Brenda and Brent - Trip Diary

We rented a car (black line) for the last 5 days and headed north from Aukland, returning to Aukland airport on Aug 31 for a marathon series of flights to Buenos Aires. The northland is very rural, small towns and lots of dairy farms. We were stopped once by a herd of cows crossing the road and once for the essential Kiwi moment - a flock of sheep being herded down the road.

We are now in Aukland - which is a BIG city. It is a different world from what we have experienced in the rest of New Zealand. Leading edge in everything where most of New Zealand is pretty laid back. The first completely air conditioned room we have been in many months.

We are on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula, ready to head toward Aukland then a bit of the north of the North Island. We took a bus (the yellow line) from Rotorua, after an interesting Maori evening, to Thames to avoid some busy roads. We are back on our bicycles, well rested and feeling stronger than ever.

We stopped for 3 mights at Turangi to allow us one recovery day and a day to do the Tongariro Crossing - a famous New Zealand hike. The route climbs 800 metres, first into one caldera (quiet volcanic crater) across and up the other side to the high point of the climb. From there it is down into a second caldera, then down 1,100 metres through alpine shrubs and into a maiden forest to the pick up point. By the end we were both hurting a little - my left hip, Brenda's left knee. We can work a lot harder on our bicycles without these kinds of pains. We were both stiff the next day, but that did not affect our cycling much. The mauve line is the area of the hike. Pictures here.

We turned east toward the central plateau, travelling through a series of long narrow valleys, including the Tangarkau Gorge which has the best forest we have seen on the North Island.

We continued north east along the coast and around Mt Taranaki, a volcano with the shape of Mt Fuji but not the height, having fun in spite of the rather strong headwinds. Some of the area seems as remote as the South Island, but the towns are in great shape with beautifully preserved buildings.

We spent 3 nights in Wellington as guests of Laurie and Martin - a great break from cycling. Wellington is a beautiful town set in a endless series of hills. Most of the hills are too steep for houses, so the city has many green areas. The downtown is bigger than Victoria, but still people sized. The town has an active night life and a beautiful museum. We took the train north to Marton then cycled west to Wanganui.