So I intended to buy myself a little radio to listen to in one ear for almost my entire time here, but I finally got around to it about a week ago. I guess cycling around with Alex for a week and change and then going back to biking by myself made me want something external to my own head.
Anyway. I primarily listen to Radio NZ, the NPR analogue over here, but sometimes classic rock, oldies or Radio NZ classical. I expected music to affect my mood, as it always does (driving rock, not surprisingly, is perfect for climbing hills) but I didn't expect it to paint whole pictures. So I was pleasantly surprised the other day when, speeding across a windy, grassy headland to get to my campsite late in the day, Wagner came on. With the crosswind, low-angle light and sweeping orchestra, it felt like nothing so much as starring in some studio-era Hollywood premake of Breaking Away. It was wonderful. (Yes, I would watch the shit out of that movie.)
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Northern Antidote
So the idea of poking up to the subtropical Northlands to combat the wet weather was a fine, fine idea. The Southlands (these Kiwi, they didn't get too crazy when they were naming regions...) where I would have gone if I had stayed on the South Island, are apparently flooding like whoa, after five straight days of torrential rain. I, on the other hand, have spent the past week with sunny and somewhat cloudy weather, cruising the skinny jut of the Northern Island above Auckland. I first rode up the Eastern side of things, that being the non-touristy. I'm not sure if it's less scenic or just incrementally farther from Auckland, but it's not as vacation-developed, being instead rolling hills devoted to cows and sheep. I shot straight up to Cape Reinga, where the Tasman Sea meets the South Pacific (When I say shot, what I mean is rode over the course of four days) and spent a rest day at a preposterously scenic campsite run by the Department of Conservation on a beach up there. For the rest of my time, until I go back to Auckland on Sunday to fly out on Monday, that's the plan. I'll ride a shortish ride each day, and then set up my tent at one of the various beachside campsites DoC runs. Oh, except Saturday will be spent snorkeling around looking at tropical fish, and tomorrow morning is set aside for HISTORY.
That deserves a new paragraph. I'll be at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where the Waitangi Treaty (surprise!) was signed. (Quick history time!) The Treaty is now seen as the formative document of New Zealand. It was signed by British administrators and some Maori chiefs to bring them under the aegis of the crown. It kind of didn't mean much at the time, but was never exactly broken, and has since been rehabilitated into a living, legitimate legal document. So that should be great. I'll be honest: New Zealand history is kind of boring. In the 14th C, some Polynesians arrived via canoe. After a few centuries, the British (and French, but really mostly the Brits) arrived. There was no genocide, they mostly swindled/strongarmed the Maori out of their land, while their diseases killed a good chunk of them off. The country became independent, but not until 16 years after they could have, because they were proud British subjects. That's really about all that happened, outside of a strong rugby tradition and some proud service in wars overseas. So this is the one big site of historical meaning I'm pumped about. Other than that, beaches and trying to un-ridiculous my tan lines. (I have glove tan lines, people. It's pretty silly.)
That deserves a new paragraph. I'll be at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where the Waitangi Treaty (surprise!) was signed. (Quick history time!) The Treaty is now seen as the formative document of New Zealand. It was signed by British administrators and some Maori chiefs to bring them under the aegis of the crown. It kind of didn't mean much at the time, but was never exactly broken, and has since been rehabilitated into a living, legitimate legal document. So that should be great. I'll be honest: New Zealand history is kind of boring. In the 14th C, some Polynesians arrived via canoe. After a few centuries, the British (and French, but really mostly the Brits) arrived. There was no genocide, they mostly swindled/strongarmed the Maori out of their land, while their diseases killed a good chunk of them off. The country became independent, but not until 16 years after they could have, because they were proud British subjects. That's really about all that happened, outside of a strong rugby tradition and some proud service in wars overseas. So this is the one big site of historical meaning I'm pumped about. Other than that, beaches and trying to un-ridiculous my tan lines. (I have glove tan lines, people. It's pretty silly.)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
A Southerly Jaunt
So, last I left things I was down in Kaikoura, having just had a wet, rainy day. Well, to be frank, things kind of stayed that way. I biked from Kaikoura down to Christchurch, which was two lovely days, and then met up with Alex there. We stayed a night there, which seems like a lovely city and got me the pizza I had been itching for for weeks now (1/2 smoked chicken and spicy apricot sauce, 1/2 tex-mex chicken, if you're curious) and then took the bus from Christchurch down to Queenstown.
