New Zealand Trip

Our photos are online:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mshriro/NewZealand2007?authkey=hwweaGNHgjI&pli=1

Enjoy!

We are home!!! Heading home is always bittersweet. Miss the family, miss the friends, miss the dogs...in short, miss all y'all. But man is the diving sweet at the Poor Knights islands in northern NZ!

For the diving fans, it was Dive! Tutukaka and the diving is coldwater diving, but warm for those Monterey folks at about 62 degrees F or so (hey, seems almost tropical compared with Mendocino, 49F on our last abalone trip). The volcanic rock islands tend to lead to high levels of visibility even in poor conditions (ours was not the best and was 15 to 20 meters). So the result is amazing kelp forest of cold water, fish that are often not seen in coldwater environments (in the area around Poor Knights warmwater and coldwater currents meet to create unique conditions), and some of the shady areas have lead to amazing encrustation of the steep walls of the Poor Knights islands.

We dove a site called Meditation wall where you can just hang out looking at stuff, poking around under the kelp, etc. Somewhat shallow (18 meters), you can hang out down there for quite some time. Fantastic day, 2 dives. No pics (no underwater camera), but we picked up a little book on what we saw, so if interested we can show it to you.

So hope to see ya'll soon, we have missed everyone! I will post a link to photo downloads when they are up!

Since the last entry, we traveled by train to Christchurch, spent the evening packing our bikes in bubble wrap and getting ready to head to north island for our final days. Exhausted after hours of unbolting racks and fenders in the dark (our train was late and we had to work on the bikes on the lawn outside our hostel in the dark), we hung out with an energetic family from 'Good old England' playing cards and burning through a whole lot of beer. We were so sad to leave the south island and be packing our bikes.

So on to Auckland by plane, staying at the Bamber house, a large colonial in the Mt. Eden neighborhood (which to Dan and I was pleasantly reminiscent of the Elmwood neighborhood of Berkeley). Dinner on Mt. Eden road felt a lot like College Avenue only smaller scale. Posonby St. had the feeling of Melrose Ave. in LA, and downtown Auckland is a bit hilly with a wharf and harbor giving it a bit of an SF feel. Overall, this city made us feel right at home with all of the things we love about the Bay area but all very close together. We found out later from some folks we met over dinner that a lot of the architecture was borrowed from San Francisco and the bay area, and many of the original architects were California transplants. So it made sense, but was unexpected for us how much we would love it.

For the first time, we rented a car and are driving on the left! Dan is driving and is doing great save the one incident where he was trying to remember which side the turn signals were on our car at home (vs. the rental), and he started visualizing driving at home. He did this while driving. Guess which side of the road he ended up on...???

The northern sounds of the south island are absolutely amazing. We have decided to hang out here for a few days hiking and doing some day trip biking. We hiked a stretch of the Queen Charlotte track putting our biking sandals to the test...they passed I guess as we went 16 miles with climbs and decents without any blood, blisters, or other oozing wounds. The only downside was that we are staying at the backpacker run by fire twirlers. We came home so exhausted from our hike, we thought we would take a quick nap and awoke at midnight, missing the show! To learn more about fire twirling (or buy some equipment) http://www.homeofpoi.com; to see Nikki, our host twirl on video or to see photos: http://www.jugglersrest.com/videogallery.htm Enjoy!

We considered the hike our 'day off' from biking and figured we needed to get on our bikes one last time! We took a mail boat tour through the sounds and had them drop us at the furthest point of the tour with our bikes. We then road back along a twisting small road through the sounds encountering small beaches and bays. There is a tiny cafe about halfway through the ride where we stopped at the recommendation of our host (the fire twirler). A tiny outdoor eating area is perched on 'a wee bay'. The water turns from deep blue in the deep sections to emerald green in the tiny bays and almost a turquiose where the water is shallowest. After a chocolate brownie, we pushed on to find a series of pretty serious hills on which to burn off those brownies...

We are now back in Picton, getting ready to take a train back to Christchurch (done with the bus thing...). The train is supposed to be beautiful, with whale watching opportunities all along the eastern coast as we head south. There we will pack our bikes up tonight for an early flight to Auckand tomorrow. That is, if Dan can get on the plane without the passport he lost...

We completed our tour of the incredible west coast (pictures soon), and have taken a bus from Punikaika to Picton yesterday.

Don't even get me started about watching my pretty bike get strapped and bungied to the 'U' hooks on the back of the bus or stuffed into the trailer compartment with all of the bags...we were frantically wrapping the bike frames in plastic bags and hoping for the best...we tried not to look back as the bus went through bumpy pot-holed roads. It all seemed to work out in the end (with a few added character marks for our trusty steeds).

So today, off to explore Queen Charlotte Sound (on foot today!). About 750 miles on the bikes, give or take. We will ride a bit tomorrow through the sounds and bus it back to Christchurch. We will fly back to Auckland on the north island for a few days and then head home! So it seems that our biking adventure is drawing to a close. Yesterday we met a cyclist just beginning her journey...as we shared what we have learned we felt a bit sad to be leaving here so soon. But we miss you all and will see you very soon!!!