It takes two to tandem

Tuesday 27^th October

Alice:

Today was our last day in Auckland so we used it well!  We started off with a trip to Esquires for a toastie and coffee (still $6.90) followed by a cake and coffee (still $6.90) and a browse of the internet (still free) for various things then sauntered back to the hotel to do a laundry. (Laundry Day!)

We had dinner in the same place we went to on the first night in Auckland, the Met bar, the pizza was delicious but they gave me a Sol that was 3 months passed the sell by date, Gareth realised this after he necked his beer and then proceeded to drink mine, noticing it tasted funny. Atfer I had drank two thirds of it I was double dared by Gareth to complain, so I “ran the risk” and got a corona for free.

The night was still young so we decided to go to a bar for more beers. We ended up in Father Ted’s Irish bar with a $17 jug of brown booze, which made both of us quite merry.  We were made happier still when we realised that it was quiz night and, even better, a free quiz night!  So we signed up, I finally let Gareth use the quiz team name ‘Stephen Hawking’s football boots’ and we got stuck in to answering the questions.  We didn’t do too badly, we got 31/50 and the winning team got 35/50 but there were 7 of them and only 2 of us.  Here are some sample questions:

1)    If Susan Saranden was Thelma who was Louise?

2)    What is the name for a large group of boy scouts and girl guides?

3)    How many US states start with a vowel?

4)    Which city are you in if you are at Gorky Park?

If you can answer those three questions correctly we wish you were on our team, we could have won that $100 bar tab!

We did also get free pies though so would definitely recommend that bar to any visitors to Auckland!

We ended up getting quite merry but I had my sensible head on and prized Gareth away from the bar to get a relatively early nigh as tomorrow was the big bike day!

Wednesday 28^th October

Had to get up early today to check out, which was a bit of an effort as we were a little bit hung over.  Thankfully, we could leave our big backpacks in the hotel lockers for only $3 while we went to get the bus out to Mangere to collect the tent!

On the bus Gareth became conscious that his aqua pack was leaking. Or at least that’s what he blamed it on!

It was very good to be re united with the tent again and we celebrated with an ice cream before heading back to the city centre to collect the bags.

We then had a pretty horrendous walk with our entire luggage to the bus stop where we caught the bus to Avondale and then had another pretty horrendous walk to the bike shop where we collapsed!  Two hours in the bike shop and one subway sandwich later we had to admit to ourselves that we had too much stuff to take biking round the country with us, so we packed as well as we could and set off laden down with trailer, backpacks and panniers to the campsite. 

This could have been an easy memory that could have ended with all being well and good had Gareth not decided to go the wrong way (even though I told him it was the wrong way!!) down a massive hill. To top it off, at the bottom of the hill the chain then proceeded to come off and continued to keep coming off all the way back up the massive hill (which we didn’t need to go down or up, as Gareth went the wrong way) and all the way back to the campsite which was exactly where I knew it was all along…but Gareth didn’t… did I mention that I’d told him he was going the wrong way?

We finally arrived at the campsite and had much needed showers followed by a trip to the local pack ‘n’ save to buy dinner, I think you can see by the pictures of us in the pack ‘n’ save that we’ve had a pretty long day and are starting to wonder whether biking had been a carefully selected mode of propulsion.

Thursday 29^th October

We felt a bit better today after the good nights sleep and also managed to make it back to the bike shop without the chain coming off repeatedly! 

On the way we witnessed a three-car pile up. At a set of traffic lights the lights went green and the three cars at the front decided to smash into each other. It was a bit surreal. We think the car drivers were too busy looking at us and how we managed to pull away, and forgot about there own maneuvers!  We let them roll off round the corner leaving a trail of oil, before we continued on our way.  We’d left most of our stuff at the campsite and only had with us what were going to put in storage so the load was considerably lighter.  Also Gareth had learnt his lesson and was nervously asking me which way to go at every turning!

At the bike shop we had some new comfier saddles fitted and the chain fixed. Gareth bought a new computer toy that measures speeds and distances, and then we set off on our way to storage.  We unloaded all our unnecessary weight burdening possessions into storage, paid a rather extortionate price for the privilege, but they bamboozled us as we left by giving us a bag with four chocolates inside. This made us feel happy and rather pleased with the whole process, but looking back we were probably ripped off.

Gareth came up with this method of cutting back weight

The campsite wasn’t too far away and I maintained navigational superiority over Gareth so we went the quickest way home via no alternative long winded detour. Pitched the tent and set off on our way to the supermarket Pak’n’Save to buy provisions. As you can tell by the pictures the day was better than the day before, we had no hangover and everything had started to go right. Bring on tomorrow, and the first big ride.

A bit happier in Pack 'n' save!

Check out the new shades BigLob - $5 (approx £2.20) Best shades ever.

Friday 30^th

Gareth:

We rose early, packed up camp, had a substantial breakfast, and proceeded to cycle what seemed to be up hill all the way to Piha. We must have picked one of the most difficult rides to start with. Basically, the ride went steadily up hill for what seemed like 30km to a height of 400 odd meters, before then dropping off an edge for 6km down to the beach where the campsite was. Half the ride was spent pushing a tandem, the other half was spent breathing heavily at every rest stop.