The bus ride gave me a taste of the varying climates of the Southern Alps. They're called the Alps, but they didn't really look like it. North/East of them it's rolling grassy hills and wine country. As you get into them, it looks more like Colorado than Europe, with grass- and scrub-covered mountains by you and more jagged peaks in the middle distance. This carries on down to Queenstown and the lovely lakes around it. We biked north of there, over the Haast Pass, and then up the West coast of the island. Starting a little South of the Haast Pass, things get more lush than the Alps around Queenstown, more mountains filled with subtropical bush. I'm told the West Coast is show-stoppingly gorgeous; the Haast Pass certainly was, but for the nearly week we pedaled up the Coast, until we got well above the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers and all of the places that are said to be truly spectacular, the weather was too interested in dumping rain on us for any appreciation of the scenery we couldn't see through the grey. Still, what we saw was nice, and it was a good ride when we weren't like drowned rats.
The human kindness moment of my trip so far was a point where, halfway through the one day where it was really, truly torrential rain, maybe 60 km through a 120 km day, we stopped for lunch. We pulled into a Department of Conservation campsite, assuming it would have a roofed picnic table, because they almost always do. This one didn't. Riding in 50 degree pouring rain is fine, because you keep yourself warm pedaling. The second you stop, however, you realize just how wet you are and just how cold you are. Alex was in the bathroom and I was hunched under the tiny roof of an info board, contemplating how to have a dryish lunch, when an Irish gentleman popped out of his campervan and invited the pair of us in for a nice, warm cuppa. He and his wife (who had a wonderfully full accent only helped by loose dentures) were spending three weeks touring and were well and happy to help us out, which was exactly what we needed. We had a warm, nice ten minutes, and they went their way and we ate lunch under the awning in front of the toilet doors, which wasn't as bad as that makes it sound.
After we got up towards Greymouth, things improved. The weather turned nicer, first cloudy but not raining, and then out and out sunny. In Greymouth, we stayed with an old Lanakila friend, Jade Blackman. It was a perfect break from touring: we rolling into town at about 4:00 (I think), showered, had pizza and a few beers, watched him coach the women's regional developmental hockey team (He's the regional development director for what we call field hockey but here is a coed and a bit more serious sport.) and then spent the rest of the evening putting back a few more beers, playing cards, and generally shooting the shit. It was lovely to catch up with Jade, who is one of those people you want to have around more than they can be, and it broke up the touring. It was great to cruise up the coast on a sunny day the next day, but the pause really helped us recharge.
After we left the coast in Westport, we turned back East towards Picton and the ferry back to the North Island. We had a day-plus of very gradual uphill, but then a day and a half of similarly gradual downhill with a tailwind, which makes you feel like you're a very fast rider indeed. We stopped to do some wine tasting in the Marlbrough region which made me pretty sure I need to spend more time with white wines, which I have largely ignored hitherto, and then caught the ferry yesterday. We spent the night in Wellington, and today Alex and I made our ways (separately) to Auckland. I took the all-day train ride through the mountains and central plateau and tomorrow will ride north to tour the Northlands for about two weeks before I leave; he caught a late flight and tomorrow flies back to the States. I looked at the gradient maps of the terrain I'll be covering, and was disappointed at how small the hills were. How far I've come since I got here...
The bus ride gave me a taste of the varying climates of the Southern Alps. They're called the Alps, but they didn't really look like it. North/East of them it's rolling grassy hills and wine country. As you get into them, it looks more like Colorado than Europe, with grass- and scrub-covered mountains by you and more jagged peaks in the middle distance. This carries on down to Queenstown and the lovely lakes around it. We biked north of there, over the Haast Pass, and then up the West coast of the island. Starting a little South of the Haast Pass, things get more lush than the Alps around Queenstown, more mountains filled with subtropical bush. I'm told the West Coast is show-stoppingly gorgeous; the Haast Pass certainly was, but for the nearly week we pedaled up the Coast, until we got well above the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers and all of the places that are said to be truly spectacular, the weather was too interested in dumping rain on us for any appreciation of the scenery we couldn't see through the grey. Still, what we saw was nice, and it was a good ride when we weren't like drowned rats.
The human kindness moment of my trip so far was a point where, halfway through the one day where it was really, truly torrential rain, maybe 60 km through a 120 km day, we stopped for lunch. We pulled into a Department of Conservation campsite, assuming it would have a roofed picnic table, because they almost always do. This one didn't. Riding in 50 degree pouring rain is fine, because you keep yourself warm pedaling. The second you stop, however, you realize just how wet you are and just how cold you are. Alex was in the bathroom and I was hunched under the tiny roof of an info board, contemplating how to have a dryish lunch, when an Irish gentleman popped out of his campervan and invited the pair of us in for a nice, warm cuppa. He and his wife (who had a wonderfully full accent only helped by loose dentures) were spending three weeks touring and were well and happy to help us out, which was exactly what we needed. We had a warm, nice ten minutes, and they went their way and we ate lunch under the awning in front of the toilet doors, which wasn't as bad as that makes it sound.
