The day got off to a little bit of a rocky start. My rear tire felt a little flat, so I went to add some air to it. I get out my hand pump, lock it onto the tire valve, start to pump, and then disaster strikes. The valve head rips off of the tire's inner tube. All of the air immediately rushes out of tube, and the tire is completely flat in about two seconds. I had no choice but to replace the tube, which is a morale-depleting task to say the least. Luckily I got a lot of practice replacing tubes before I left the States, so at the very least I had some idea of what I was doing. It ended up not being too difficult; the inner tube was inserted and the tire slid surprisinglt smoothly back on. I pumped up the tire, and was off.
I did get lost a couple of times in the suburbs right outside of Auckland. Went the wrong way twice and then took a "scenic" bicycle path to avoid the main traffic-congested road out of Auckland. It wasn't very scenic at all- took me through some residential neighborhoods so the scenery mostly consisted of peoples' houses. The path looked like it was designed more for sport cyclists than us hardcore tourers. Eventually wound my way back to the main road and everything went pretty smoothly from there.
Interesting side note: I ran into some 20-year-old Australian gangsta kids on my way out of Auckland. They were very pleased about Obama being elected president. Go Obama!
I found a small fruit and vegetable roadside stand right outside of Clevedon, where I stopped for lunch. There's a weekly farmer's market there every Sunday but unfortunately I rolled in at 12:30 and missed it by a half-hour. I picked up a peach and an apple at the stand though, so all was not lost. There were a lot of plums and apricots, a few peaches and apples, and also some passionfruit. I am a little squeezed for space so couldn't really carry too much. The peach was a Golden Queen, similar in taste (sweet, not very acidic) to our honey peaches and with the same yellow-orangish flesh of our newer donut peaches. Most of the apple varieties were variations of Gala- Royal Gala, Re-gala, and just plain Gala. The kind I got was called Pacific Beauty- sweet and firm. All of the fruit was from this year's season.
Stopped for the night in Kaiaua, a very small town right on the northern coast. There are a lot of people who have come with their boats to stroll around the Firth of Thames. Not too much of a beach for swimming. Had to stay in a cheap hotel as there are no hostels.
Tomorrow am going on to Thames, an old gold mining town.
Distance Covered: 90km
At the top of the first big hill, of which there were many.
Enjoying my peach!
Very good advice.
No comments:
Post a Comment