Waitakere Ranges National Park

Computer says we kept an average speed of 10km / hour and we arrived at destination in about 3 and a half hours.

It was an achievement… I tell you that… People were pretty astonished at what we had accomplished and used words like ‘Brave’, ‘Impressive’, ‘Outstanding’, and ‘You bunch of freaks, don’t camp near me, you’re not brave, impressive, or outstanding, you’re just a bunch of freaks’. When hearing this, through our delirium that had been induced by high endorphin levels and adrenalin, we hugged them all and congratulated them on getting here.

I thought I had been maintaining a good hydration strategy throughout the ride/push. However, while we took a turn around the beach, my head took a turn for the worse, and a gradual dehydration headache came upon me.

At this we went back to the tent and bedded down after the grueling day by watching a couple of hours of Family Guy and hitting the bed hard and fast. Alice was fine. Sleep was good.

Saturday 31^st

Happy Halloween… Stepping out of the tent this morning I wish I could tell you that I felt stronger and wiser. However, the words that reach my lips (fingers) first are weaker and dumber. I felt like a hilly monster had raped me overnight. Alice this morn seemed to spring around and make breakfast without the simplest of whimpers. I’m guessing it’s an age thing (or she’s not pedaling?) After the breakfast, I felt better and my muscles and bones had recuperated, but to outmaneuver me Alice had been talking to a couple about some lovely walks, which all seemed to travel up hill. Off we set, no complaints, and we started tramping round the hills. Not the best way to recover I had thought, I had assumed that a rest day would involve a few computer games I had downloaded, but no, Alice assures me the hill walks were for the best. Here are some pictures we captured of the lovely geological features we found on the way.

Looking back on the campsite

It was a lovely day, and we met some interesting characters in the camp kitchen. An Irish guy who was a mature self confessed hippy that liked a drink and seemed to have traveled everywhere. Then there was a Scottish writer who liked a drink and was writing a book on corruption in the police force that he said would ‘set a few arses twitching’. Then there was a couple who invited us back to there campervan, who offered us a drink, and then offered us accommodation at every aunt, uncle, friends house who they knew for the rest of the trip around the island, very friendly. We took their address and might meet up with them as they offered us a camp in their back garden.

We headed for bed, knowing that we had to conquer the hill tomorrow that we rode down on the way into Piha! Alice met some trick or treaters in costumes that night for Halloween. She said we didn’t have anything.

Sunday 1^st November

We woke up this morning to find out that our Raspberry cordial that we put in the aqua packs had been stolen from the communal fridge. We blamed this on the trick or treaters that Alice had turned away. Today our aqua packs will taste bland.

We packed up camp and said goodbye to all the characters that we had met at the campsite and set off to cycle up the hill. We managed about half a kilometer of cycling before getting off and having to push it up the rest of the hill, which was about another 4km. Tough work this pushing! We were on the same road as we had cycled the other day for another 15km, which was rolling, hills predominantly downhill. This would have been a good part of the journey apart from the front brake getting stuck that I had to repair and then the gears started to malfunction, which I tried to repair. I made them worse to start with, but then just took them apart and put them back together. This somehow fixed them, but left us about an hour in arrears on our trip.

On top of the hill, that's Auckland in the background!

 Once out of the hilly section we got up some speed and started eating up the ground. It was at this moment that Alice chirped up and said she was hungry. This was fair play as we had been on the move for about 3 hours with a couple of breaks, and it was about 2pm. I didn’t want to stop as we had good pace. I said to Alice, don’t worry about the peddling, sit back relax, we’ll be in Kumeu (the next village) in no time, and we’ll have fish and chips. This seemed to work a little and we kept going. Forty exhausting minutes later we reached Kumeu, and somehow like our cycling prayers had been answered, the first shop we saw was a fish and chips. As we only had 15km to go we got the works and ate a mammoth meal. We rested, got in some more supplies and let the meal try and settle. As we got back on the journey, the meal on my stomach wasn’t that settled and I got myself a bit of a stomachache, then to top it off, there was another 2km hill we had to push the bike over to get to Muriwai beach. What a journey.

Computer says we averaged about 12km an hour. For 5 hours of cycle time. It doesn’t sound fast, but them hills take it out of you. The actual journey including rests took 7 hours and we traveled 61km. Today I kept drinking water no matter what. I was absolutely shattered, I felt like I didn’t have anything left in the tank. Although through good water management I avoided any headaches. The day ended with another long shower, bowl of noodles, two episodes of Family Guy, and an early night for us. Here’s looking forward to tomorrow and the next ‘day of rest’!

2^nd November

Alice:

Had a lovely rest day today, chilled out in the morning and did some laundry then visited the local Gannet colony at Otakamiro point.  I was very happy there, so happy that we went back later in the day to take more pictures! 

We’ve also found out that there’s free wi fi so here we are blogging away!

We’re off to a place called Parakai tomorrow (weather permitting) where there are some hot springs.  It’s only a 30km ride and should be relatively flat so it should be a fairly easy day.

So it’s blog off for now and blog again soon.

A and G xxx