Taupo and Wellington... featuring the Infamous Bike Crash (Feb 12-15th)

As Noelle, Franca, and I started down the road from Coromandel to Rotorua, the sky turned gray and ugly. You might think the drive would have been boring and monotonous, but not with my girls. We chatted about everything from politics to cooking; we coined "chicks over dicks" as a response to the phrase "bros over hos"; Noelle advised me on my travels in Asia, and I did the same for her for South America. We laughed at Franca's inability to decipher the Kiwi accent after a glass of wine, and my misinterpretation of their slang all-purpose response "Sweet as" as "Sweet ass." The weather may have been bleak and I may have made Noelle's life flash before her eyes as I nearly side-swiped a tractor, but we rolled along happily.

When we arrived in the primarily Maori town of Rotorua, the combination of the foul weather and the equally foul smell of the sulphurous geysers throughout the town motivated us to pass on to Taupo, where we stayed the night. We spent the night chatting, reminiscing, and lamenting Noelle's imminent departure. At 2am, we took her to her bus and tearfully bid her farewell.

The next morning, Franca and I decided to forego the Tongarino Crossing, reputedly the best one-day hike in the world, because the folks at the Department of Conservation (DOC) advised us that we wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. Instead, we headed directly to Wellington, passing through the pastures of amber grasses that I'm fairly certain were used as Rohan in LOTR.



Neither of us fell in love with our hostel in Wellington, which was large and impersonal and made socializing difficult. They also charged exorbitant fees for internet, so we chose to head down to the waterside for sunset and to use the free internet there.


Strange sculptures and installations dotted the harbor side. Looking at one particularly puzzling piece, I asked "What the hell is that?" Franca shrugged. "Art." My adoration of her was growing by the minute.


Later, we cooked our first meal without Noelle, and I was delighted to discover that Franca had been hiding her own culinary talents. She started my cooking tutorial that very evening. Much fun, but we missed our little Spaniard.


The next day, the sky was gray again, but we decided to make the best of it and take the famous Welly cable car to the promontory above the city. The beautifully restored old car let us off at the top of the hill at the entrance to the botanical gardens through which we wandered.


The gardens were nice enough, but the rich and heady smells outshone the blooms themselves.


We spent the afternoon conversing and meandering at a leisurely pace. I remarked on my fascination with Franca's German pronunciation of "v". She always said "willage", which I understood, but I couldn't wrap my head around her saying "wivid." "Why don't you say 'wiwid?" I asked laughing. For her part, Franca was amused to no end by my constant need to reapply sunblock.


The most remarkable thing to happen that evening was our discovery of a note in our kitchen locker that said simply, "Broke ya code." We were baffled; the lock had been put back in place and nothing appeared to be missing. Clearly some people just have too much time on their hands.

For our last day on the North Island, we decided to rent a pair of bikes and ride around the waterside, depute the fact that the weather hadn't improved. The bike path wound for several kilometers along the docks, bays and beaches of Wellington.


We stopped at a store which I'd like to call "We'll Make Anything Out of Sheepskin." This place looked like one of those crazy tourist traps you always see in American road trip movies, but the goods were truly of high quality. I'm not sure I've felt anything so soft as the sheepskin rug atop a pile of such hides.


Eventually we reached the end of the traversable road, from which point we could see the CBD opposite us. We took a moment's break and headed back from whence we came, with Franca in the lead.

We had gone about two-thirds of the way when the bikeway and walkway, which had merged earlier, split again. I thought Franca was taking the wrong path, but I didn't see how it mattered.

It mattered.

The path took a hard turn, blindly splitting into two levels around the bend. Franca fortunately happened to come around the turn in such a way that she remained safely on the upper level. I wasn't so lucky. As I took the turn, my wheels teetered on the very edge of the top level for only a second or two before they slipped off to the bottom. You know that moment, which is really only a split second, when you know exactly what's going to happen and there's not a damn thing you can do about it? Franca says that she remembers thinking, "Hmmm, this is kind of dangerous. I hope she doesn't..." Cue crashing noise.

