Category: New Zealand

Low Down Below

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About cameras and me and cycle touring

Camera #1 I dropped in a pit toilet in Asia and yes I actually picked it up and saved all my Europe and Asia photos. Probably the most disgusting thing I have ever undertaken in my life, my hand still shudders at the really horrific memory!

Camera #2 was destroyed by the Gobi desert and later repaired in China. The repair didn’t hold and the camera never recovered from being gobied!

Camera #3 I got drunk and lost it, New Zealand wine is damn good!

Camera #4 my present camera is a bit temperamental but holding strong for a cheapy!

Enjoy the photos taken by a friend prior to getting my temperamental camera working again…I am grateful to have some…..

LOW DOWN BELOW

Here I sit at the Auckland airport reflecting upon cycling to bottom of the south island then back up the west coast. My visit time has expired and I have run out of time to enjoy the beautiful people of New Zealand. And I am saddened to have missed a visit with a fellow cyclist I met on the south island. I have no clue as to the distance I cycled but I do remember several rainy days where the relentless cold rain kept me laughing and pleasantly distracted from peddling. The cycling ended on the Queen Charlotte Track. A beautiful 3 day (71km) dirt track intended for mountain biking. Pandemic the magic bicycle stood strong for the challenge and appreciated taking the second day off from the trail and we took the beautiful tar sealed road instead. My gear took a boat to the next port so Pandemic and I enjoyed a light and super fast 20 km in the rain. The track emerges into the community of where a boat transported us across the sound into Picton where I took another ferry and then a train back to Auckland.

I haven’t cycled in about a week now and I do believe this cycle touring business has become a bit of an addiction. My spirits are low and I believe I may be suffering from endorphin withdrawal. When I finally do hang up the bicycle I am not sure how long this cycler’s sadness will last. As I sorted out visas this week, this endorphin low persisted with a mighty lonesome vengeance. I am hoping it isn’t anything a couple 100 kms of cycling won’t cure.

I am headed for Darwin, Australia in a few hours to explore the Northern Territory. I had never intended on visiting Australia or undertaking cycling across such a huge spendy country but in order to board the plane for New Zealand I was forced to buy a onward ticket to somewhere. The cheapest option was Australia. As most of you know a year and a half ago my travels plans involved learning to sail and buying a sailboat. I don’t exactly know how to sail so I am hoping to find a gig as crew on a boat headed from Australia to Indonesia or back to New Zealand to pick up some skills. Cycling a crossed Indonesia is one part of the world line I have left to cycle and I have been told I may be able to find a yacht to bring me to the starting line.

Perverted for Penguins

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Notice the one in the back singing and playing the tuba
I have temporarily renamed Pandemic my magic bicycle, Regatta the magic bicycle after the great sailing conditions the Otago peninsula is producing today. I am hoping that the wind shifts once again and sails Regatta the magic bicycle up this 70 kilometer cascading hill. The wind sounds like I am at the opera and harmonizes with each new bend in the hill I peddle. The musical westerly, easterly and northerly winds blend into a bellowing rhythmic percussion that insists on chilling my frosty ears. I peddle and thrash at dawn through the icy windy song on schedule.
I have an important appointment to keep. I notified the yellow eyed penguins yesterday that I would be coming. But just in case they didn’t receive my message, I have brought along three tins of sardines. I figure it couldn’t hurt to smell like fish while I hideout and wait in the tall grasses at Sand Fly Bay beach. The stealth bomber hideout and hope to see penguins, while looking up for albatross, mission has begun.
The yellow eyed penguins are shy little ocean critters that prefer a lot of privacy. They can’t waddle that fast so they are a bit self conscience of their figures. They are quite selective of when, how and if they will come to shore to their nests. They always have to have it their way, that figures. However, I let them know ahead of time that I thought being 21inches (1.9 feet) tall, sporting black and white feathers and possessing yellow banded demonic eyes made them pretty damn cute so they need not to worry about being so self conscience. And, they could feel free to waddle about their business free of judgment or criticism. My only trepidation about the first meeting is that they might think I am some kind of voyeuristic pervert lurking in the tall beach grass salivating to pitch a look.
It has been three days now. The tall grass that engulfs my little green tent is bending over in defeated boredom. The stealth bomber hideout and hope to see penguins while looking up for albatross mission has been …….. oh wait…..is that a tuba I hear…….no……it’s them….here they come. Marching out from the ocean like a St Patrick’s Day parade, in full waddle and dressed in their Sunday’s best plumage on a mission of their own to climb the grassy embankment to find their nests. They don’t seem to see me or smell my rotted 3 day old sardine stench. This is a spectacular sight even for a perverted for penguins cyclist who has been patiently waiting in the tall grasses to catch a glimpse of the yellowed eyed penguin colony and all their waddling glamour. I will continue looking up for albatross as I cycle on into the southern tip of the south Island.
As I sail back down the 70 kilometer hill with wind power and satisfaction at my back I grin through the cold winter air over Regatta the magic bicycles handlebars. I am bubbling over with the overwhelming gratitude of a mission complete. The stealth bomber hideout and hope to see yellowed eyed penguins while looking up for albatross mission has been a success.

I Have a Candy Problem!

