

Tuesday January 20, 2009

Total ascent: 310m

I’ve done another short ride from Pukekawa to Glen Murray and to stay at another rural backpackers. Instead of paying attention to where I was going, I just followed the gps and ended up on a gravel road. It wasn’t too bad, but I’m not sure if I gained a hill or skipped a hill by taking the side road. I had to pass up a trip to another farm and a hot pool because I’m just too tired and my feet are still sore from the tramping around Auckland and then standing for hours in gumboots milking cows. My legs are actually less sore than a couple days ago. I could barely walk on Sunday from walking too much on Friday and Saturday. Hanging out at the backpackers turned out to work pretty well. I made myself an early dinner of leftovers from yesterday and got some writing in. I then had a second and third dinner. Second was just a small taste of pumpkin and lentil curry from a woman named Judith from Waiheke Island who is traveling around in a homebuilt camper-truck that was built by a boat builder. Third was a pork stir fry with rice made by Gavin, a very nice man who was living there during the week for work and heads home to Tauranga on the weekends. He also fed me a milo (like ovaltine) and a popsicle. Thanks a lot to both of you for all your help.

Wednesday January 21, 2009

Added a bit more distance today 40km with a total ascent of 389m. Along the way, Judith came up behind me and pulled over. So, I stopped for a bit and had a nice cool cup of Raro (a powdered juice) and a chat. The destination of the day was Waingaro Hot Springs where a campsite plus hot pools was $20. I decided not to spend the extra for the water slides but a pink wristband magically appeared on my wrist (thanks). I also had a ticket for the bumper boats, but just wasn’t in the mood. I only did the slides once each, but they were pretty good, especially the “Big Splash’ which had lots of turns. After a brief swim, I went over to the pub next door for a burger as I didn’t really feel like cooking. In the evening, after the temperature had gone down and the sun was less intense, I went and sat in the hotter of the hot pools for a little while. I figured my muscles could use it.

Thursday January 22, 2009

Distance 41.3km; Ascent 531m

I didn’t get up too early, 6:30ish, and was on the road a little after 8. Not as early as I would have liked, but there always seems to be a million things to do in the morning. Although the road looked easier than the day before, (the hills were shorter), apparently there were a lot more hills because I ended up with about 50m more total ascent to get into Raglan. In Raglan, I stopped for some fish and chips, and a rest, then I decided to head out to the Solscape backpackers on Manu Bay. I ended up having to go up another 100m hill to get there. I don’t think I’d have gone if I knew, but it’s pretty nice here. Maybe I’ll go for a surfing lesson tomorrow?

Today I went down to the CBD (central business district) and harbor to see the sights. I started off the day with a jog to the train station (1km) to make the train so I didn’t have to wait another hour for the next one. When I got into town, I headed for the New Zealand National Maritime Museum and saw some yards from a distance. The yards happened to be from the Soren Larsen so I stopped by to say hi a sailor and ended up borrowing a shirt for free admission to the museum. The shirt smelled like tar and dirty sailor, but it was worth it. To make up for the free admission, I bought a ticket on the morning sailing of the Ted Ashby, the museums replica of a scow ketch. It turns out New Zealand had a whole fleet of scows based on the design of the San Francisco Bay area scows. And to think I thought they were unique.
Well, on the boat, we motored out under the harbor bridge and set some sail on the way. The crew is all volunteers and mostly new. They were supposed to ask the passengers for help, but didn’t, so when it came time to hoist the mainsail, I just hopped up and went for the peak halyard. There were some American and Canadian tourists that seemed impressed? After we turned around and started sailing, I wasn’t really satisfied with just sitting there and looking around, so I asked the Captain if I could take the wheel. He relented easily and seemed to enjoy chatting up the other passengers while I steered. It was quite a workout though, and I couldn’t see over the deckhouses. The wheel is directly connected to the rudder with chain round a drum. I suppose there was “some” mechanical advantage, but not much, plus the chain is heavy and doesn’t run smooth like a wheelrope would. Anyway, we were sailing downwind, so it was rather tricky to go as downwind as much as possible, while keeping the main from being blanketed by the mizzen and swinging the boom around. One of the other passengers was impressed that I couldn’t see over the deckhouses in front of me and asked what I was looking at. I tried to explain about looking at the clouds and land on both sides to give him a satisfactory answer, but, I was really just watching the little wind tell tales, I figured the captain could watch where we were going.

After the sail, I went through the museum. It was a nice little maritime museum with some good canoe “replicas”. I’m not sure whether to consider them replicas or not. Most of them are modern, but made by Polynesians or Micronesians on their home islands. That kind of makes them originals even if they’re not very old. Complicated… There was also a very good exhibit of a local photographer from the early 1900s who took some great shots of the local boats. Much of the rest of the museum is now a blur as I was getting hungry… Also, it got more modern and there my interest starts to wain. They had a rather disappointing lighthouse exhibit, or maybe all lighthouses in New Zealand look the same?