My legs hit first, scraping the pavement. I had put my hands out to protect my face, tearing them up in the process, but I hit the ground with such force that I skidded forward onto my face anyway. My handlebars dug into my right knee, ensuring that my disfigurement wasn't all one-sided.


I felt a burn, but jumped quickly to my feet, by which time I could already see my left cheek swelling out of the corner of my eye. I almost asked Franca how bad I looked, but her wincing made the question unnecessary. I lightened the mood substantially by asking, almost immediately and in all seriousness, if she thought my wounds would heal in three weeks, before I would see James in Australia. Clearly, my priorities were in order.


We waited a few minutes before remounting the bikes and pedaling gingerly back to the hostel, walking the bikes the last few blocks with passersby gawking at my appearance openly. A Japanese tourist even snapped my picture.

When I had cleaned my wounds, I moved the car again and stopped in to McDonald's to use the internet. I had already taken to walking in a cowed stance with my head down to avoid stares, but this approach motivated the manager of the Mickey D's to inquire as to whether or not I was being beaten. I thought it was pretty nice of him, actually.

Later that night, we made dinner and as I prepared dessert beside a German guy in the room beside ours, he asked to get a look. I lifted my face toward him, and he replied with a creepy grin, "I can't believe that's all it took to get closer." Ew. See again, the picture above of me looking like Quasimodo.

We had planned to meet up with some CouchSurfers, but I was so sore and we had to get to the ferry by 1am, so we opted to watch some crappy movies and play an impromptu game of "Name That Country" with other hostelers. Midnight rolled around, and we packed up the car and headed to the ferry pier.

When I had ordered the tickets, I had used a 10% discount that I had heard about, but for which you needed a membership card for a national hosteling organization to which I did not belong. I pretended to have left my card behind at the hostel, blaming my negligence on the hoopla surrounding my crash. I pointed to my wounds, pathetically. They had to be good for something, dammit. The sweet, smiling ticket agent sympathetically let us pass, and I felt terribly guilty immediately.

Karma, however, had a sense of humor. We had been sitting on the ferry dock for nearly an hour, with only a few minutes to go before we were due to drive aboard when the battery died. Panicked, we started tapping the windows of every car in our vicinity asking for assistance, much to the annoyance of sleeping passengers inside. We found someone with jumper cables, but his car stood too far from ours. The driver beside us begrudgingly allowed us to use his car, and between our jumper cable guy and the pack of bikers just in front of us, we got the car running again just in time.

We availed ourselves of the free hot cocoa, wrapped ourselves up in Franca's sleeping bag, laid out across a couple of chairs, and settled in for a few hours of poor-quality sleep.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Wellington, New Zealand

Coromandel (Feb 9-11th)

After trading in my cheap local rental car for a more expensive but still cheap, will-be-returned-to-another-city car, I returned to James's to grab my stuff and say bye, picked up the girls, and began the coastal drive up the Coromandel peninsula.


I discovered on this route that I really didn't understand the whole Kiwi "give way to the right" driving rule, so I decided to simply play it safe and always give way when unsure, frustrating more than one of my fellow drivers along the way. I also discovered the reason my rental car looked like someone had thrown bags of coins against it. PEBBLES! Apparently every stretch of road south of Auckland is strewn with them. When I had picked up the car, the agent had told me to note any scratches on the agreement's illustration. "Are you kidding me?", I asked, to which he responded by grabbing the pen out of my hand and jabbing the page repeatedly, until the car in the drawing looked as covered in freckles as I am.

