Blueberries

Sure enough, I've put on the brakes for a while. I found a last-minute wwoofing gig here in Kerikeri, so I'll be working on a blueberry farm for about a week. After that, I'll hop back in the saddle, ride up to Cape Reinga and back, and eventually finish my loop. No hurry here. Blueberry I've cream is pretty darn good. :-) Especially after 675 km. I tell you, it feels good looking at a map and seeing how far I've ridden.

Hopefully, I'll get some time on the computer to start adding some pictures...

Picked berries, graded berries, ate berries. :-)  I work about 4-5 hours in the morning and am then free to do as I please. Not a bad gig. And I'm living in my very own little cottage, which is sweet. It even has a composting toilet, which is an amazing contraption.

Yeah, so all is good.

I'll write more later.

Chillin'

Made it to Kawakawa. The town is famous for a train that runs right down the main street and for it's Hundertwasser toilets. Check and check. The ride here started out surprisingly well. By about 2/3 of the way, though, I got pretty tired of riding. There was zero to see besides landscape and the traffic rolling on past me. I'm a bit anxious to knock out the final 32 km of the day. I'm chilling at the Train Spotter Café. Had a $12 (about $10 US) omelet with toast that I would get for maybe $6 in the States. Food is mighty expensive here. I need a lot more calories... Free WiFi here, which is nice... My speedometer conked out during my ride. I think all the annoying rattling made it reset... The pavement color constantly changes, and grey is about the worst... Light grey is NG... I'm starving... Just as I arrived here I met a young German kid who is hitchhiking. I might meet him again, perhaps in Cape Reinga, or maybe LA or SF. Small world. He amazes me, doing his solo hitchhiking job. He even said he got picked up by a guy who claimed to be a bank robber... Whoa.
I got here at a clip of about 25 km/hour... Maybe need 1:30 for the final leg of my ride today. I might have to cook dinner tonight, so maybe I'll make a ton of pasta? Weather seems to be improving. Had a few drops of rain falling earlier, but mostly just overcast. When I ride on the worst roads, and cars pass, I have to hope that the flying rocks don't hit me. So far so good... I have a pair of sneakers with me, but I have yet to wear them or my socks. Maybe tonight? Thinking about making a pit stop for several days soon, so I can relax again. Since there's really no compelling reason for me to not stop. I struggle with those thoughts every day. This is not a race, after all, nor do I have a plane to catch soon... Ugh. I saw a wwoofer position in the town where I'm heading, Kerikeri (yet another double-name place name), and I'm thinking about doing it, but it was an emergency fill-in, so maybe they already found someone... I'm Anyway, time for more food, and then I should get going. Talk to you tonight.

Chock Full of Thoughts

Left later than usual this morning. About 9:10. Already 38 km down the road in Whangarei. Fairly easy ride for once. Downhill or flat, slight tailwind, so average up to maybe 27-30 for this part. 90 or so to go. Staying in Kerikeri, where at least one of the people running the hostel is Japanese, I believe. Billions of crazy thoughts running through my head. Weather getting worse. Windy... Hard to keep going, but I'm cutting down on the distances for now. Lots of negative thoughts yesterday, but once I am riding I somehow feel better. Weird. Stayed with lovely family yesterday. Times like that I just want to stay for a week, you know?
Anyway, I'm going to do another 56 km to Kawakawa now, to keep moving. Just going to grab a quick bite, though... Not sure if the weather will cooperate for the rest of the day...
More later. :-)

Randomness

Saw a coin on the road, pedalled past, turned around to get it, and was astonished to see that it was a 5-pfennig coin. Say what?

Hot again.

Tons of climbing behind me. Tons. Tough ride, but I like climbing.

Some horrendous roads again, with amazing, smooth roads scattered in between. Hit max speed of 70.7 today, on a smooth road. On the ugly roads, there's no way I would dare go even close to that fast. It's like never ending cobblestones, but 10 times worse. I have my own rating system, from 1-10, for the roads. More on that later.

Took a 10-minute ferry from Auckland to Davenport.

About 50km to go. Using free library WiFi. Should get going again, because I was on a roll... Stopped to get some calories and check the map...

I'm going to get off the freeway soon and head east. Might add 10km or so, but think it's worth it. So 2 25-km rides to go.. I actually want to chill here, but I'd rather get to my destination, or at least much closer...

The bumpy roads are depressing, so I just want to get off the bike...

Took off at 7:35 this morning to get an early start and deal with 35km of city riding.

I'm off!

Wrong Turn

I would probably be at my destination by now, but one of the quiet roads I was on went from paved to unpaved in the blink of an eye, so I had to turn around and get back to where I turned off the other quiet road. That cost me a good 35 minutes and about 15-20 km.
Oh, well. I guess it could have been much worse, right? From now on, I'm sticking to the main roads...

The road I was trying to avoid, however, was the freeway. Although bikes are allowed to ride on the shoulder, and although there's even a rudimentary bike lane, it's a bit daunting riding next to endless fast traffic. I think I must have stayed on the freeway for about 25 km before finally exiting. Just then, the road surface was actually super smooth, so I actually wanted to stay on rather than exit, but off I went.