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I am running down the streets of Dunedin like a lunatic at a Spanish bull run. The metal on the bottom of my cycling shoes is clamoring like church bells against the sidewalk. I am on a timer, I have 60 seconds to get to the bank machine and then back to the computer head set that in my hustle I left dangling in the internet café. I shouted to the internet café employee please don’t touch that computer, I will explain later, I will be back in sixty seconds and ran out the door. He looked at me as if to say is this some kind of game show?
 
I wish I had been elected for a game show but I haven’t. I wish I had a great cycling story to share full of triumph and glory but I don’t. However, while I was cycling through the mountains in central Otago some fraudulent hooligan stole my debit card numbers and went shopping at Walmart in Alabama. The thieves made out with $250 worth of stolen goods and I don’t even like Walmart. The fraud department caught on quick and put a hold on my bank card and it stopped working sometime last week.
 
I called the bank and used up the rest of my skyppe online phone credit. I convinced women number one from the fraud department to push her magic computer button and open my card for 60 seconds so I could run to the bank machine and withdraw money. I hit the maximum amount allowed and then the card was shut down for good and I said goodbye to all access to money.
 
I am in Dunedin, New Zealand camped by the beach waiting for a bank card to arrive from Alaska. Pandemic my magic bicycle is perched by a picnic table and enjoying the ocean air acting awfully patient under the circumstances. After talking to a dozen or so bank officials I think they have sent me a new bank card. Women number six wasn’t sure if they had received my signed fax and special request to express mail me a new card in New Zealand. And after having spoke to the entire office and their entire office women number twelve simply picked the phone up and said, are you the women trying to get a bank card sent to New Zealand? I believe she made about 4 more phone calls and I am now fairly confident a new bank card will be on it’s way to New Zealand in 3-5 business days.
 
When this adventure started 9 countries ago I was convinced the fraud department at my bank was opposed to this idea of me cycling around the world. Every country border I peddled a crossed they would put a hold on my bankcard and I would have to figure out how to call them. At the time, I didn’t have my online skyppe phone number so I would have to figure out how to make a phone call from various phone booths, a remarkably difficult task, which proved to be far more time consuming and exhausting then cycling up a mountain. I have now decided that the fraud department at my bank is very supportive of the adventure because $250 isn’t all that much considering the damage they could of done. Besides all the goods that the fraudulent hooligans made off with are from Walmart so the goods will break soon.
 
Dunedin is a great place to be poor. The city’s famous tourist attraction is the albatross colony and the yellow eyed penguin colony. I will be cycling out to the tip of the Otago peninsula, an easy day ride, to hide out on the beach and wait for the yellow eyed penguins while looking up and watching for albatross. There is an expensive tourist viewing center for both bird colonies but planning and scheming a stealth hide out mission is more within my budget right now and more fun. The campground during the last couple of days has been great. It has free hot showers so I am superclean, the kind of clean that even sparkling military white gloves would approve of. The camping park is designed for families on a holiday so the camp store has the most extensive selection of penny candy I have ever seen and a Henderson can stay pretty happy and go pretty far on a daily dose of candy. As long as my teeth hold up waiting for a new bank card has been pretty sweet.

For The Birds!

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So, I am sitting in my tent laughing at the birds outside. It’s like being in a surround sound IMAX auditorium, the volume of the birds singing all around me is so loud that I almost feel like I need earplugs. I haven’t figured out quite yet what kind of bird species they have here in New Zealand but they are loud enough that they must be as big as dinosaurs. I hope they aren’t upset at me for free camping under their tree out here on the river bank. As long as they are not like the birds in Alfred Hitchcock’s epic bird horror flick, I should be alright. The nice thing is they are singing in complete harmony so I have taken to calling them The Supremes, so I can sing along with them, Stop in the Name of Love before you break my heart ….Stop!!!
I think it is Mar 22, I lost a whole day to get here. I flew across some imaginary dateline somewhere over the Pacific, they take away a day when you do that. I guess it is like a day bank. Like an investment, I will get my day back later. That day will likely be more fun then because it will be like new because it has been in storage so long. I feel like my cycling strength must have been in storage as well. I am counting on getting that back as well. I have only made it about 110 km in two days on the bike. I was so keen to be back on the bike after a 3 month break that I headed straight south out the Auckland airport. I headed south on two new tires and two new tubes and my trusty patch kit. I hadn’t expected to encounter anything my patch kit couldn’t handle and have come ridiculously accustomed to cycling without a spare tube. But as Murphy ’s Law will have it, I did bust a presto tire valve, something I have never done before. I was a couple of km down a side road camping out in a farmer’s field this morning when I the valve blew off like an erupting volcano so I figured no better time then the present then to go meet my neighbors and the folks of NZ.
Alan and Carol Chase not only called around to find a place open on a Sunday but then Alan drove me there and then insisted he help me fix my bike. Afterwards we visited over tea and some crazy good muffins that Carol had made. I listened to their concerns about the present drought in NZ. NZ is known to be green and clean. It is very clean here but brown. Every shade of brown dried grasses and crops speckle the hillside. I wish the cows and the sheep all the best and hope they are getting enough to eat as I peddle by. I am presently in Ngalea, North Island and can’t wait to see the Bay of Plenty, South Pacific Ocean tomorrow afternoon. Today I am grateful for the little bit of rain NZ got last night, for Alan and Carol’s kind hearts and that the supreme bird choir have finally sang their hearts out and have gone to sleep!