Issues? Tissues!

Gareth:

Morning Campers,

What a chaotic week of travel we have had.

Brief summary for those of you who don’t want to read the details….

Started off OK. Went mental after a few days, but now everything is OK again.

That should appease most of you out there. Thanks for reading have a good week.

For those of you left who want to know the particulars. Then sit tight, this blog is not for people who have epilepsy, or are pregnant, arm length restrictions apply. Rated PG.

Star Date: 24abeta67Ninea4 or the 3rd of November, to those of you who haven’t been abducted yet.

Today is a cycle day… Lets pump those legs! Went from Muriwai beach to Parakai. Which was only 30km, did it in an hour and a half. Computed an average speed of 20km an hour. Conquered a few hills without pushing. Boom! This cycling malarkey is easy (I’ll be eating those words later, without ketchup. Just solid slabs of capital letters, the hardest letters to swallow)

Enough of the cycling. Lets relax those legs! In Parakai we pitched, showered and headed to the local dairy to find grub. We weren’t sure whether we’d stay two days or not as there didn’t look to be a lot of things to do, although there are some hot springs next to the campsite? Had a few bacon sarnies for dinner, then I played jewel quest and Alice read her book. Simple life for simple people. Day over Shut eyes, then slept!

Alice: Today is also the lovely Manou’s birthday, Happy Birthday Manou!  Here is the happy birthday song sung using only your name as the words, I know how much you like that!  Maaanou Maanou M’no M’no, Maanou Maanou M’nou M’nou, Manou Maaaanou Manou Maanou, Manou Maaaanou M’no M’no.

For those of you who don’t know Manou, she has been in the blog already and you should know who she is. It’s Manou!

4^th Novemeber

Gareth:

Opened eyes and woke up. Don’t worry people who thought this blog was supposed to be a gasp a minute. This is just the quiet before the storm. I’m really building this up aren’t I. Let me just make this point clear, I didn’t wet the bed.

Anywho, We had intended to cycle to Wellsford, but the weather wasn’t too good and our hearts weren’t in it. So we checked out the hot springs that I mentioned earlier.  Our luck was in as they had shut the main pool for maintenance so we got our own private hot tub for the same price as a normal swim.  We sat in that for about an hour, which made us feel a bit dizzy cause of the heat. So we slowly made our way to the rock pool, which we splashed around in for another hour to relax all our aching muscles. I also had an excuse to use my underwater camera for the first time in something other than a bath.

After lunch we headed to into Helensville, which was a 40min walk and found free internet at the library, the aim was to try and find a cheap motel in Wellsford as it didn’t have a campsite. However, instead we found an alternative route to a place just a little south  (and on the other side of the country) called Warkworth that we could do instead that had a cheap campsite nearby, it involved going off the main and secondary roads but we decided to have a bit of an adventure. This however, changed our long term route and we are going to do the North east coast instead of the North west. Mental I know, sometimes I don’t even know how we cope, but cope we do.

Both happy with our new plan, we got a Danish ate it while walking back to the campsite, had hot dogs for dinner, a little more jewel quest then bed.

5^th Novermeber

Gareth:

Today we had to prepare for a big ride. Packed up all our stuff, carbed to the max with a big bowl of porridge and headed towards Warkworth. After about 40km, the heavens opened and we got drenched. It even got inside our waterproof shoes that we had raved about in Kuala Lumpur!  So on top of a 70km bike ride we had to do half of it wet! We found a campsite at a place called Omaha Flats… This was more just a house than a campsite but here we pitched in the rain and quickly showered and recovered inside with a nice cup of tea. We realized that the place was filled with youngsters all doing the fruit picking around the area and all the rooms were taken up with young working travelers. The owners Sue and Gary were super nice, but I don’t know how they cope with a load of youths in their house, but I’m guessing it brings in good income. Good on em.

So that was our biggest day of riding so far and it was tough work but we were pretty proud of ourselves, managed to maintain about 18km per hour as it was mostly flat with a few big hills and total cycle time (without breaks) was about 4 hours.

6^th November

Alice:  Had a leisurely pack up this morning and a good chat to Gary, I dropped in to the conversation that Gareth’s air mattress was punctured and he kindly gave us one that another traveler had left so Gareth can sleep comfortably again (sorry to disappoint you Andrew and Rich). 