After we got up towards Greymouth, things improved. The weather turned nicer, first cloudy but not raining, and then out and out sunny. In Greymouth, we stayed with an old Lanakila friend, Jade Blackman. It was a perfect break from touring: we rolling into town at about 4:00 (I think), showered, had pizza and a few beers, watched him coach the women's regional developmental hockey team (He's the regional development director for what we call field hockey but here is a coed and a bit more serious sport.) and then spent the rest of the evening putting back a few more beers, playing cards, and generally shooting the shit. It was lovely to catch up with Jade, who is one of those people you want to have around more than they can be, and it broke up the touring. It was great to cruise up the coast on a sunny day the next day, but the pause really helped us recharge.
After we left the coast in Westport, we turned back East towards Picton and the ferry back to the North Island. We had a day-plus of very gradual uphill, but then a day and a half of similarly gradual downhill with a tailwind, which makes you feel like you're a very fast rider indeed. We stopped to do some wine tasting in the Marlbrough region which made me pretty sure I need to spend more time with white wines, which I have largely ignored hitherto, and then caught the ferry yesterday. We spent the night in Wellington, and today Alex and I made our ways (separately) to Auckland. I took the all-day train ride through the mountains and central plateau and tomorrow will ride north to tour the Northlands for about two weeks before I leave; he caught a late flight and tomorrow flies back to the States. I looked at the gradient maps of the terrain I'll be covering, and was disappointed at how small the hills were. How far I've come since I got here...
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
WWOOFing Part Deux
So yesterday I eased back into touring by biking the almost 30 km from the ferry down to Blenheim. Today I got back into things for real by biking 130 km from Blenheim down to Kaikoura. The ride was pretty flat after a hilly first 20 km, but it more than made up for that by slamming me with a headwind the whole way (headwinds are like biking uphill, but without the payoff of the downhill afterwards) and then raining for the last 40 km, while 50 degrees the whole damn way. So far, the North Island wins in the contest for my affections. Still, the magic formula holds: take some mountains, run them down into the sea, put a road along the coast, and I will love it. The formula's batting 1.000, people.
So, WWOOFing stay number two: I moseyed (if one can mosey on a loaded bike...) south from Paraparaumu to Porirua to a goat cheese farm on a road named Moonshine. I was staying with a middle-aged couple, Mike and Christine, who had two kids off at college. I say it was a farm because it is, but the farm is a hobby/source of food, not income. Christine works and Mike does consulting work occasionally, and farms the rest of the time. They have six goats which he milks and makes cheese from, seven pigs that eat the whey, trim the grass in the orchard (various fruit trees, not just/primarily apples) and occasionally get spitroasted and whole mess of sheep and a few cows up on the ridge above the farm in a big pasture. My responsibilities were largely carpentry, as Mike accurately described himself as a "bush carpenter". First I made the pigs a luxurious pigpen (I mean, it was insulated. Those pigs, they don't know how good they have it. After that, I installed some tongue and groove paneling in their son's bedroom where his bed's corner had punched through the plaster, and did a few other sundry things.
In terms of personality fits, this was much better than the yoga centre. They saw their role as sort of in between bosses and host family, which was perfect. The food was wonderful, I did some good baking with Christine, got a tour of the bush on the farm from Mike, and spent all of last Monday and half of Tuesday out on the yacht they share with two other families fishing with Mike and my brother Alex, who Mike saw fit to invite with us. We caught a whole mess of snapper and some Kahawai, as well as a small shark (we released it when Mike caught it, but it found my hook quite literally two minutes later, so Mike killed it as a danger to our bait, and fed it to the pigs) and a gurnerd. We had a hoot, and I ate a lot of fish the next couple days.
Mike is also a man enamored of eating everything. He introduced me to eating fish heads (or at least the edible parts thereof), which is delicious, and we had a nice dinner of pig hearts, liver and testes one night when Christine wasn't home. I got to help milk goats, which was easier than I feared, and also with the cheesemaking, which turns out to be one of those things that isn't as hard as you think, but which requires a good bit of precision to turn out correct. It is now my position that my mother should get a small herd of goats for cheese and wool. (Goat milk is good for arthritis, dad!)
