Day one - and I almost didn’t make the Heathrow coach in Bristol - with early morning traffic, but luckily the coach was caught same as us, and after a mad dash through the coach station, two in fact, one with rucksacks, and a second with my boxed up bike, I had 20 minutes to spare, to drink a tongue scalding coffee, and hang in the queue. The trip to Heathrow passed fast, chatting with a young woman on her way to a conference in Prague, to do with electron microscopy, her field, but chatting art - Chagall being her personal favourite.
Getting through check in was simple, and all day breakfast cheap and cheerful at Heathrow’s Wetherspoon’s - all the coffee you can drink…
6 hours to Doha, with a half empty plane, an empty seat beside me, then a two hour transit, and a chat with a couple in their 90’s, on route to Katmandu, a wonderfully prune like Tibetan woman, and her remarkably young looking ex Gurkha husband.
17 hours to Auckland, without an empty seat, but a nice young kiwi beside me, and lots of snoozing.
Day three, 4.00 am - NZ customs are acutely aware of bio security, I was very pleased to have been pre-warned, and washed the bike most thoroughly - as she was very thorough in her examination. I had forgotten though, to clean out the tent, and she gleefully told me that she had found a dead moth and some dry grass… I managed to doge the $400 fine thankfully.
I took an hour or more to assemble the bike, as a critical bolt holding the derailleur gears was cross threaded - very oily hands - and I noticed that the back brake cable was literally down to a single thread too - but I managed a cycle to the art gallery in Auckland, meeting up with Frank from Glastonbury, one of my life drawers, and serendipitously there was a life drawing session going on in the gallery, which we joined, before catching up over coffees.
My next mission was to find camping gas and dehydrated food - finding a Kathmandu outdoors in the city centre - who didn’t have what I needed, so they did an internet search, and directed me to a shop in Newmarket, a good half hour ride steeply uphill through the university park. I found what I needed, only to be told about a branch of the same shop a few doors down from where I had started…
Back to the ferry port, past a huge cruise liner where once we visited relatives onboard the Canberra, on their route back to Australia. Queues for the ferry, and another half hour of steep climbing to find my half sister in law’s fabulously viewed house on Waiheke Island.
New Zealand feels very familiar, the prehistoric looking fern trees, palms, gums, dry dusty boarders and sun. 55 years since I grew up here as a child of the 60’s but yes, very familiar after all these years - formative years must be, well, formative…
Day four - a day of rest, coffee at a Saturday market on the island, and a cycle to Palm Beach for a swim in the sea.
Caught my toe on a sticking up nail on the decking, lots of blood - could have done without that…
Testing my solar charger, and getting my bike fixed for setting off tomorrow.
Day five - down to the beach for coffee and proper apple strudel - then a short bike ride to the Half Moon Bay ferry, and an hour wait as the scheduled ferry wasn’t…
I stocked up on a Freshchoice - antiseptic for my toe, and other first aid sort of stuff, then a city ride to a big bike store, to get Butt Butter bum balm, and fast food for lunch. And the cycle begins - with a 7 hour roller coaster of a ride, up out of Auckland to a little place called Clevedon, complete with blind penny whistle playing beggar, with his collection box on a chain. Out along the bay to Kawakawa, with Waiheke island just across the water, then steeply up into the hills - Cheddar Gorge several times over - and back down to the coast, for a skinny dip, and a free camping spot just outside Kaiaua, with a spectacular view of Coromandel over the Firth of Thames. Not a long ride in terms of mileage, but it felt like it! All made ok by the most fabulous sunset - which might well develop into a downpour…
Day Six
I didn’t mention yesterday two other observations - the noise of the Cicadas, like serious tinnitus, and the fact that every other vehicle seemed to be towing a boat on a trailer…
Lots of heavy rain in the night, but a good night for all that. Woke to a wonderful red sunrise, a breakfast of boiled ant (I only ate half my dehydrated pasta meal last night, saving half for the morning, the ants got in despite it being well wrapped up, and in a lidded container - I just had to boil them, and painstakingly spoon them out - I don’t imagine I got them all, it was teeming. Coffee stop at The Pink Shop, chatting to a guy whose parents, like mine, had immigrated in the 60’s - but unlike me, he stayed, and did well - it’s all camper van and cruise ship now…
60 mile cycle today, almost entirely on an old railway track, totally flat, but hard going all the same, firstly into a head wind, then the heat of the day. Little shelters along the way where there used to be railway stations - a bench in the shade, to catch my breath and re-energise. I have reached Mount Te Aroha - and a campsite with hot mineral pool - bliss after the blistering heat.