Gareth 'packing'

me packing

 It was a pretty hilly ride to Leigh where we stopped and had lunch and I made the mistake of sending Gareth into the shop to buy supplies, I carefully recited a list of all the things they stocked in the camp shop at Pakiri where we were headed (Gary had phoned for us earlier) and did not need to buy and he happily re-emerged from the shop 20 minutes later with exactly those things and an un ripe avocado… great.  So we had crunchy avocado and tomatoes  in bread, I went back to the shop and set off on our way again.

We conquered a massive hill on the other side of Leigh and made a pretty hairy decent as the road wasn’t sealed on the Pakiri side so it was all gravel!  In total it was only about 20km but with the big hill it felt longer.  The campsite at Pakiri was beautiful, right next to the beach and we had the whole camp field to ourselves.  For those of you who are interested (Dad) there were Oyster Catchers nesting, New Zealand Dotterels and the endangered fairy turn, so it was a hip and happening place for bird life!

7^th November

Gareth:

Remember Remember the 7^th of November when Nidgey was born and there were no fire. Hey up Nidge. Hope you had a good birthday, Nidgey is my older brother and he ain’t heavy.

Here’s a picture for you to see him and his ways.

Happy birthday Nidgey boy.

What did we do today?

Errr.

I think we went for a long walk along a long beach.

Ought else Alice?

Oh yeah, we played table tennis and I won 3 games to 0. Super smashed you into next week. I also reminded Alice of the time I beat UV at table pong on his home ground. What a day.

What else did we do Alice?

Oh yeah, Ate an ice cream, did the laundry, and researched our route for the next day. Just had a relaxing day. Alice watched T.V. and I played my new game World of Goo. Goodnight

8^th November

We packed up all our belongings, shoved it on the bike and set off to Mangawhai heads in the morn. The whole way there was really tough gravel roads, this is where biking took a bit of a hit and I started to chew my own words. We had our first puncture of the trip, which was more of a burst but was soon fixed with the only spare inner tube.

A second puncture soon followed and we wasted about 30min having to fix it with the puncture repair kit. This gravel wasn’t the best surface to bike on. Especially on a tandem with all the weight on the back tyre!

We managed the 50km without any more punctures and I went to the shop for a steak pie with cheese and chips for a pick us up treat. That’s the last time we’ll do gravel roads. Although, the tyre had taken a battering and was looking a bit like a chewed up orange. The campsite was next to a lovely estuary, but we were tired, so we just chilled out in the kitchen and had an early night.

9^th November

Today we spoke to the campsite owner and he recommended a walk along the cliff tops, so off we set on our rest day on a 4 hour walk?!? Up a steep cliff?!? The legs were tired but it was worth it, even though we did get caught out in the rain a few times.

When we came back we had left over pie for lunch then Alice proceeded to fix the spare inner tube, this was some what of a treat for Alice who proclaimed to have never fixed a puncture before and that ‘Dad’ had always done it in the past. She was a rapid learner and had the tyre pumped and holding air within moments. Good job. I also had a quick tinkle on the bike, which cleaned it up nicely, played with the brakes and slipped a little oil on the chain. We spoilt ourselves with a carbonara and semolina for dessert. All this exercise makes you want to eat. Felt full and very carbed up for tomorrow. It was raining so we had an early night ready for another big day.

10^th November

Today the fan hits the s***. It all started well, the weather was good, we packed quickly and were able to set off early to make up the 70km to Whangarei (pronounced Phan’eray!?! Confused us too, the Maori’s pronounce Wh Ph apparently) and set off down the road.

This journey lasted about 1 min and we traveled 400m. All the lovely prep work I had done on the bike the other day had left the pedals being wonky. My Engineering skills took a bit of a denting from the flak Alice was spitting at me. (All at this moment in time in jest) Another 30min of tinkling on the bike passed and I got it re-fixed and on our way we went.

We climbed a massive hill and started making good pace on the way down. After about an hour and 17km of traveling, the first hiss of the day was heard which is the instant recognizing sign that you have a puncture. This was a little surprising as we were on tarmac flat roads, but we took it on the chin and quickly repaired it with the spare inner tube that Alice had patched up the other day.

This took about 15 min. Off we went again. After about 1km… *Hiss*. Oh dear. I started to panic now as we had only one puncture repair patch left. Alice fixed the inner tube while I went over the tyre and rim with my hands and eyes. Something wasn’t good, the tyre had opened up and I think I had found the cause of all our pain. The tyre had started nipping the inner tube and puncturing it. Alice realised the next town we could stay at was only 5km away so we decided to push the bike to the town, so we could sort all our problems from there. *Hiss* Oh dear frog no. Not again. Nothing left, no spare inner tubes, and no puncture patches left! So we pushed on with a flat tyre.

