Last you left me, I had just finished riding around the East Cape. I was in Gisborne, which is supposed to have some nice parts, but which, in my (brief) experience, was rather blah. Two days of high wind and rain were forecast, so, as my route down to Wellington from there was supposed to be a) busy with traffic b) not spectacular and c) expensive, I hopped on a bus and fast-forwarded down to Wellington, capital of this nation.
As you may or may not know, Alex, my younger brother, has been living and working in Wellington for a bit over a year now. I dropped in on him, to spend a little down time and hang out. It was good to see the dude, and Wellington is a lovely little city. (As Lonely Planet puts it, it "punches well above its weight".)
We didn't truly take in all the sights, as neither of us was/is particularly flush with monies, but we still poked around for a week, seeing what the city had to offer. Variously, the Te Papa museum was good, though a very touristy museum, the zoo was small but charming (Red pandas are still the best), the Deerhoof concert was great, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is fantastic, there are a ton of lovely restaurants around the city, and I'm quite enamored of the affogato, a scoop of gelato with a shot of espresso in it.
I should point out here, as I haven't yet, that this whole country seems to drink instant coffee at home and a lot of espresso anywhere else. I have yet to even see drip coffee offered anywhere. The instant coffee part is a mystery to me, but the espresso on demand is a wonderful thing to have around.
In any event, Wellington's hillsides and culture was lovely, and made me jealous of Alex's year there. I don't know that I'll be moving, but it's certainly a place well worth spending the time.
As for me, I'm now on a break. As I've covered a good bit of the North Island and Alex won't be available for the two of us to tour the South Island for a couple weeks, I'm WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) at a yoga retreat center a bit North of Wellington for a bit. I work around four hours a day, gardening in the organic garden and doing whatever, in exchange for free room and board and all the yoga and tai chi I decide to do. This will be lovely and relaxing, and also very cheap, which is nice because New Zealand, for all its charms, is more expensive than Mexico would have been. I'll post about the Centre soonish, but things will probably be pretty quiet beyond that for a couple weeks, as momentous things will likely not really be happening.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The East Cape
I've recently finished up with the East Cape circuit, which was, in a lot of ways, even better than the Coromandel Peninsula. The Cape, as its name would imply, is the Easternmost jut out of the North Island of New Zealand. Because, I suppose, it isn't that close to any cities, it's pretty sparsely populated, despite being gorgeous. I rode around the perimeter, from Opotiki to Gisborne by way of Hicks Bay, mouth agape much of the time. The riding was pretty hilly, up and around the coastal range, but the roads were better than in the Coromandel, and there was much less traffic.
I stayed in campsites overlooking remote bays, ate ice cream that was homemade at Macadamia Orchards (I'm used to orchard meaning apples, but I've seen macadamia and kiwi orchards around here, so I'll have to expand my definition, I guess.) The countryside was totally stunning, even when the road turned inland and I was in the rolling hills of the mountain range rather than hugging the coast.
The East Cape is also where a lot of Maori people live, both traditionally and currently. The route I took is dotted with marae, the the Maori meeting houses/community centers. They aren't tourist centers, though, so I didn't have the opportunity to look in one to see the flax weaving and wood carvings. I did get to see the Anglican Maori church in Tikitiki, which I'm told is similar, and was certainly stunning. I have some pictures I'll get up when I'm able, but imagine a good-sized wooden church wherein every square inch was covered either with a flax weaving or carved wooden decoration. It was certainly stunning, and I can only imagine the marae are even moreso.
In general, I found myself fascinated with the current state of Maori people and the social politics of race in New Zealand, though frustratingly without any effective vectors to investigate. (As a man in transit on a bike, it's hard to really dig in...) An argument with a Czech woman at my hostel (totally civil, but we certainly disagreed) about responsibility vis-a-vis alcoholism and poverty and economic opportunity really got me considering them as an analog to both Native Americans in the US, about whom I know shockingly little, I guess because I'm an Easterner, and also African Americans. (There are a lot of signs up in stores/restaurants about no one in gang colors being allowed in and a lot of graffiti around.) Hopefully I'll figure out a way to learn a bit more.
In any event I can't recommend the East Cape enough. A beautiful rural coastline, some lovely nature domains (I saw a 2000 year-old tree that was sacred to the local Maori tribe.) and wonderful people. If I'd stayed longer, I hope I would have gotten a better understanding of the dynamics of the area, but, regardless, it's about the prettiest countryside I've yet seen.
I stayed in campsites overlooking remote bays, ate ice cream that was homemade at Macadamia Orchards (I'm used to orchard meaning apples, but I've seen macadamia and kiwi orchards around here, so I'll have to expand my definition, I guess.) The countryside was totally stunning, even when the road turned inland and I was in the rolling hills of the mountain range rather than hugging the coast.