I had the pool to myself for a while, then joined by a man with crutches - which he said was an ingrown toenail. He told me how good the water was for his angina, then half an hour or more non stop, about his, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, all the fault of faulty genetics apparently. I finally managed to escape, with prune like fingers.
There are quite a number of trailer park dwellers, in 10 x 8 wood cabins, all of an age, with a scattering of chickens and kittens, and a cock greeting the morning. In stark contrast to the couple I talked with yesterday, for whom life was a luxury camper van, and regular exotic cruises. Most of the place names are Māori, but the Māoris I see still seem to be an underclass to these rich English immigrants.
Day seven
Back on the rail track early, cool and misty breakfast at Manawaru - blt and coffee, and the dusty gravel rail track all the way to Matamata.
So far the bike has behaved, but for the saddle breaking loose, like riding a swivel chair - swiftly fixed with superglue. I chose to bring an ancient Cannondale mountain bike rather than my recent LEJOG bike - so as to leave it to charity at the end if the ride, and not have to ship it back. It’s heavy and slow, but I’m very appreciative of it’s thick off road tyres on these gravel tracks.
Then quite a few miles on highway one, wondering if I really wanted to be doing this, with trucks hurtling past my ear. Then the Waikato river trail - lots of steep up and down, and sections of boardwalk - with the river below - very beautiful. Ice cream and a chat at the dam with the 87 year old ice cream vendor, who was a commercial pilot, and NZ airforce before that, and also running an innovative software company. His recommendation for a campsite, which is where I am, based on the quality of the water, which might be drinkable if boiled… Only two others here, and the lake to swim in. The downside - a mile of very steep gravel track to get here, which I will have to climb again tomorrow morning to get back on track.
I was woken past midnight by a couple arriving, and setting up a tent - but worth it to put my head out of the tent, to see the extraordinary (if you live in England) dome of stars. My ride is getting quite remote - no light pollution, and the stars are fabulous and clear - the milky way, southern cross, and an upside down Orion,
Beautiful mist over the lake this morning, with swallows. Another thing that I have noticed in New Zealand is an abundance of bugs, in comparison to the UK - not just the bitey ones, but cars and vans are splattered with remains, as they once were in Europe.
Day Eight
After the track back up to the top, which wasn’t as hard as I feared, nice rolling roads past typical re Zealand farmland, then gravel track to the start of the Waikato river trail - crazy hard but wonderful trail through native bush, some very steep sections, where I ended up having to push the bike, as the back wheel was skidding in the dust and gravel, and all momentum was lost. Almost as slow on the steep downhill sections, making sure my front wheel didn’t skid on the corners and throw me off (only once, and quite gently sideways).
I arrived in Mangakino hungry and tired, and sat a long while over a large plate of food, with an extra portion of chunky chips. Tired enough that, though there were still hours of daylight, I thought I might stay and camp here by the lake, have a restful afternoon - but no - I consulted the local librarian, who is apparently a keen cyclist. My map was showing a gruelling 4 to 5 hour cycle to the next possible campsite - a whole day, too far for the evening for sure. She suggested I cycle the main road instead - more direct, and tarmac! So I set off again. What she didn’t tell me was that it was two hours uphill… But I am here at a campsite called Ngaherenga, and at the start of the Timber Trail.
As I cycled up the main road, I composed a poem - Roadkill
It’s sad when a human dies, if you knew them well of course Less so sad a dog, a cat, a mouse, a rat a horse But is it sadder a squashed adder on the road Than a raptor, a pheasant or toad Sadder to see a dead hedgehog maybe Than a rabbit, badger, fox Or a humble bumble bee I, like many a guy, would happily squish a fly Bugger the bugs with insecticide Perfect apples for perfect for apple pie Sadder a Rhino I think If something has to go extinct It’s a sadder fact though If the least thing dies out As the oil runs out We’re probably fucked There was an old woman who swallowed a fly To this beautiful world, the saddest goodbye
Riding at the side of hot dusty roads, that disappear to a vanishing point on the horizon, with the occasional vehicle whistling past, and endless fields of sweetcorn either side is like the famous crop duster scene in Hitchcock’s North by North West, which I watched again on the plane over, or maybe the ending of Easy Rider…
I may not be posting for a while now, as I am definitely heading into the wilderness - my map doesn’t show another settlement for 100 miles - no shops, no coffee stops… I need to stock up here in Mangakino.