My circuitous route forced me to stop several times to make sure that I was going the right way, but I guess it was the right move.

I'm back at "Macca's" and I've already inhaled a chocolate muffin, a mango pineapple smash smoothie, and a BBQ lamb burger, in that order, and those were just the appetizers. I imagine my hosts will feed me, too, tonight, but you never know...

Anyway, I should get back on my saddle and peddle the final 25 km.

Great weather once again, not nearly as much climbing as yesterday, although some tough hills await, especially at the very end of the ride.

Off I go.

More later

Thank You, Horoscope

I made it to today's destination, Otorohanga, but I still have to ride a few more miles to get to where I'm staying. I made this pit stop so I could use the Internet at McDonald's, one of the few places in NZ with free WiFi.

(By the way, customer service here is terrible. There are about 20 people in line and only one register open. Good thing I wasn't planning on ordering a KiwiBurger.)

Today's ride went well. It was pretty hot, which was actually nice, and not very windy, which was also nice. The first part of my ride went esdpecially well, up until a place called Mokau (that I like to call Moskau). I had fresh legs and I made good time. From there, however, I had to do quite a bit of climbing, which I wasn't expecting, so my average speed slowed down from about 25 km/hour to more like 20 km/hour. I had to work much harder to get to where I was going, so I was mildly frustrated.

Traffic wasn't too bad, but the roads here are fairly horrendous to ride on. They call paved roads "sealed" roads, but they aren't sealed. They are really, really, bone-rattlingly bumpy. (I'll post a picture of the "seal" when I get a chance, but for now, just imagine a really bumpy ride and you'll get the drift.)

I broke up today's ride into four parts: 80 km, 50 km, 25 km, and 25 km. Considering the sun doesn't go down until about 21:00, I could perhaps ride another 60 km to Hamilton, where I was even offered free accommodation (more on that later), but I'm happy to stop where I am.

The people I'm staying with tonight (it's kind of like a B&B) are making dinner for me, so I should probably get going and write more later.

I met a bunch of really nice people today. One filled up my water bottles for me and another said that had I been riding to Hamilton, she and her husband would have put me up for the night. I guess they were a bit impressed by how far I'm riding. Whatever the case, I really enjoyed getting to talk with some really friendly folks, even if I didn't  have much time to, since I didn't stop for more than about 45 minutes in any one place.

Just before I took off this morning, or, more exactly, just before I got on the highway about 5 minutes after I took off on my challenge, a guy I had met only 15 minutes earlier tried to talk me out of doing my ride... WTF?

Listen, if you have a plan or a dream and you believe in it, don't be afraid to listen to advice, but don't let people talk you out of what you really believe in, especially when you're already on your way.

My horoscope said I wouldn't crash today and indeed I didn't. How sweet is that?

Tomorrow I'm heading to a place just south of Auckland. The ride should be much flatter.

I kind of want to stay here a while to check out the Kiwi house and the Waitomo Caves, but onward I go. Day 2 awaits.

Final brief thoughts:

The weather outlook is good. I'm staying with fellow cyclists the next two nights, which should be awesome. I headed out at 08:39 this morning. The usual gamut of thoughts entered my head while riding. I saw lots of cows, lots of sheep, and even a few llamas. Since people have been hosting me for most of my past month here, I forgot how expensive food is here, although NZ is definitely cheaper than Ozzie. (I paid $12 for a big plate of potato wedges this afternoon. Twelve bucks!) I'm traveling lighter than on the previous two rides. I want to show you a picture of that, too. The countryside here is beautiful. That's it for now.

I need to get some sleep...

Yama

North Island Challenge

There's a bicycle race called the Taranaki Cycle Challenge taking place today here in New Plymouth. I found out about it only recently and, considering the event is supposed to be one of New Zealand's premiere cycling races and I'm here in town by chance, I'm tempted to participate.

The problem is, tomorrow I'm starting my own event: the North Island Challenge. Since I'll be riding my bike in a clockwise loop around the north island of New Zealand over the next two weeks, starting and ending in New Plymouth and covering about 150-200 km/day, I've decided to take today off and spare my legs the additional 150 km.

Good call, right?

So unlike for the thousand or so riders who will be in action tomorrow, there will be no fame, no fortune, and no fans for me, just me, myself, and my bike.

Many of you are familiar with my two previous long-distance rides, B2B and C2C, which covered 2700 km and 2600 km, respectively. This ride has no such nickname (yet!), but should be similar in distance. The biggest difference, therefore, will probably be that this is a solo ride. In other words, I won't be drafting behind Jody, I won't be able to share jokes with Jody, and there won't be anyone (Jody) telling me to get to work blogging at night (to name a few).

I will miss you Jody, but the ride must go on.

If all goes as planned, I'll be back in New Plymouth on Feb 11.

It's time for me to hit the sack. Day 1 is tomorrow.