The trip would have been entirely pleasant were it not for the bizarrely out-of-character aggression of New Zealand drivers. I swear, Kiwis are the nicest people in the world until you put them behind the wheel; then they transform into Mad Max. I considered 5 kphs over the speed limit to be an acceptable pace; you would have thought I was a blue hair going 20 kphs under, the way those behind me would whip around to pass me when the opportunity arose, honking irritably as they went. (Most roads in NZ have only one lane in each direction, with passing lanes every 5 kilometers or so.) I grant that Irwin-- we named the car after my sloth-like landlord back in Jersey-- had some trouble with hills, and when faced with them, we DID sometimes fall to 20 kphs under as I tapped the dashboard encouragingly, willing Irwin to make it to the crest. But given the sheer number of clunkers puttering about the NZ roadways, I would have thought other drivers were used to this phenomenon by now.

After a long slog up and down any number of twists and turns, my steerage of which prompted Noelle to utter a phrase never before spoken: "Lin, you're a really good driver, we pulled into the town of Matarangi around 4pm. A local CouchSurfer I had contacted ages ago had kindly agreed to host all three of us for the night. He'd left the door open for us, so we dropped our stuff off in the room he had set up for us, and we took a walk on the beach.


Scott had gotten home while we were out, and his friend Neville arrived from a 26-mile bike ride shortly thereafter so we watched the sunset and got to know each other over the first of many bottles of wine we'd share over the next few nights.


The guys grilled and Noelle put together a big ol' salad, and we chowed down. Franca complimented Scott on his cooking, saying that she didn't normally care for lamb. "That's because it's steak." The laughs kept coming as the wine flowed. Franca and I danced and sang along with one of Scott's many excellent playlists as we did the dishes, and looked up to find the other three laughing hysterically at us through the window. Eventually everyone slunk off to bed, but I think I can safely say that everyone had had a damn good night.


The next morning, Scott headed off to work, Neville to another bike ride, and the girls and I to see the sites, starting with the stunning Cathedral Cove.


A picturesque walk across a lush green bluff took us down to two small beaches connected by a natural tunnel.


We went through to the far side.


Scott had lent us a beach umbrella, so we laid out like spokes on a wheel with our heads under the shade and our bodies in the sun.


While Noelle and Franca slumbered, I wandered down the beach to take in the view of the astounding sandstone formations jutting out of the water.


I ducked back through the tunnel to the other side to explore and found a seagull perched atop yet another massive monolith at the water's edge.


I climbed up onto the rock wall along one side and watched the waves roll onto shore for a good half an hour, totally at peace.


When I got back to the girls, we decided to pack it up and head to Hot Water Beach. On the ride back, the girls laughed heartily at me for mooing out the window at what turned out to be a buffalo.


We got to Hot Water Beach a bit late and found it crowded with both tourists and locals digging pits into which piping hot water would bubble from below.


We found a spot, went to work with our rented shovels, and settled in. We only lasted half an hour, since our little nook was right next to the absolute hottest spot and every few minutes the heat would overpower us.


As we left the beach, we watched a lifeguard rescue a couple who had been taken out too far by the rip tide. Once we felt sure they were safe, Franca used the opportunity to get her BayWatch on.


That night, we picked up a few more bottles of wine to share with our host, and we started cooking again.


Dinner flew by and soon Franca and I were getting funky in the kitchen again.


Noelle and the guys threw darts while we washed the dishes. When Franca and I emerged, we joined the game, and, on an absolute fluke, I hit the best shot of the game.


One of Scott's fellow volunteer fireman had convinced Franca and Noelle to get up before dawn the next morning to go out on his boat for their fishing competition. I vehemently declined the offer and slept in, woke up, did some yoga, and watched Scott gut and clean his winning catch for our dinner that night.


Noelle took a nap while Franca and I had beers with Scott and his buddy's at the firehouse across the street. They entertained us with bawdy jokes and travel stories and had us rolling when they told us Scott's nickname: "Elephant Trunk."

And then Scott took us to a wake. That's not a typo. He took us to a wake. A traditional Swiss wake for a neighbor. It was largely a celebratory affair, leavened by some tears, and scored by those gigantic horns they use in the Ricola commercials. After that bizarre interlude, we enjoyed yet more wine, music, and our last dinner with Scotty.


