Wellington

Today I woke up to grey skies but hit the road out of Dannevirke anyway. I only went a short distance when I noticed wet cars coming from the direction I was heading in. I asked some drivers what the weather was like ahead and they told me foggy, drizzling rain. I turned around and decided to take the bus to Wellington.

I ended up on a Naked Bus which is a just a regular bus but with a strange name. It is a privately run company that incorporates some tour bus style comments while driving along and has a hop on hop off fare policy that a lot of backpackers use. They fit my bike in without a problem. It was only an hour and a half ride to central Wellington.

I was very happy that I took the bus instead of riding my bike. There was a 30 mile long section on a very narrow winding road that had no shoulder at all and a cliff on my side that went straight up almost from the white line of the road and the other side had a guard rail right up to the white line on its side. There was absolutely no room for a bike and there was heavy traffic in both directions. I do not think I would have survived that ride…worst, most dangerous road section I have ever seen.

There was beautiful scenery along that section of road but I could not take pics of it from the bus. It was just a high narrow gorge covered in thick forest all over. A river was rushing through the bottom and we followed the river in the bus. The rest of the road was mainly flat to rolling hills with some rather long grades. There was really nothing but rural farming along the road once we were out of the gorge. The ride along the coast maybe would have been nice on a clear day but in the rain we could not see much of anything.

So I am checked into a hostel in central Wellington right now. I have sky high pain and can barely move. What the hell is with my body? I can ride a bike hard all day and feel fine but an hour and a half on a bus and I am a total mess. I will not be leaving my room until morning. I feel a big seizure coming on but hopefully I will not have a bad one. I hate having attacks in public because people call emergency services and then I have to explain to the ambulance EMTs that I do not need to go to a hospital. Well I may not be fine but I do not need a hospital. So until later when I have recovered I will be offline.

I did manage to mostly recover overnight so this morning I went on a bike ride around Wellington and then went to the Te Papa Museum. I used a wheelchair at the museum to minimize my walking so I do not end up like I did last night with high pain issues. I enjoyed the museum and the ride around town. I am heading out for some lunch in a few but found some decent wifi so I decided to post now. A few pics.

Waipawa to Dannevirke NZ

Today I rode from Waipawa to Dannevirke on mostly flat roads with a few hills thrown in just to keep my heart working. The weather was beautiful again today. In two more days I will be in Wellington and from there I take the ferry over to the South Island. I will be tired by the time I hit Wellington and I might stay there for a couple days if I find some decent wifi just so I can catch up with all my backlog.

There are some bad roads starting in a few hours ride from where I am now and they stay bad all the way to Wellington. When I say bad I mean narrow twisting mountain roads that go up to almost 5000 feet and go up and down most of the way from what other bikers tell me. There is a beautiful gorge I will ride through but I might not even notice it focusing so hard on staying alive. The biggest climb is very dangerous on a bike with no shoulder and heavy traffic. Lots of bikers get hit from what I hear. I need to be extra careful. I will likely miss a lot of pic opportunities due to needing to focus on the road so much to stay alive. There are other options like a train and a bus or even hitch hiking but that is tough with a loaded touring bike. I will start the ride but if I have too many close calls I will abort and take one of the alternates.

The last couple days have been all rural countryside which I have already taken too many pics of so my camera has been staying in my pocket most of the time. I can’t load them anyways so I have sort of been out of the pic mood recently. Hopefully that isn’t a long term situation.

I had a great time at the campground. There were a bunch of Chech and German kids that are working in the apple fields. Just like at my last camp, they were moaning and groaning about how hard the work is and how fast they have to work just to make the minimum wage of $15 an hour. I get a kick out of all these kids that do not know what work is like. We had a good time talking about a wide range of things though. I enjoyed the night. Tonight my camp is empty so far but I am sure campers will show up. Later...

