Treacherous Thunderstorms

It was raining today when I got up. Weather forecast was predicting thunderstorms all day so I just took a bus to Whitianga at the top of the peninsula. I had heard that it is usually necessray to have to take at least one wheel off of a bike on these buses, so was a little bit apprehensive, but the driver was really nice and just put the bike on the bus in one piece. New Zealand has a really extensive bus network so it would be quite possible just to take a bus from one place to another, but then off course one would miss the thrill of cycling. We stopped at the top of one of the mountains to take a picture. It was really a shame that it was raining; apparently on a sunny day you can see clear across the Gulf to Auckland. Below is the one picture I got.


The humidity has reached record high levels, even for here. It hit 100% yesterday during the night and has only tampered down to about 80% today. It was insane. Makes it incredubly hard to sleep- nearly everyone at the hostel I was staying at woke up at some point during the night becuase of the humidity.

New Zealanders are a very eco-friendly people and big supporters of the green movement. All of the houses are built with as many windows as possible to let light in during the summer; none have lights on inside during the day. They're all really beautiful- some have entire rows of windows instead of walls on some sides. Its a little bit unusual to look at a house and realize you are looking directly in at someone's living room or kitchen, but it works really well. I'll try and get some pictures up in the next couple of days.

Below are just some pictures from the hostel in Whitianga.

Kaiaua to Thames

Not much news today. Just went from Kaiaua to Thames, only about 45km. Not very exciting riding, very flat. Started out overcast but got sunnier as the day progressed.

This town was the site of a big gold rush in the second half of the nineteenth century. Apparently at the gold rush's peak the town's population exceeded the population of Auckland, which is very surprising considering that this town is only as big as if not smaller than Manchester, MD. I took a tour through the old mine. Pictures are below. The guide and I had to hunch over to walk through the mine shafts. When the mine was operating a lot of gold was lost because the process used to separate the gold from all the other minerals in the rock was only about 40% efficient. The guide said most of the gold that was lost just washed into the surrounding bay, but it would be too expensive to re-excavate it. The guide had all of the old machinery and he turned it on to show me the process. He had all the materials for separating gold too, including a small vial of mercury. I got to hold it, which was pretty cool. The sound from the paddles that crushed all of the extracted rocks was extremely loud. We had to wear earmuffs when he turned it on. During the mine's heyday (it was in operation between the 1860s and 1900) there were 800 of the crushers running (only 3 were on when I was there), and they would be on 24hrs a day, 6 days a week. The sound from the crushers could be heard within about a 20km radius, but the townspeople got so used to hearing them that when they were turned off on Sunday they couldn't sleep because of the quiet. It would definitely take a while to get used to them. 3 were loud enough!

Going on to the top of the Coromandel Peninsula tomorrow. Supposed to be a fertile fruit region so I'll see what I can find. I cooked my first meal tonight- pasta with a mix of vegetables. Turned out decent. Still needs some work but I'm sure I'll get plenty of practice. There's a chance of rain so I might be delayed.

The gold and other minerals were separated on this table. It vibrated really strongly, and the gold and silver would stay at the top since they were the heaviest while all the other minerals ran down to the bottom.

Gold and silver were futher purified and separated from the mercury extract here. The final ingots had both gold and silver mixed, and the two would only be separated at a mint.

The gray lines in the rock to the left are what indicate the presence of gold and silver. The rock is quartz. The rock to the right is iron pyrite- Fool's Gold.

This is the entrance to the middle level mine shaft. There were five levels in all.

And the sound of the day is whoosh....

But not the whoosh of me speeding by. The whoosh of all the air instantaneously going out of my back tire.

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.

Auckland Day 2

Today was my final day in Auckland. Tomorrow's the big day. It'll be the first of any hardcore cycling- I haven't done much riding in the past months at home because of the weather so we'll see how out of shape I am. I did some cycling around the city today to warm up all the muscles, nothing too strenuous but the hills make for a good workout.




In the morning I went to the Parnell Rose Gardens, a 4 acre garden located not too far away from my hostel. It was pretty peaceful; I chilled out there and ate cookies whilst planning out my route for the next couple of days. Pictures to the left and below.











The evening was pretty interesting. The annual Lantern Festival is in Auckland for this weekend only. It's a celebration of the Chinese New Year, held on one of the thoroughfares of the University of Auckalnd and in the neighboring park. The thoroughfare was absolutely jam-packed with Asian street vendors, most selling food but a few selling trinkets (paper lanterns, noise-makers, etc) or handing out Buddhist literature. Overall it looked like pretty authentic Asian food, although there were a few stalls selling foods like grilled corn on the cob. I didn't get anything to eat as I had already gotten fish and chips at a small take-out restaurant near the hotel.