The next morning we cleaned the kitchen and slipped out while he still slept, leaving a note thanking him for the amazing time we'd had at his place.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Maratangi, Coromandel, New Zealand

Cream Trip on the Bay of Islands (Feb 7th)

The girls and I had stayed on in Pahia an additional day, in hopes that the forecast for gloriously clear weather would manifest, and we were not disappointed. Noelle and Franca decided to spend the day at the beach, while I opted for a day cruise of the Bay, figuring that since it was called the Bay of Islands, I ought to get out there and see some of them.

When I first arrived at the dock, I became worried, seeing only middle-aged and senior citizens about me. Fortunately, a few younger folks soon joined the line, and I quickly made friends with a Swiss girl named Karen and a Canadian named Kirsten. We sat on the top deck as our affable captain steered us into the bay. Just half an hour in, dolphins had been spotted by another ship. We arrived in time to see a whole pod cavorting in the deep. I had paid $30 extra for the opportunity to swim along with them, so after snapping two hurried photos, I donned a mask and flippers and jumped into the frigid water with twenty or so other passengers


From aboard the boat, the remaining passengers stood at the rails, pointing and shouting at us when the dolphins came near. Swimmers shifted and dove manically to catch glimpses of them under the water. The first time one passed by mean, I felt an unexpected jolt of fear. For one thing, no matter how different you know they are from sharks, your first instinct tells you that they look a hell of a lot alike. Secondly, these were not the same breed I had seen in the National Aquarium back in Baltimore; they were much bigger than I'd expected, far more wild, and not the standard sleek grey, but a mottled black and white. But all of these aspects only added to the excitement.

A few meters from me, two of the dolphins put on quite a show, flipping in the air over and over, at one point doing so in perfect synchronicity in opposing directions. Sadly, I couldn't photograph any of this, as I watched from in the water, but what happened next made being in the water so very worth it. No one seemed to notice three of the pod heading toward me. I dove under, ignoring my snorkel, and began flipping around beneath the surface. My poor attempt at dolphin entertainment worked, and they stayed. For somewhere between a minute and 90 seconds, I spun around and contorted myself as bizarrely as possible while the three of them swam above, below, and around me, singing and spinning as well. I darted to the surface twice for air, and the second time, they lost interest at my return and moved along.


Emerging from the water invigorated, I changed out of my damp suit immediately and declined the offer to buy pictures of our frolic for an additional exorbitant fee. I sat back on the top deck with Karen and Kirsten, giddily praising each teal-colored cove into which the boat ducked, made all the more sensational by my lingering high.


The captain provided ample information on the Maori history of the islands, as well as of the Kiwi settlement, and entertained us with goofy stories. At one point, explaining how possums had been introduced for the sake of the fur trade but had proven more troublesome than valuable, eating all of the local plant life and breeding like their rabbit cousins, he informed us of the nationally-accepted solution to dealing with the now rampant pests: "Basically, if you see one on the road, run the bugger down!"


Halfway through our day, we pulled into a picturesque port on a small farming island for lunch.


I munched on the sandwich and fruit Franca has sweetly prepared for me that morning and snapped photos of the many birds about the shore.


At the last possible moment, I decided to use the last half an hour of our lunch to hike up to the lookout point in the center of the island. Karen decided to join me, and we practically jogged up the hill in our effort to reach and descend from the summit before our boat departed.


The view at the top merited the effort, but we could only enjoy it for a moment. We literally ran down the first, blessedly smooth, 50 meters, hopped the fence of a local sheep farm, and reached the boat just as the captain sounded the 5-minute departure warning.


Only one major site remained: the Hole in the Rock, a sometimes traversable tunnel naturally cut into the base of very large freestanding monolith at the top of the bay. We arrived to find the water churning furiously and refusing admittance, but we got close enough for photos. Unfortunately, one particularly violent swell sent water flying up onto the decks, and my camera got soaked as a result. I laid it out in the sun to dry and hoped for the best.