Napier South to Waipawa NZ

I was out of bed by 5:30 this morning eating my leftover Thai food from last night. Then I packed my bags and loaded my bike. I hung around for a while to let traffic thin out a bit then I hit the road.

As I was passing downtown I decided to get a cup of coffee and try to do some more wifi. The coffee was good but the frigging wifi is really pissing me off here. Even at Starbux I was unable to load any pics cause it just took too long. I gave up and hit the road.

Starting on the bike trail along the beach was nice and flat but the wind was blowing hard right in my face. The beach itself showed lots of signs of the big cyclone induced waves that were breaking way past the normal high water marks. The grass area way above the beach was covered in flotsam and gravel that the big waves threw up. The bike path had already been swept clean by the city workers and they were now busy trying to use mechanical sweepers to get the gravel off the grass. It looked like it was working.

I rode on to where the trail joins highway 2 and from that point on I had to pay attention to my riding to stay alive on this dangerous road. The shoulder varied from none to maybe 16 or 18 inches. The worst part though was they had a rumble strip right on the white line. There was not enough room to stay in the shoulder all the time and every time I strayed I ran over the frigging rumble strip. That is teeth rattling hell on a bike. Then the bridges, which were fairly long, were narrow with no room at all for a bike. One of them had a button to push that made lights blink but we all know how drivers ignore that. I would wait at the edge of the bridge for a break in traffic then sprint across as fast as I could.

There were no big hills today just some rollers with a few a bit long but they were all easy grades. I stopped for one more attempt at wifi when I saw a public library in Hastings. It was a mistake to stop. I had to pay $2.50 for 30 minutes of wifi but I did it because the libraries have had the best fastest wifi of all the places. Not this time. I used it for two minutes and the time expired. I went and asked about it and they gave me another voucher so I tried again. Same results…I was annoyed now so I just gave up. I told the worker and at that point she told me there is a 50 megabyte limit or 30 minutes. She never told me about the data limit or I would not have done it. The wifi really sucks in New Zealand, slow, low data limits and expensive to boot. The system must be antique dial up service it is so bad. When I get to Wellington in a few days I hope I can find a good fast wifi.

I am camping in a holiday park which is what campgrounds are called here. There are a lot of young kids from around the world in the holiday parks while they work on the farms here. The pick kiwis, apples, plums and all sorts of other fruits or sometimes veggies. They tell me the work is very hard and if they do not pick the minimum amount the get fired. Quite a few of them end up getting fired.

I plan on riding in the morning as far as I feel like but hopefully at least 60 miles but I hope to do more so that I can get to Wellington by Monday because there is more rain in the forecast for Tuesday on. I am just as tired of rain as I am the slow wifi. After being here a month now it has rained on 22 days for me. Such is the life of a wandering biker. Pics later when I find better wifi.

Napier and Side Trip to Cape Kidnappers Gannet Colonies

I went out in Napier after eating for two hours at the backpackers hotel. I cooked a huge pan of veggies with chicken breast in it and made a huge salad to go with it and that was my dinner. I wanted a beer next so I jumped on my bike and went looking for a pub. I ended up on the waterfront at a place called the Boardwalk. I asked the waiter for a bitter hoppy craft beer and he suggested one that I liked. I picked a table out overlooking the water next to a single woman. We started to talk. We chatted for about 45 minutes about her life and my bike ride. I enjoyed talking with her. She was in town because her ex is ill and the family was gathering so to speak. She was from Lower Hutt in Wellington. I hope I run into her again.

Then I went back to the hotel and hung out with the kids for a couple of hours before I was ready for an early bedtime. I won’t sleep but I will rest and my body needs that. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. It depends on how the weather goes if it is clear of just overcast I will ride South, if it is raining I will just stay here and look around town some more between showers.