The main part of the festival was in the park next to the thoroughfare. The entire park was illuminated with lanterns- many of the typical small globe-like lanterns hanging from trees, but there were a bunch of really ornate ones on the ground shaped as stars or moons or dragons. There were also a few stages set up with Asian performers, mostly singers but a few instrumentalists. All in all it was really interesting. Pictures below.

Touching Down in New Zealand

So I got in yesterday. The flight was in two parts: BWI to LAX, then LAX to Auckland. I had to pack the bike in a box to put in on the pain, which almost turned into a disaster. I waited until the day/night before the flight to pack up the bike, thinking it wouldn't be too difficult of a task. The guys at the local bike shop said all that had to be done was remove the wheels, turn the handlebars, remove the pedals, and add plenty of padding to the box. No way. My mother and I spent all of the night before wrestling with the bike. Getting everything to fit in the box, making sure everything was tied down enough that it wouldn't shift while in transit, aligning everything so that it would just fit in the box. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to pack up a bike, it's probably just easier to take it into a bike shop and have them do it for you. That's definitely what I plan to do for the return trip. Eventually everything fit properly though, and after a lot of tape it was ready to ship. See picture below.



Packing it up turned out to be only the first hurdle. Once we got to BWI, United felt the need to slap on not just one, but two extra charges before they would accept the bike on the plane. The first charge was simply because I was taking a bike/oversized box onto the plane. The second was because the box weighed 61 pounds, 11 pounds over the acceptable weight of luggage. Nevermind that I was allowed to check two suitcases at 50 pounds each. Nevermind that the bike was the only piece of luggage I was checking. Nevermind that United couldn't even give me anything in writing stating that there was an extra fee for bikes. After waiting them out for about an hour, they eventually dropped the extra weight fee ($125) and I only had to pay the fee for a bike, which was $175. The flight from LAX to Auckland was handled by Air New Zealand, and they gave me no problems at all about the bike. The guy at the Air New Zealand counter took one look at the bike, slapped a luggage ticket on it, and wished me a nice flight. Completely hassle-free.

Some general info about New Zealand:

The US dollar is still strong here. The exchange rate works out to almost 2 USD to 1 New Zealand Dollar. Definitely a plus.

Since it's the southern hemisphere it is summer here. The weatheris very warm, usually high 70s to 80s during the day. The sun is also very strong; I am applying very liberal amounts of sunscreen, hopefully it will be enough.

No pennies are used. All of the shops/stores/restaurants/etc round subtotals to the nearest ten cents. I'm not sure exactly what is the cutoff for whether the total is rounded up or down. A total of $7.05 will be rounded down to $7, and a total of $7.55 will be rounded up to $7.60. Any money you lose by rounding up you gain back by rounding down. It works really well for avoiding carrying around a boatload of small change. The US should adopt a similar system.

I am staying in Auckland for two nights. The hostel I am staying at is Lantana Lodge, about a 15 min walk east of the city center.

There are a lot of Asian tourists and residents, and thus a lot of small Asian restaurants. I went to one tonight for dinner.

Will be exploring the city more tomorrow. Below is a picture of the city.

Who/What/Why

Hey. I'm Samuel. I have taken my last semester of high school off and am spending this time bicycle touring around New Zealand. I fly into Auckland on February 5th, and my ticket back to the States is for April 11th.

New Zealand has two main islands: the North Island and the South. The North is where most of the country's population is located; out of a population of only 4 million, 1 million live in Auckland, although this is no longer the country's capital. The South is where most of the sheep (who outnumber New Zealand's human population 5:1) are raised. The plan is to start on the North Island in Auckland, head east along the northern coast and then turn south. Once I get to Wellington, the southern-most city on the North Island, I'll hop over to the South Island and spend some time there. My time on the South Island should be wrapped up by around March 18, at which point I'll need to hoof it back up to Auckland for the 17th Annual Juggling Festival. After the festival weekend, I'll probably spend the rest of my two months biking around the western half of the North Island.

I'll be staying almost entirely in hostels; I do not have a tent with me so hopefully will not have to spend too many nights under the stars in the middle of a sheep field. New Zealand, catering to large numbers of backpackers and cyclists, has an extensive hostel network so finding a place to stay shouldn't be a problem.

I biked with my mother along the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia for a week last summer, but this will be my first time doing such an extended trip. Having spent a large number of years doing this when she was younger, my mother has provided me with a large amount of advice for touring. Follow along for the ride!