For lunch I had a local adaptation of seafood chowder in a bread bowl. There was a hollowed hunk of sourdough tower with chowder in/and around it, topped with a prawn and greenlipped mussel. It was a tasty chowder though with mostly squid.

After lunch, I wandered downtown a bit and went up in the Skytower (basically the Auckland version of Seattle’s space needle). When looking at the ticket price, I saw you could save $10 as a backpacker, so this seemed like a good time to pick up a BBH card. I’ve already paid for 1/4 of the price of the card in one day, and I can save $3 at all BBH hostels, sounds good to me. Most of the hostels have camping too. The Skytower turned out to be the perfect place to explore Auckland from when combined with a pair of binoculars. I could check out the yachts in the harbor, the historic buildings, the gardens in the parks, and the volcanoes all from one spot. (Well technically, about 4 spots, but they were all pretty close together.

Yesteray I did some more gutter cleaning and a bit of roof sweeping. The roof is shaped in the clay tile style so the cedar needles get stuck in the grooves and form nice masses that don’t move. Fun…
Anyway, for dinner we went to the local Papatoetoe returned services club (basically a veterans club, except there are no more vets since WWII was the last “war”, so now it’s more of a social club). The deal of the night was ballroom dancing which Olive and Graeme have been doing for the past 4 years I believe. They were quite good and knew all the steps to what the 73 year old gentleman next to me called the “oldtime” songs. I was well entertained for most of the evening by Terry and another gentleman who’s name I didn’t catch. They reminded me of an upbeat Statler and Waldorf. I even got onto the dance floor and danced 1 1/2 songs of waltz.

Today I played tourist and went into Auckland. I went to the Auckland Domain which is a big park in the middle of the city. The park was created when the city was founded and 200 acres were set aside surrounding the cinder cone of an extinct volcano. In the Domain is the Auckland War Memorial Museum, which is more like a musuem of natural history. The first floor had a lot history of New Zealand ranging from “wild kids” to Moari carvings, the middle floor was “natural history” including the giant Moa bird, and the top floor the actual war memorial. It was an “ok” museum as far as they go. I was most amused by things like the enshrined axe of Sir Edmund Hillary. The Moari exhibit was interesting, but I would have preferred a little more history mixed in with the artifacts. Also, much of it was post European contact. It was a little difficult, not knowing the history of New Zealand, to figure out where the artifacts fit into the grand scheme of things. But I did learn a bit about the history as I went along, so it would probably be better now.

After the museum, I had a sandwich and a soda by a duckpond. The duckponds were created by the The Auckland Acclimitisation Society to introduce alien species to New Zealand. They set aside 4 acres to figure out what animals and plants could thrive. There’s even a bench with plaques thanking the society for introducing the California Rainbow Trout. Ahhh…when introducing new species used to be cool… guess they’re kicking themselves now.

Also in the Domain is what they call the Wintergardens. This is two green houses and a “fernery”. They had a lot of beautiful flowers, plants and ferns from around the world. Its not really something describable, but i took a few pictures so you can get a taste.
After the wintergardens I took a walk through the park forest and under a train track to the suburb of Parnell to stop at a a chocolatier and have an “Italian Densio”. I didn’t know what that was, but it sounded good. It turned out to be a really rich dark chocolate pudding like substance. Quite tasty. On the way back, I stopped at the camping store to pick up some cooking gear. I’m leaning towards sticking to commercial campsites which usually have kitchens, but you never know where I’ll end up.

I’ve also finally sorted out a cellphone. If you think you need the number, email me. I’ve apparently lost all my old numbers since unlocking the phone erased my phonebook. Oh well…

In order to supplement my travels with some good local experiences and save on the cost of food and lodging, I’ve joined a program called HelpX. Basically, i do a certain number of hours of work per day or week in exchange for room and/or board. It’s a lot like sailing tall ships except the hours are reasonable. I’ve arranged to do my “helping” all at once in the beginning and then take some time to explore Auckland before heading out on my bike.

A day in the life…

I woke up around 7 and had some improved cornflakes with dried fruit and nuts mixed in, plus a banana. A little before 8, I got started on cleaning the gutters. These gutters were direct proof that the new fancy rooftop gardens that are irrigated with rain runoff really work. If they were designed to grow plants, they’d be considered ingenious by today’s “green” standards. But alas, they were gutters and had to be cleaned. One area just had a few pine needles, but most of the gutters were comeplete ecosystems with bugs, soil, and growing plants. I even found a couple earthworms. I’m still trying to figure out how the worms managed to make it up to the roof level though. It’s not like worms just slither up walls for the fun of it. In another area, the roots were so thick, it was easier to roll the contents of the gutter up like sod, then to try to shovel it out with the trowel. It just didn’t want to go to pieces. There are several large ceder trees over the house so the majority of debris is small pine needles, and they’re everywhere. I even tried raking some off the roof.