The East Cape is also where a lot of Maori people live, both traditionally and currently. The route I took is dotted with marae, the the Maori meeting houses/community centers. They aren't tourist centers, though, so I didn't have the opportunity to look in one to see the flax weaving and wood carvings. I did get to see the Anglican Maori church in Tikitiki, which I'm told is similar, and was certainly stunning. I have some pictures I'll get up when I'm able, but imagine a good-sized wooden church wherein every square inch was covered either with a flax weaving or carved wooden decoration. It was certainly stunning, and I can only imagine the marae are even moreso.
In general, I found myself fascinated with the current state of Maori people and the social politics of race in New Zealand, though frustratingly without any effective vectors to investigate. (As a man in transit on a bike, it's hard to really dig in...) An argument with a Czech woman at my hostel (totally civil, but we certainly disagreed) about responsibility vis-a-vis alcoholism and poverty and economic opportunity really got me considering them as an analog to both Native Americans in the US, about whom I know shockingly little, I guess because I'm an Easterner, and also African Americans. (There are a lot of signs up in stores/restaurants about no one in gang colors being allowed in and a lot of graffiti around.) Hopefully I'll figure out a way to learn a bit more.
In any event I can't recommend the East Cape enough. A beautiful rural coastline, some lovely nature domains (I saw a 2000 year-old tree that was sacred to the local Maori tribe.) and wonderful people. If I'd stayed longer, I hope I would have gotten a better understanding of the dynamics of the area, but, regardless, it's about the prettiest countryside I've yet seen.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Two More Days & A Mess of Photos
Yesterday, I believe it was Sunday, I had my longest day yet. I biked from the lovely little hostel where I was staying in Tairua with the backyard view of the ocean South clear off of the Coromandel Peninsula. The first half, being on the peninsula, was lovely, though it had a few climbs. (I'm getting my climbing legs, after a week or so now, so I'm around to the sort of masochistic satisfaction with climbing I have on my road bike--unless it's really steep, which is just stupid.) I stopped in Waihi to see the big, gaping gold mine pit they have in the middle of town and to have a late lunch. (I'd already had an early one; it turns out that when you bike all day, you need a lot of fuel.) After that, though, I had 60 km to go on a pretty busy highway. Well, New Zealand busy, which meant two lanes but with a good deal of traffic. I didn't feel unsafe, but I had to pay too much attention to traffic to really enjoy myself. Off of the peninsula, the landscape shifted from coastal mountains to rolling farmland. Still pretty, but not quite gorgeous. The last 5 km or so were pretty much on a highway coming into Tauranga, a pretty sizeable city, but with wide shoulders and the expectation that bikes might be there.
Today, I left Tauranga and had a ride up the central plateau to Rotorua. The plateau was higher than any of the passes I've been over so far, but was a gradual enough gain that I didn't mind it at all. There was a fun dip through a gorge in the middle, with a fast downhill between two rock walls, then, after crossing a wide stream, a short but steep uphill. After that, there was nearly 10 km of downhill for which I didn't have to pedal once. That was wonderful. Rotorua itself sits on Lake Rotorua, a body of water directly on top of a volcanic cone. Hot springs bubble up all around.
Rotorua is a cultural center of the Maori, or at least has become so; I'm not sure. You can see a traditional Maori show and dinner, or hangi, here, but I decided that spending the money wasn't quite in my budget. Also, I had terribly mixed feelings about the cultural tourism, but I'm not sure how that would have shaken out if I'd actually taken in the show. Instead, I made a tour of the city's various hot springs, even taking a dip. Like all sulfurous sources, this town smells vaguely of eggs and farts, but you get used to it.
I've read a lot about how aggressive NZ drivers can be in my guidebooks, but I haven't seen it so far. They seem to me to be more like Vermont drivers dealing with a bike--they'll give you enough space to make sure they don't hit you, but not really slow down at all. Still, no one has menaced or crowded me at all. (Well, except for the logging truck on the dirt road up near Port Jackson, but that road wasn't wide enough for him not to crowd me. [Yikes]) If an accident occurs because of me, it's more likely it would be someone swinging into the opposite lane to give me plenty of space right before a blind turn and hitting an oncoming car. They don't seem to care about seeing who's coming down here as much as I would. Still, I've yet to really feel unsafe, which is nice. (I've had no trouble acclimating to biking on the left, but I still have to think about which way to look when I cross the street.
As you may have noticed, I've totally shifted to metric distances in my head. This is because that's all there is down here, and I don't have any way to keep track on my own. I made the conscious decision not to have a bike computer which would tell me my speed and sitance covered, because I would pay more attention to it than it deserved, and eschewed a watch for similar reasons. I travel a certain distance each day, and get to where I'm going when I do.
All right, now for a mess of photos. This is not all I've taken; if you want more feel free to pop over to my photostream.
This is my faithful steed, fully packed. I've since straightened up the top of the back rack and put a few of those things into the panniers, so it's a little less jumbled, but that's the basic gist. I don't know what it weighs; I don't want to know what it weighs.
This is a pretty good depiction of what the gravel road from Colville up to Port Jackson was. Unrelentingly gorgeous, mostly hugging the coast with occasional jaunts a little inland in the forests of the Coromandel Mountains. Totally worth rattling three bolts off of the bike...