Alice: 

We were down and out, wondering what we were going to do.  We’d tried flagging down a few four wheel drives with trailers to no avail  Even if we make it to Waipu, we thought to ourselves, there is no campsite there and no bike shop either.  In fact the closest campsite is 15km away (which would mean one seriously damaged rim if pushing) and the closest bike shop about 40km away.  To top off the problem there is no public transport what so ever, so we were in a bit of a conundrum.

But this is New Zealand, a very friendly place, and out of the blue… Rob happened. A truck pulled up and asked us if we needed a hand.   He’d actually driven passed us, thought to himself ‘they look like they’re up a certain creek without a certain paddle’ and turned his truck around to come and get us.  So we strapped the tandem and trailer on to the back and hopped in to the cap with me perching in between the two seats clutching the pannier!  Rob drove us to the nearby town of Ruakaka which at least did have a campsite and dropped us off at the garage there, he pointed out that he worked just down the road and had a yute so if we couldn’t get a tire we should come and get him and he’d drive us the 30km to Whangarei where there was definitely a bike shop.

We waved farewell to Rob with a little tear of gratitude in our eyes and went into the garage – they were about as much use as a chocolate fire guard unfortunately being mainly a car garage and told us there were no bike tires to be had in the vicinity.  So we retired to the near by four square supermarket, ate lunch and discussed the situation.

We concluded that we had no choice but to take friendly Rob the truck driver up on his offer of help.  Even if we’d stayed in Ruakaka we’d have had to run / walk the 30km to Whangarei the next day, buy a tire and walk back then cycle the same route the day after that with the fixed bike.  So I trotted off down the road and broke the news to him.  He was as friendly as ever and said he’d come and pick us up in his yute after he finished work which was in about an hour.  I dashed back and we got him a box of chocolates which was the very least we could do!

Rob dropped us and the broken bike off at a campsite in Whangarei in the pouring rain and we said goodbye to him.  Thoroughly nice guy and frankly, saved our asses, we will be forever grateful to lovely New Zealand Rob and his helpful friendly ways. Sigh.

11^th November

Today is Erin's 3rd birthday - happy birthday youth, well done if you're reading this.  Hope you had a good one.

Woke up to a lovely sunny Whangarei morning and trotted off into the centre of town to do a price comparison of the 3 bike shops in the centre.  We ended up buying all our spare stuff from the first one, Hedgehog bikes, because it was the cheapest and the guy who owned it was the friendliest!   I had to dissuade Gareth from spending quite a lot of money in Dick Smith’s electronics shop, he gets very excited in built up areas where he can buy gadgets bless him.  We also bought a new air mattress because, lovely as it was of Gary to give us the free one, it did smell of shed.

We had a delightful subway lunch and went for a coffee at a place called the Farmhouse that had a BOGOF offer on, they even give you a chocolate with your coffee so we were pretty happy.   Round the corner was the local pack’n’save where we decided to add another night to the bill at the campsite, buy wine and chocolate and head back to camp to settle in for the evening.

That night we went out for a meal, partly because we decided that when we get to towns it’s good to kick back and take advantage of the facilities and partly because Gareth had seen yet another BOGOF on stone grills at a local bar.  We got two lovely big mix grills with chips and salad for $24 then went to a club called Danger Danger that sold you a wrist band for $10, gave you a cup, and let you fill it up with beer as much as you like – or at least that’s what we thought!  They neglected to tell us that the deal finished at 11 and you could only get 20 re fills.  Never mind, we still had a really good night and wobbled back to the tent at about midnight!

12^th November

Pretty hung over today.  We did laundry and took the bike for a service then did a sort of check list of all the money saving offers the city has to offer!

Chinese buffet lunch – check

BOGOF cappuccino at farmhouse – check

$1.99 cadbury chocolate at pack’n’save – check

We’ve made a lovely mince dinner and are now chilling out, catching you guys up on the blog and watching TV.  We’ll be off again tomorrow up towards the Bay of Islands over a whopping great hill but in a few days time we’ll be on the final page of the map and heading back down the other side!  So despite a few break downs, a little hang over and no training what so ever we’ve managed to cycle about 370km pulling 40kgs of weight over some proper hills – in short we’re pretty proud of our little selves.

Blog off xxx