Mangakino was apparently built for the workers who then built the Maraetai hydro electric systems in the mid 20th c. The land was taken from the Māoris with the promise of land elsewhere - which ended up being very poor land, and only grudgingly given 50 years later, then partially taken back to build the dams - now fully taken back, as farming the poor remote land has not been a successful venture - so said a trail board that I read.
See you at the other end of the Timber Trail!
Day Nine
I didn’t sleep well - an annoying mosquito regularly buzzing by my ear, but another misty morning with only a couple of bites
Straight into the fabulous timber trail - so named because we have taken out all the big trees over the past 100 years… but still very beautiful, especially the views from the suspension bridge - Bog Inn Creek being the first of them. Lots of cyclists on the route, mostly luggage free, mostly going the same direction as me, mostly on e-bikes, but the occasional self sufficient long distance fanatic like me, including an American woman about my age, Garcia, with all the kit, doing the full cycle tip to tip, a young Asian man with home made pannier frames made from wire mesh and zip ties, and a triangular banana holder similarly constructed in the triangle of the frame. A crazily laden German called Sebastian - but young and fit - you have to be, unless e-biking - the first 12km of the trail are all up hill…
I have chosen to stop half way - at PiroPiro, an old lumber mill, getting here at 4.00, so a lazy few hours in the sun - the alternative would have been another 5 hours, with more steep bits, in the heat of the afternoon, before the end of the trail - I’m leaving that to tomorrow. This is a free campsite, and it’s a national holiday weekend to celebrate… though I’m not sure if everyone thinks it’s cause for celebration. There are lots of little people racing around on little trail bikes - like mosquitoes - driving me mad, I have put earplugs in. But then - when I was that age, what fantastic fun that would be!
For me, the highlights of the day, apart from the shear beauty of the native bush, have been a couple of skinny dips along the way, in clear fast flowing streams.
Day Ten
Really good nights sleep despite neighbours with thumpy music - I just put in my earplugs. In the morning a few of the children from last night, drawn to me like mosquitoes, came to chat. Very friendly. Another day of the spectacular Timber trail, steepish for the first 10k, then steadily downhill on what used to be a tram line, taking the timber out of the bush, and supplying the timber milling camps. Lots of fabulous suspension bridges, a spiral loop in the track, through a tunnel, lots of evidence of the timber industry - bits of rail, an old steam winding engine, the remains of the original bridges, less bumpy than yesterday, but bumpy enough that at one point my back wheel came loose and half jumped of its bracket - thankfully on a slow uphill rather than a fast and bumpy downhill. Another refreshing skinny dip, and the end of the trail, then 29k on a dusty back road to Taumarunui. Very hot, so I stopped for an ice cream at a random roadside café. The smells of New Zealand are so ingrained in my memory, the gum and pine trees, the smell of hot fern trees, hot dust, and hot sheep, and the taste of chocolate coated pineapple chunks bought in a supermarket!
On route I sat and chatted with Garcia, a recently retired Canadian, who plans to do the whole AT. She started with her husband a couple of weeks ago, but the whole of the 90 mile beach into headwind and rain did him in… so she is now riding with Sebastian, a young German with all the kit. I was talking about drinking water from streams, and she gave me some sterilising tablets.
I arrived in Taumarunui just as the heavens opened, with much apocalyptic thunder and lightning, ducking into a supermarket, hopefully to stock up for the coming four days.
Poor Garcia and Sebastian, a couple of hours behind me, caught in the deluge.
Sitting now in the supermarket, waiting for the rain to lessen, before finding a campsite for the night.
Which I have now found - complete with kitchen, hot showers and WiFi… but off line again now till Whanganui I think, in three days time. I am running low on gas, as I’m boiling water - so didn’t buy any food that needed cooking, and regretting that now, as I sit in the fully functional kitchen of the campsite, sheltered from the rain, thinking about the macaroni cheese that I didn’t buy, and eating dry focaccia.