They had a good deal of macrocarpa lumber that had been milled from a tree on the property, so I made Mike a wooden feta mold to replace his plastic one that had been made from a jug. If you know about such things, I decided to hand-cut dovetails for the joints, which is a nice idea, but I did it on a plank that I had planed to thickness using a power planer and belt sander and cut the dovetails using a coping saw and a large push saw, which are not remotely the correct tools for the job. It turned out fine structurally, but I didn't take a picture of it because I was so embarassed at how ugly the dovetails were.
In any event, I had a lovely time at the farm. I am now over being freaked out by the pupils goats have (Have you ever seen them? THEY'RE RECTANGULAR!) and think that pigs make maybe the funniest noises of any animal. Being wired the way I am, I also now want to make cheese. I don't think I'll get any dairy animals anytime soon, but I may well experiment with the rest of the process next time I have access to a kitchen of my own. It was a wonderful spell, although I'm glad to be back cycle touring again. (So long as it isn't 50 and raining all the time.)
So, WWOOFing stay number two: I moseyed (if one can mosey on a loaded bike...) south from Paraparaumu to Porirua to a goat cheese farm on a road named Moonshine. I was staying with a middle-aged couple, Mike and Christine, who had two kids off at college. I say it was a farm because it is, but the farm is a hobby/source of food, not income. Christine works and Mike does consulting work occasionally, and farms the rest of the time. They have six goats which he milks and makes cheese from, seven pigs that eat the whey, trim the grass in the orchard (various fruit trees, not just/primarily apples) and occasionally get spitroasted and whole mess of sheep and a few cows up on the ridge above the farm in a big pasture. My responsibilities were largely carpentry, as Mike accurately described himself as a "bush carpenter". First I made the pigs a luxurious pigpen (I mean, it was insulated. Those pigs, they don't know how good they have it. After that, I installed some tongue and groove paneling in their son's bedroom where his bed's corner had punched through the plaster, and did a few other sundry things.
In terms of personality fits, this was much better than the yoga centre. They saw their role as sort of in between bosses and host family, which was perfect. The food was wonderful, I did some good baking with Christine, got a tour of the bush on the farm from Mike, and spent all of last Monday and half of Tuesday out on the yacht they share with two other families fishing with Mike and my brother Alex, who Mike saw fit to invite with us. We caught a whole mess of snapper and some Kahawai, as well as a small shark (we released it when Mike caught it, but it found my hook quite literally two minutes later, so Mike killed it as a danger to our bait, and fed it to the pigs) and a gurnerd. We had a hoot, and I ate a lot of fish the next couple days.
Mike is also a man enamored of eating everything. He introduced me to eating fish heads (or at least the edible parts thereof), which is delicious, and we had a nice dinner of pig hearts, liver and testes one night when Christine wasn't home. I got to help milk goats, which was easier than I feared, and also with the cheesemaking, which turns out to be one of those things that isn't as hard as you think, but which requires a good bit of precision to turn out correct. It is now my position that my mother should get a small herd of goats for cheese and wool. (Goat milk is good for arthritis, dad!)
They had a good deal of macrocarpa lumber that had been milled from a tree on the property, so I made Mike a wooden feta mold to replace his plastic one that had been made from a jug. If you know about such things, I decided to hand-cut dovetails for the joints, which is a nice idea, but I did it on a plank that I had planed to thickness using a power planer and belt sander and cut the dovetails using a coping saw and a large push saw, which are not remotely the correct tools for the job. It turned out fine structurally, but I didn't take a picture of it because I was so embarassed at how ugly the dovetails were.
In any event, I had a lovely time at the farm. I am now over being freaked out by the pupils goats have (Have you ever seen them? THEY'RE RECTANGULAR!) and think that pigs make maybe the funniest noises of any animal. Being wired the way I am, I also now want to make cheese. I don't think I'll get any dairy animals anytime soon, but I may well experiment with the rest of the process next time I have access to a kitchen of my own. It was a wonderful spell, although I'm glad to be back cycle touring again. (So long as it isn't 50 and raining all the time.)
Monday, April 5, 2010
Back in the saddle...
Sorry things have been quiet around here. I'll try to be updating more frequently again. Last I left things, I was setting off on a bout of WWOOFing before biking. I spent three weeks doing so, first at a yoga centre, and then at a goat milk farm. As of today, I've started biking again, after taking the ferry down to the South Island. The plan was for Alex to be with me starting today, but he has to fly up to Auckland to get a replacement passport for the one that he lost/had stolen, so he'll catch up to me in a few days.
