Today etc.

So I ended up riding down to Tairua today, with a stop off at Cathedral Cove and the Hot Springs Beach. Well, sort of. I saw Cathedral Cove, where the tide had opened up a tunnel with a somewhat vaulted ceiling on a beach, and it was gorgeous, but I wasn't there when the tide was right for Hot Springs Beach. As I had to go over and down a sizeable pass to get to Tairua, I'm not sure I'll double back tomorrow. Rather than describing another route, some observations so far.

-There is a lot of roadkill in this country. There's no large predator running around, either because they never made it to New Zealand or because they were hunted to extinction, so maybe a large population of critters is responsible, or maybe they're dumber about cars here, or I don't know what. Anyway, a lot of small to mid-sized animals are flattened around these parts.

-Kiwis, or at least drivers on Kiwi roads, seem to be more cavalier about tossing empty bottles out their windows. The roadsides are littered with them. (I suppose that, biking around, I do spend more time than most taking in the roadsides, not just the views.)

-A liter and a half of soda here costs around $2.50. A can costs $2-3, and a 20-ounce bottle will run you $3-4. Is this deposits? I don't get what's going on. I'm sure there's an at least semi-sensible reason, but it's opaque to me.

-I've run into four other bicycle tourists so far: 1) A german man, on his second day out, biking around on a hot day in tights rolled up to his knees and a blue dress shirt unbuttoned halfway. His gear was fine otherwise, so I chalked it up to savoir faire, rather than ignorance, but dang. 2) A Japanese gentleman, who was about halfway through a week of touring here, then going to Australia. His English was pretty halting, so that was most of our conversation. He was, however, wearing aqua booties, or whatever you call them, which was great. 3) A frenchman who had been touring New Zealand for ten weeks already, with two more to go. He seemed to feel the need to give me advice about everywhere, though, to be fair, a lot of the advice was quite helpful. 4) A Belgian man who was touring wineries, and who advised me to tell them that I couldn't buy anything, but was reviewing their wines for my website. That's what he was legitimately doing, and apparently those are the magic words to sample everything. I'm not sure, however, that my wine knowledge/vocabulary is up to snuff. Best of luck to all of them, of course, but especially the Japanese gentleman, because those water shoes were fantastic.

-Do you know about cyclists' tan lines? Serious cyclists get some pretty hilarious tan lines, and after five days I'm already on the way. My head is pretty normally tanned, though I do have a bit of a raccoon thing going on from my glasses. The truly hilarious bit, though, is that I'm tanned from where my sleeves end to where my gloves start, from say 2/3 of the way up my bicep down to my wrist, and also from mid thigh where my shorts stop down to above my ankle where my sock starts. I'd show you pictures, but I've yet to be able to upload anything.