The route back took us past more lovely vistas and afforded the opportunity for "boom-netting" to those who wanted to try it. I declined, having gotten my fill of the decidedly chilly water during my dolphin swim, but I greatly enjoyed the spectacle of watching people being swept back and forth across the net, willy-nilly.


By 4pm, we had returned to Pahia, and I rejoined Franca and Noelle at the hostel. They had loaded up the car and made us some snacks, so we shortly piled in and got on the road. We spent the journey laughing and chatting and enjoying the gorgeous scenery, illuminated brilliantly by the setting sun.


Upon our return to Auckland, I dropped off the girls, parked the car, and met Thomas, my previous CS host, and Kiwi James for dinner and a drink. Afterward, James and I headed back to his house, where I passed out almost immediately upon entering.

The following morning, James and I hung out with his brother's pug, George, and visited his grandma-- James's, not George's.


On the way back, George made himself quite at home in my lap.


And the ride provided a fantastic view of Auckland.


That night, James went out to the weekly CS meet-up for a few drinks, but I didn't feel well, so I stayed behind and watched one of the most stunning sunsets I had ever seen from his balcony.


And I needed little else to put me into a sound sleep that night.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Pahia and Auckland, New Zealand

Bay of Islands (Feb 4-6th)

Getting off to a later start than intended, I picked up Noelle and Franca, and Cesar, who had decided to come along as well. Kiwi James had invited us for coffee before we headed North, and since I hadn't gotten to see him since either of us had arrived in Auckland and his place was on the way, we accepted. Unfortunately, Cesar had difficulty with the directions, and we lost our way. Another hour and a half had passed before we had visited with James, thanked him for treating us, and gotten back on track, with Franca having taken over as navigator.


Our route remained a straight shot almost throughout but proved longer than any of us had anticipated. We soon had to reassess our plan of going all the way up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of NZ. Three hours into our journey spending an inordinate amount of time in a supermarket, we debated our options while eating sandwiches made on the trunk of the car.


The decision: to skip Cape Reinga and 90-mile Beach and head directly to Pahia, the largest shore town of the Bay of Islands just south of the latter, and make the most of our three days there, rather than spend even more time in the car. After three more hours of suffering through the abominable selection afforded by NZ radio, we arrived. Opting to conserve our funds, we found a hostel with a campground and parking lot, and decided to take turns sleeping two in Cesar's tent and two in the car. We immediately uncorked a bottle of wine and set up camp.


We made yet another supermarket run, bought supplies for dinner, and settled in. Franca and I worked as sous chefs for Noelle, who it turns out had been educated at one of the foremost cooking schools in France. That night we enjoyed a delicious meal while watching the hilarious antics of the hostel dog, whom I nicknamed Sid Vicious, due to his crazy-eyed ability to cow other dogs twice his size.


A little tipsy and exhausted from our drive, I was the first one to bed. As I fell asleep to the light patter of rain on the tent canvas, Noelle and Franca prepared their night in the car, hanging patterned sarongs and skirts over the windows to keep any light out. I laughed heartily when I woke them in the morning; it looked as though Aerosmith's roadies had decked out the car.


After breakfast, Cesar went for a run and the girls and I hung out in the hostel for a bit. Later, we drove up to KeriKeri to hike to a local waterfall. We started off at the lovely river basin, where Cesar and I had the first of many ridiculous debates that day over whether or not a flock of birds waddling around consisted of geese or unusually large ducks. Never in my life did I think I would get to non-metaphorically use the phrase, "If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."


Our light trek took us past meadows lush with wild flowers and a forest of beeches and giant conifers with roots as large as small trees themselves. The sibling-like taunting between Cesar and I continued. He took a picture for me, and when I saw it, I stated that the angle he took it from made me look heavy. The ANGLE. He patted my stomach and replied, in all seriousness, "I know, but I did TRY not to get this in the photo." I scowled. "Don't worry," he continued. "It doesn't look that bad." My eyes became slits. I retaliated by scaring the pants off of him on the trail shortly thereafter.