I'll update you on things in parts. First, the WWOOFing at the yoga centre. I had a notion that I could learn some about organic gardening while helping my hamstrings etc through yoga. I achieved half of that. The Centre was run by a couple, Eric and Cathryn. Eric was a Dutchman who had emigrated to New Zealand in the late 60s, spent the next 2 1/2 years walking around the country with a packhorse, and then run a vegatarian restaurant in Wellington before opening the yoga centre in the late 70s. In the mid-80s it moved from Wellington to Paraparaumu, roughly 20 km North, where I found it. (Paraparaumu is prounounced with the "para" like paraplegic or paratrouper, which threw me for a bit, but if you're a resident, you just say "Parparam".) Cathryn was a good bit younger, having met Eric in the mid-90s on a plane flight to Bolivia, and decided to quit her overly stressful job in mainframe repair and relocate to the centre. They also have an 11 year-old son, Ananda, who loved unicycles.
The centre was kind of ramshackle, in a charming way. You could tell it used to be a place where a lot happened, but, my theory is, as Eric got old and the two of them spent more time childraising, the place itself got less vibrant and became more just a home that also had two yoga classes a day. My role was to work four hours a day, do all the yoga I liked, and have free time the rest of the day. As it turned out, my work was simply to chop wood for eight days straight. I have no problem chopping wood, but eight days is a bit much, and it was all stupid little wood, so I didn't even get the satisfaction of splitting big, manly hunks of firewood. (I learned everything I need to know about how mild the winter is here from how small the firewood is...)
The yoga was nice, although less challenging than the yoga I've done in the states, and did my hamstrings wonders. The area was beautiful, and I took a nice long bike ride every day, but beyond that there was basically nothing to do. I spent a lot of time reading, which is fine, but was kind of bored otherwise. The diet, however, gave me some trouble. I had oatmeal for breakfast, which was just fine, but then lunch and dinner involved a salad that was always lettuce, beets and raw carrot with no dressing, and an entree (I'm using that word the American way; over here it means appetizer.) of steamed broccoli, beans from the garden, brown rice and quinoa or chickpeas. Every day. Sometimes there Cathryn made rice and tofu cakes that were good and crunchy, but bland as. I have no problem with any part of that food, but added up, it was only sort of satisfying, and the repetition was killing me. So I decided to jump ship for a goat farm, which turned out to be a great choice. More on that next time.
I'll update you on things in parts. First, the WWOOFing at the yoga centre. I had a notion that I could learn some about organic gardening while helping my hamstrings etc through yoga. I achieved half of that. The Centre was run by a couple, Eric and Cathryn. Eric was a Dutchman who had emigrated to New Zealand in the late 60s, spent the next 2 1/2 years walking around the country with a packhorse, and then run a vegatarian restaurant in Wellington before opening the yoga centre in the late 70s. In the mid-80s it moved from Wellington to Paraparaumu, roughly 20 km North, where I found it. (Paraparaumu is prounounced with the "para" like paraplegic or paratrouper, which threw me for a bit, but if you're a resident, you just say "Parparam".) Cathryn was a good bit younger, having met Eric in the mid-90s on a plane flight to Bolivia, and decided to quit her overly stressful job in mainframe repair and relocate to the centre. They also have an 11 year-old son, Ananda, who loved unicycles.
The centre was kind of ramshackle, in a charming way. You could tell it used to be a place where a lot happened, but, my theory is, as Eric got old and the two of them spent more time childraising, the place itself got less vibrant and became more just a home that also had two yoga classes a day. My role was to work four hours a day, do all the yoga I liked, and have free time the rest of the day. As it turned out, my work was simply to chop wood for eight days straight. I have no problem chopping wood, but eight days is a bit much, and it was all stupid little wood, so I didn't even get the satisfaction of splitting big, manly hunks of firewood. (I learned everything I need to know about how mild the winter is here from how small the firewood is...)
The yoga was nice, although less challenging than the yoga I've done in the states, and did my hamstrings wonders. The area was beautiful, and I took a nice long bike ride every day, but beyond that there was basically nothing to do. I spent a lot of time reading, which is fine, but was kind of bored otherwise. The diet, however, gave me some trouble. I had oatmeal for breakfast, which was just fine, but then lunch and dinner involved a salad that was always lettuce, beets and raw carrot with no dressing, and an entree (I'm using that word the American way; over here it means appetizer.) of steamed broccoli, beans from the garden, brown rice and quinoa or chickpeas. Every day. Sometimes there Cathryn made rice and tofu cakes that were good and crunchy, but bland as. I have no problem with any part of that food, but added up, it was only sort of satisfying, and the repetition was killing me. So I decided to jump ship for a goat farm, which turned out to be a great choice. More on that next time.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The (Other) Windy City
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.
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 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.
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