Well I woke up to rain. So I decided to take a trip out to Cape Kidnappers to see the Gannet colonies there instead of riding in rain. Great choice. I enjoyed my day. I met a Swiss girl and hung out with her most of the day while we rode out to the Cape and watched the gannets. I got some great pics to show you of the Australian Gannets that breed there. I do not have the wifi speed to load them here. When I get some decent wifi I will load them for you. I think I had faster wifi in 1990 than New Zealand generally has today. Step it up please New Zealand.

Tomorrow is meant to be a nice day but rather windy still and blowing right out of the direction I am heading so I will have a headwind all day. Such is life.

Here is one pic so you know what a gannet is at least. This single pic took over 14 minutes to load.

Finally Morere to Napier/Hawkes Bay

Wednesday today and finally the rain stopped and some sun came out on a partly cloudy day. My bags were packed so I paid my bill at the Tea Room and I headed to Napier.

The road to Napier is not too bad. There are a few big hills that take a bit of spinning to get to the top but they are separated enough to give you time to recover before the next one. The rest of the way is some rolling hills and then mostly flat along the coastline. The 90 mile distance along with the big hills makes it a long hard day. Or you can take the bus in 3 hours.

I did not take much for pics today. I had one beautiful shot I wanted to take but I decided to wait and take it from the top of the big hill. Unfortunately at the top of the hill there were a bunch of big trees blocking what I had thought would be a great view. It seemed as if the trees were planted with the purpose of obliterating the great view. I got a bit annoyed and was not going to go back down the hill to get the pic so I just blew it off and was not much in the mood for pics the rest of the day. Some days are like that, even in New Zealand.

I will likely just blow by Napier and keep heading down to Wellington 200 plus miles away yet. I will do it in smaller chunks of 40 or 50 miles a day. I hope the weather holds. Tomorrow has a split forecast, some forecasters say rain others say sunny and others say partly cloudy. I guess that means it is a crap shoot. I will decide in the morning. There are good bike trails for the first part of the way but then it turns into a hilly hard ride to Wellington. Here are the pics which are not up to my usual quality standards.

Still in Morere in the rain

Tuesday March 17th and it is raining again today. It is a much lighter rain but it is cold and windy also and the wind is out of the south so it would be a headwind for my bike ride. I just might end up on a bus tour of New Zealand instead of a bike tour. I am tired of all the rain. I did almost nothing today except read a couple books and a bunch more magazines I found. I also spent lots of time on the computer but did not get much done thanks to the 1989 speed of the wifi. It takes over 5 minutes to load one pic and some of them time out before they finish loading. I hate it.

I will pack my bags tonight in the hopes that I will be able to get back on the road in the morning. Napier is the next place I want to stop and it is a long ride away of about 90 miles. Plus I need to buy a helmet at the first place I can find because it is illegal to ride without a helmet here. It would be just my luck to get a ticket on top of needing to buy a new helmet. I hope not. I would load some pics but it is just too irritating to load them. When I find a faster connection I will try to come back and load some pics. I loaded two and gave up cause it is too frigging slow. These are during the rain and the next day when the rain stopped and the creek was going back down.

waiting at Morere for Cyclone Pam to hit

Well today turned out to only have one light shower this morning then sunshine all day. I could have traveled south. Such is life. The next clear day is Wednesday by the forecast. Tomorrow is meant to be clear in the morning but then showers starting in the early afternoon and continuing right through until Tuesday night with heavy showers and high winds Sunday and Monday tapering off Tuesday. Should I just sit here twiddling my thumbs? It is good for my health to take a break but not good for my wallet paying for the cabin I am in instead of camping.

I have enjoyed myself here. I read a couple books already and found a stack of New Zealand history magazines which I read the entire stack of. I have spent hours soaking in the hot springs, so much so that I noticed I smelled like a rotten egg in bed last night despite three hot showers. The worst problem at Morere is there is no healthy foods. There is a cafe but it is mostly fast food, deep fried and lacking in any veggies. I do like to eat my healthy foods on the road. I prefer to make my own food. If a ride came up in the next couple days I would move down the coast to a place with better supplies to wait out the rain.