We one waterfall and Cesar took a swim, despite the many treacherous rocks about. Only then did we learn that the main falls still waited another kilometer away. We hiked there, unaccountably tired and discussing the body's strange acquiescence to long hikes when prepared for such and its objections to pushing onward once you thought you were already done.

When we reached the larger falls, the girls stayed at the lookout point, while Cesar and I balance-beamed our way across to the other side, 20 meters upstream from the top.


We stood at the top, lamenting the rocks below and our subsequent inability to jump, but truthfully, it would have been a pretty treacherous leap anyway.


That night, we feasted, this time on Noelle's expertly prepared seafood pasta and salad, and went to bed early again. The girls had slept so comfortably in the car that they asked to stay there again, so after fraught episode in which Noelle thought she had lost the keys, they retired there and Cesar and I each climbed into our sleeping bags in the tent.


The following day marked the Kiwi national holiday of Waitangi Day, which we would fortunately be celebrating in Waitangi itself, only 2 miles above Pahia. Noelle, having a particularly affinity for seeing the dawn, roused us at 4am to start the day at the prayer ceremony held at the Waitangi marae. Sadly, the proceedings turned out largely to be a procession of politicians perfomring a fairly standard Christian litany rather than a Maori ceremony.


Disappointed, we returned to the hostel for breakfast, only to find that it hadn't been set out because some of the hostel guests hadn't done their dishes the night before. I complained loudly that we had done ours and paid for breakfast and that it was ridiculous to punish everyone for the negligence of a few. But the hostel owner remained willfully oblivious, so we left before I got my gander up any further.

On our second outing of the day, we were rewarded with the site of the Maori longboats cutting across the bay.


We walked back to Waitangi, marveling at the overcast skies that covered the entire area except for one solid circle of blue sky, hovering resolutely above the Maori sacred lands. Hoping this mysterious Maori mojo would hold, we wandered the fairgrounds and settled in to watch an intermural game of Maori rugby. The girls fell asleep on the grass, and I woke Franca to tell her that Cesar and I wanted to go into the Treaty Grounds and for the two of them to meet us at 2pm by the flagpole.

Gaining free admission, due to the holiday, Ceasr and I toured the Grounds, stopping at vendor stands, watching the launch of a longboat into the water, examining the intricate carvings inside the marae, and finally watching a performance of traditional Maori singing and dance...


... culminating in a haka.


The tongue-heavy Maori war chant and dance, once used to intimidate enemies on the battlefield, is now famously used by the national rugby team, the All Blacks, to psych out their opponents before a game.


2pm had come and gone, and I wondered where the girls had gotten to. We remained at the flagpole, then looked around a bit, and finally returned to the rugby field to find them sitting right where we had left them. Franca had no memory of me waking her, and they hadn't known where we'd gone.

At this point, Cesar headed back to town to catch a bus back to Auckland for a job interview. The girls and I had decided to stay on for one more day, in hopes of getting one day of unadulterated sun on which to enjoy the Bay. Just as Cesar left, I heard another performance beginning, and I goaded the girls into running over to see it, regardless of their sleepy state. They thanked me later.


As the last chords of the final song rang out, a downpour began and we ran for cover. We walked home through intermittent rain, laughing and enjoying some serious girl time. We stopped at the supermarket for what felt like the tenth time and that night, Noelle cooked for us once again. After dinner, we settled in to the hostel couches to watch "Silence of the Lambs", which Noelle and I had never seen and which Franca knew by heart, but only in German. I soon regretted the decision upon remembering that I would be sleeping alone in the tent, which Cesar had kindly lent us for another night. I'm not sure I had felt such an adolescent fear of the dark in all my life. Fortunately, two of our strapping young German hostel mates assured me that they would be in the tent right next to mine if I got too freaked out. No need, however. We turned on "Whale Rider," which put me in a decidedly mellower mood, and once I was out, I was out.

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Paihia, New Zealand