I flew into Auckland on November 4th
on Qantas airlines via Brisbane, Los Angeles, Portland, and
Anchorage. I completely lost Monday the 3rd over the
international date line, my bag missed the flight out of Brisbane,
and I had a middle seat on a 14-hour flight. When I got to the hostel
was told I made reservations for the wrong days and there would not
be space until the next day. It was getting late in the evening and
had nowhere to go. But that is no way to start. In reality, the
flights were smooth, I was able to take a 12-hour layover in Portland
and visit family, my middle seat was big enough to curl up sideways
and sleep in like a bed, I met several very nice local Kiwis while
waiting for my bag to catch up in Auckland, which only took about an
hour (incredible considering it flew in from another country and on
another airlines), I was the only person on the bus to the city
center so the driver dropped me off right in front of the hostel, and
the hostess at the hostel found a bed for me at another hostel about
a block away. So much can go wrong while traveling, not just in
flying, but in driving, boating, or biking and it is easy to lose
perspective. My perspective is that everything that goes wrong in
transport is self-inflicted. Life could be fairly consistent and
predictable if I stayed home. That's not much fun for me, so I bike.
I don't mind the sunburn, hours alone, or unpredictable sleeping
accommodations. It's the unpredictability of traveling that makes
life interesting.
I spent three nights in Auckland. I met
Craig, Nikki, Liberty, and Andrew, friends Alex, a good friend of
mine from Australia. It was nice to find a connection in a land so
far from home. I bought a bright green bicycle from a shop not too
far from the city center. Before I even left the shop his name was
“Hulk.” Once Hulk was loaded and ready to go we took the train
from down town Auckland to Pukekohe, a town to the south. I've
learned that the suburbs are the worst places to bike. On my last
trip Molly and I took the tram out of town and met up with a couple
of bikers who started a whole day before us and took the entire day
just to get out of Portland, Oregon. It took me two days to navigate
Los Angeles and another two days to get through Atlanta, Georgia. In
short, the open road begins out of town.
On the first day out Hulk held up, but
the bike rack less so. In half a day of riding, two screws stripped
out and my whole load fell off the back of Hulk. Luckily, I was
planning on meeting up with an old friend of the family in Hamilton
and seeing as that I was almost there, Steve and Ben came to the
rescue and drove out to pick me up from the side of the road. Ben
found new screws for the rack, but that's when I found where the real
damage was. The screws were fine, but the rack lasted one more day
before rattling loose again. It is now held together by zip ties.
Which brings up another old lesson: equipment with many parts has
the potential for many problems. I've counted eight separate parts on
the new bike rack. My old one was one solid piece and I never had to
touch it.
After Hamilton, I stopped at the
Waitomo glow worm caves for a night and two days. I went on a
walking/boating tour through a gentle part of the river that carved
out the caves, then I took an inner-tubing tour through a rougher
part of the upper river. I wore a wet suit, jumped off waterfalls,
and drifted down the river with thousands of glow worms lighting up
the cave and reflecting off the water.
It took another two days to bike to
Rotorua. Half way there I camped on a quite, overgrown frontage road
next to a pen of cows. I always try to camp discreetly, but with 30
cows gathered on the other side of the fence watching me set up my
tent, I thought I might have to find another spot away from my new
friends. They eventually dispersed and did not give me away.
In Rotorua I checked in to a hotel for
two nights and went Zorbing! It is the greatest game in the world.
Craig from Auckland gave me passes to give it a try. It is basically
a person sitting in giant hamster ball being rolled down a hill. I
went down twice and kept my breakfast down the whole time.
Tomorrow I'm off to Taupo then taking
the desert road towards Wellington.