In the shared kitchen are an American couple from Colorado, my sort of age, and three younger Americans from Philadelphia, with serious off road cycling kit - raving about my retro Cannondale, with its original railway station logo.
Day Eleven
Not a good start to the night - with the campsite right next to both railway and main road into Taumaranui, ear plugs again. but great showers, lots of hot water, WiFi, and a constant hot water boiler for several mugs of rooibos tea with lemon. I also booked my spot on the Whanganui River jet boat service, then set off into town to find a sports shop where I bought more dehydrated food, and water sterilising tablets. Shame you can’t buy dehydrated water… just add two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen - which you get from the air - so only carry the hydrogen - which makes you lighter! Win win win.
Out of town after a coffee, to speed me on my way - galvanised for many hours of steep up hill on rough gravel roads - I passed a young Argentinian called Julius, who was doing the whole AT, and finding it tough… 450 meters climb, to Owhango, (nothing there) then 500 meters drop - the downhill bits being no relief, with the ever constant possibility of losing control of the front wheel on the gravel, and coming off over the bars - to finally arrive at the Blue Duck station café in Whakahoro (the café is all that’s there, but at least there is one). Though I arrived just after it closed… but the let me buy a drink - my last $10 - and take on more water. Then the most fabulous climb, 500 meters straight up on a very thin bare earth track, with a precipitous drop to the left much of the way, with the river way down below. Not for the feint hearted! I arrived at the summit just as the sun was setting, with a spectacular view of Mount Taranaki in the far distance. Setting up camp and eating freeze dried veggie carbonara with tuna in the dark. One other guy here, another fully kitted out German called Marcus, doing the full AT. Many others chose to do the climb in the morning, and stay over at the Blue Duck, but I was so glad I didn’t - it would have been a 5.30 start… And the morning ride - 550 meters almost straight dowm, was very a very muddy track, from the Mangapurua trig where I camped, to the Whanganui river. My chain set got totally gummed up with very sticky mud early on, and the chain wrapped around the sprocket and jammed solid - took an age to free, and then made a crazy noise up every slight incline - I was worried it had broken, but I think now it was just mud. So a 3/4 hour 70 knot boat trip on the river, from the middle of nowhere (literally) to Pipiriki. Most of the day I knew there were cyclists in front and behind, but all going my way, so must of the day I could have been the only person within 100 miles.
Day Twelve
I only just got the boat - my card doesn’t work, and my cash is gone, and many places don’t take phone payments… it would have meant a half day cycle back up to the top, and a day down another valley, possibly cyclable, possibly not, rather the a short jet boat trip.
Great campsite at Pipiriki, with fish and chips, a shower, and all my cycling partners on evenly spaced boats meeting up like old friends - as if we have known each other for years rather than days. The young Americans cycled onward for another 30 miles, but the rest of us are eating sugary things by the spadeful, sitting in the sun, and talking shop. Sebastian, a young German with a very loaded bike has everything - a camp bed, with blow up mattress on top, a bike prop, electric gear changer, a camp chair, condiments… not quite an elsan, but almost.
It’s all so beautiful - I’m quite emotional - the remoteness, the beauty, but perhaps it’s mostly the respite after two days very hard cycling.
A few wonders in the night - what is the astrology of the southern skies?
The Māori arrived in NZ nearly 500 years after Norsemen discovered North America.
This land was still being settled (unsuccessfully) by pioneers, only 100 years ago. There are still a few large stations in the lower altitudes, accessible by river - 500 acres, but hardly going concerns - really only making money with Manuka honey.
Day Thirteen
Another difficult to get to sleep night in my tiny tent, insect bites are always more itchy at night, apparently to do with lower cortisol levels… and Julian, the young Argentinian in the tent next to me, is snoring. But a nice slow start in the morning, drying the tent, showering, washing done with other cyclists, breakfast in the very large visitor kitchen and living room, then 75ish kilometres mostly downhill on tarmac to Whanganui - except for Gentle Annie Hill, which in the heat was anything but - 200m uphill, fabulous view from the top, and a minibus from St John’s Hill retirement home stopping briefly, and offering me a bottle of much needed water, and me chatting to the old folk - my childhood in Whanganui was on St John’s Hill.