After a full morning of gutters we had a good lunch and then were off for some errands. We put the bike in the car, then heading off to rent a trailer and pick up some scaffolding for the house renovation. On the way home, we dropped the bike off at a shop for a tune up and to get the wheels trued. The front wheel ended up slightly out of whack from the travel. The bike shop thought it was really minor, but it seemed to wobble a lot to me. When we got back to the house, we had to unload the scaffolding from the trailer bit by bit since each box weighed 66kg. Then we took the trailer out to get some sand to fill in the trench in the yard from the leaky pipe that had been fixed yesterday.
A bit of sand-shoveling later and we were off to return the trailer and did a bit of shopping for dinner.
Upon returning, the scaffolding was already under construction and we helped to finish that up. The scaffolding fit just barely into the space it was bought for. The house is an old cedar A-frame style. So there are a lot of high walls and ceilings in odd configurations. It reminds me a lot of the house we stayed in when my family went on vacation in Maine when I was a kid.

Well, I’ve been writing and updating for over two hours now. I think it’s time to stop and get some sleep. Look in the gallery for related pictures. I may integrate them into the post tomorrow.

Well, I and the pink bike seem to have made it to New Zealand. The travel was long with a few minor gliches, but nothing too horrible.

I arrived at the airport in LA over 3 hours early. Maybe this was excessive, but I had to return the rental car, check my bags, etc. so there were too many ways for something to go wrong. But, nothing went wrong, the moment I stepped out of the rental car, I stepped onto the shuttle. (As a side note: when I was sick and dragging all my gear around the airport, it seemed way to hard, but apparently it was just being sick because it didn’t seem bad at all this time) There was a very short line to check my bags and I didn’t even get charged for the bike suitcase being overweight. Unfortunately, checking your bags doesn’t mean you’re done. They don’t take the bag once it’s checked. You have to lug it around to a really really really long line for the TSA screening. Why the little conveyor belt behind the counter can’t go to the TSA, I will never understand. So, I stood in this line to hand my bag over??? That’s it.. wait in line, hand over bag. No checking anything, no id, no ticket. Why did I need to be involved at all?

Seeing that the line through security was very short and there was no food on the other side of security, I went upstairs to get some dinner. I decided to get Mexican food based on some advice in a New Zealand travel forum. While trying to find some legitimate advice on what can’t be found in New Zealand, I discovered two things: there’s no reese’s peanut butter cups and no good Mexican food.

After I ate, I headed back downstairs to go through security, and lo and behold, everyone else in the airport decided they needed to go through security at that moment as well. So, it was no breeze through security. The line went very slowly and then just as I was about to grab my little plastic trays and start undressing/unloading/ungluing when there was a shout by one of the TSA agents and everyone was told to stay still. Not sure whether it was real or a drill, but a few minutes later the shout of “All Clear” came through and we proceeded to be x-rayed and analyzed to the fullest extent of the law.

Boarding the plane from LA to Fiji was late because the crew had not yet arrived by the time we were supposed to leave. I guess they flew on a different airline? Anyway, we eventually boarded and as we pulled away from the gate, our auxiliary power gave out and we had to go back to the gate. It was started and stopped multiple times over the next half hour and eventually the auxiliary power and all the engines were “sorted out” and we were off…

Getting off the plane in Fiji was Hot and Humid as one might expect a tropical island in the summertime. We got off the plane, were ushered into this odd limbo area, and then queued up to get our boarding cards updated and go through security, again. This security check seemed a little unnecessary since we had just gotten off a plane, and couldn’t leave the area without going through customs or through this security check. Oh well, at least they had a local band to entertain us. A lot of the passengers in line with me were on the same flight to Auckland and were talking about missing the flight because of security taking too long, etc. It was a little silly for them to be so worried. I doubt they would have left with half the flight missing, but as it was, there was still an hour and a half before the flight. Not that it mattered since the flight ended up being delayed over an hour. Not quite sure whether it was a weather or mechanical problem since both were claimed at different points. Weather would have been valid though since it was windy and pouring as we boarded the plane.

We eventually arrived in New Zealand and I breezed through customs. They didn’t even open the suitcase with the bike, just asked if it was clean. Fortunately I had cleaned it and could honestly answer yes. Although, they didn’t seem to care anyway since it was used on roads and not trails. Everything went so fast that before I knew it I was getting in a car and riding away from the airport. My helpx hosts had kindly volunteered to pick me and my gear up since they lived only a few kms from the airport. I was glad to not have to put together everything sitting outside the airport and repacking, etc.