This is the view from the pass between the West and East coasts of the Coromandel peninsula, just East of Coromandel Town. It was a bear of a way to start the day, but the view was great and the descent afterwards was amazing.
This is Cathedral Cove, just a bit East of Whitianga. The tides have progressively hollowed it out of the rock promontory. I had to bike up a ridiculous hill to get to it, but it was totally worth it.
This is the old, empty pumphouse at the Waihi gold mine. It's just the shell now, all stone, conrete and steel beams. It's gorgeous.
In the process of their gold mining, Waihi has progressively (I assume) dug this hole in the middle of their city. You could put a lot of stuff in there before you filled it... Note the trucks down in it.
By and large, the roadsigns are pretty much what you'd expect here. In the Bay of Plenty region, though, the ones advising safety seem to want safe drivers to put helmets on their cars. (At least, my best guess is that those are helmets...) My other favorites are the one asking you to merge traffic like a zipper and the railroad one, which is a simple and perfect outline of a choo-choo train.
This is the pool at the middle of the Kuirau Park in Rotorua. It was as warm as the steam suggests.
So that's it for now. More photos as I take them and find computers willing to let me upload them.
Today, I left Tauranga and had a ride up the central plateau to Rotorua. The plateau was higher than any of the passes I've been over so far, but was a gradual enough gain that I didn't mind it at all. There was a fun dip through a gorge in the middle, with a fast downhill between two rock walls, then, after crossing a wide stream, a short but steep uphill. After that, there was nearly 10 km of downhill for which I didn't have to pedal once. That was wonderful. Rotorua itself sits on Lake Rotorua, a body of water directly on top of a volcanic cone. Hot springs bubble up all around.
Rotorua is a cultural center of the Maori, or at least has become so; I'm not sure. You can see a traditional Maori show and dinner, or hangi, here, but I decided that spending the money wasn't quite in my budget. Also, I had terribly mixed feelings about the cultural tourism, but I'm not sure how that would have shaken out if I'd actually taken in the show. Instead, I made a tour of the city's various hot springs, even taking a dip. Like all sulfurous sources, this town smells vaguely of eggs and farts, but you get used to it.
I've read a lot about how aggressive NZ drivers can be in my guidebooks, but I haven't seen it so far. They seem to me to be more like Vermont drivers dealing with a bike--they'll give you enough space to make sure they don't hit you, but not really slow down at all. Still, no one has menaced or crowded me at all. (Well, except for the logging truck on the dirt road up near Port Jackson, but that road wasn't wide enough for him not to crowd me. [Yikes]) If an accident occurs because of me, it's more likely it would be someone swinging into the opposite lane to give me plenty of space right before a blind turn and hitting an oncoming car. They don't seem to care about seeing who's coming down here as much as I would. Still, I've yet to really feel unsafe, which is nice. (I've had no trouble acclimating to biking on the left, but I still have to think about which way to look when I cross the street.
As you may have noticed, I've totally shifted to metric distances in my head. This is because that's all there is down here, and I don't have any way to keep track on my own. I made the conscious decision not to have a bike computer which would tell me my speed and sitance covered, because I would pay more attention to it than it deserved, and eschewed a watch for similar reasons. I travel a certain distance each day, and get to where I'm going when I do.
All right, now for a mess of photos. This is not all I've taken; if you want more feel free to pop over to my photostream.
This is my faithful steed, fully packed. I've since straightened up the top of the back rack and put a few of those things into the panniers, so it's a little less jumbled, but that's the basic gist. I don't know what it weighs; I don't want to know what it weighs.
This is a pretty good depiction of what the gravel road from Colville up to Port Jackson was. Unrelentingly gorgeous, mostly hugging the coast with occasional jaunts a little inland in the forests of the Coromandel Mountains. Totally worth rattling three bolts off of the bike...
This is the view from the pass between the West and East coasts of the Coromandel peninsula, just East of Coromandel Town. It was a bear of a way to start the day, but the view was great and the descent afterwards was amazing.
This is Cathedral Cove, just a bit East of Whitianga. The tides have progressively hollowed it out of the rock promontory. I had to bike up a ridiculous hill to get to it, but it was totally worth it.
This is the old, empty pumphouse at the Waihi gold mine. It's just the shell now, all stone, conrete and steel beams. It's gorgeous.
In the process of their gold mining, Waihi has progressively (I assume) dug this hole in the middle of their city. You could put a lot of stuff in there before you filled it... Note the trucks down in it.
By and large, the roadsigns are pretty much what you'd expect here. In the Bay of Plenty region, though, the ones advising safety seem to want safe drivers to put helmets on their cars. (At least, my best guess is that those are helmets...) My other favorites are the one asking you to merge traffic like a zipper and the railroad one, which is a simple and perfect outline of a choo-choo train.
This is the pool at the middle of the Kuirau Park in Rotorua. It was as warm as the steam suggests.
So that's it for now. More photos as I take them and find computers willing to let me upload them.
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