On route I stopped at St Joseph’s convent at Jerusalem, a strange mix of catholic iconography and Māori pattern, including an elaborately carved alter, and oil painting of a Māori Madonna and child. A little further on is a restored 19th century mill, built by a French settler Pestell, who learned to speak Māori, and married a Māori. A kind gentle man, who loved to say Te Pokopoko when asked if he wanted anything - the Māori for ‘very little’ He died aged 88 in 1912
Our last day in New Zealand incorporated a visit to the War Memorial Museum in Auckland, which has a couple of very beautiful Māori meeting houses, with every inch of their wooden structures carved with images of spiritual beings. On my return to the UK one of the first things I did was to walk into Wells with Bertie, passing the carved facades of Wells Cathedral, and being struck by how similar it was to the Māori Pa - the carvings of spiritual beings - different scale, different building materials, but principally identical.
Us bunch of cyclists gather at the top of Annie’s not so gentle hill, and Julian is flying a drone to take a selfie - I laughingly say to Sebastian, who has everything, to bring out his drone, and he does…
I bought a little saddle bag on Amazon before leaving on this trip - it cost £5, was very surprisingly small (in the photo it looked a decent size) and it fell to bits on the first day. Most days I have had to stop and sew it up a bit more, but today both zippers came clean off. Maybe I am stuffing it too full, but all my precious and needed stuff is in it - which I didn’t want to lose - so I used the rest of my superglue and sealed the broken zip shut.
Whanganui! And tea with Mandy, who was maybe 6 or 7 last time I saw her, cooked by her lovely husband Nigel, and M and M - great family friends and surrogate parents from our NZ days in the 60’s, who still live where we used to. A hot outdoor bath, and a bed!
Day Fourteen
I am going to end my blog here, although the adventure continues, the cycling has ceased - the bit between here and Wellington is I am told not anything like the bits I have just done - and I would need to get deep into the South Island to get anywhere as magical again, and I don’t have time, and don’t want to end the ride anticlimactically. So I’m indulging in a few days nostalgic wallow, in the town where I lived as a child - our house on Virginia Road, the school playing field where my dad was head (the main buildings have gone, but some remain, now an old folks home), my primary school, and our holiday batch out at Kai Iwi - all very familiar
And more are of course - The Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, which is wonderful, and the boring gallery - and it was a little… And catching up with friends from long ago.
I do wish that I had had time to do the whole Aotearoa Tour, although I think I probably got the best bit of it - especially in the North Island. The following two weeks are family holiday with a hired van, beautiful beaches, all the touristy things, lots of wonderful campsites, Hundertwasser and Rotarua, paddling down the Whanganui River, and kayaking to Cook's Bay. Then two more weeks with family and friends, much of it spent on Waiheke Island. I don't wish to end on a negative note, as this was a fantastic holiday and a wonderful experience, and New Zealand is a very beautiful country, but I am sort of grateful to fate that I have spent my adulthood in the centre of European history and culture, rather that rather isolated in the antipodes. Over the years I must have visited the majority of major art galleries in Europe, and in Russia and the USA as well. And now I can add Auckland and Wellington galleries to my list. I was also struck by the almost nakedness of the sheep cropped grasslands, standing in stark contrast to the remaining areas of native bush, and areas where this has regenerated. Perhaps we don't notice this in the UK, as we lost the forests thousands of years ago, so there is not the same painful contrast. It seems to me also, in terms of society, with European settlement in New Zealand being so recent, there is still a difficulty with identity, especially for the 'woke'. I do feel that the Māori are predominantly still an underclass, and the conservative majority, especially on Waiheke Island, had something of an ex-pat feel to them. But these were just impressions, and quite probably insubstantial. The Kiwis that I met were very happy to be in New Zealand, rather than the UK - and I sort of agreed, as we flew back into Heathrow, which was grey and grubby and a bit like the back end of a warehouse - especially in contrast to the extraordinary bling and Eden Project like Doha - and the M4 corridor was rather rubbish strewn - New Zealand was remarkably rubbish free. Still, it's good to be home too!
I wrote a song about the Bridge to Nowhere - click on the link below
I wrote a song about The Bridge to Nowhere