The next morning we had a day to kill, as a result of Korean Air’s capricious decision to cancel all its outgoing flights (without telling anyone…we learned of it by going on their website just to confirm our schedule) and reschedule them for another day.  We made arrangements for the “Explorer Bus” to pick us up at the motel.  This is a service we learned of from a brochure we picked up at the airport.  A bus picks you up and for a single fee, you get an all day pass.  It and others like it circulate around the city making regular stops every half hour at designated locations designed to take in most of the city’s popular sights.  You can get on and off at any of the stops as often as you want, then at 4:30 pm it takes you back to the motel.  We made our first stop at the Auckland Museum, built in the Auckland Domain (read Park) on top of an extinct (we hope) volcano. The Museum is huge, similar to the Field in Chicago, with three floors of exhibits arranged around a central core.  We stopped at the exhibit called “Hillary’s Axe” to see the axe he’d used to climb Everest and watch a short video which included an interview with the man himself, in his later years, in which he talked about the last few hundred yards to the top.  Brenda had just finished reading a book about an Everest ascent and we’d seen Mt. Cook, where Hillary had practiced….and he’s on the $5 bill down here, so we saw his face every day.  He was modest about his accomplishment, never saying that he and Norgay (whom he gave equal credit) had “conquered” the mountain, but instead that Everest “had relented”.
We took in the Maori cultural performance which featured Maori performers giving us a taste of dances, songs and of course, fighting techniques and the impressive “haka”, the display of potential force and personality that at least in theory could prevent a fight if the other side was suitably impressed.  Later, as part of our ticket, one of the performers gave several of us a guided tour of the Maori hall in the museum, including some background on the exhibits and Maori culture.

(Brenda takes lessons in culture)

I was interested to learn that modern DNA analysis has confirmed the Maori legend that they came originally from the area of Taiwan (where groups with similar features and customs are still found) through India, then Indonesia to Polynesia.  There apparently is a DNA connection with some Native Americans as well.

The Volcano Room (no, not the one in the nightclub) was next.  Being part of a volcanic series, NZ is interested in the subject and Auckland, being built on top of several, is perhaps most keenly interested of all.  The exhibit has a number of explanatory pieces telling us why volcanos form and how, along with some truly impressive film of some expressing themselves in the way only they can..  The final exhibit is in the form of a house one goes in, an ordinary NZ living room, where a TV program is giving news bulletins by the typical talking heads about a pending eruption.  Meanwhile the sliding glass door in the room shows a view overlooking the harbor.  As the news anchor questions whether all this scary stuff from the scientists is really worth evacuating the town and making all this fuss, one can see steam rising from the harbor….and then the water explodes into an eruption, the house you’re in shakes violently and you see the tidal wave and mountain of ash heading straight for the window.  It’s very impressive…..especially since the exhibits outside make the point that it’s not a question of “if” but rather “when” the next eruption will come.  
 
Eyeing the harbor suspiciously, we catch the bus down to Parnell Village, an old part of town that has revitalized itself into a semi-bohemian, semi-upper scale shopping area.  Think Louisville’s Baxter Avenue/Cherokee Park area meets Rodeo Drive.
The bus driver told us that it was one of Bill Clinton’s favorite areas to visit in Auckland, though I doubt Bill takes the same bus we did.  We wandered about for a bit, but didn’t find anything that we wanted that we could afford and/or carry back on the plane, so as usual (for me anyway) we opted to get something to eat.  We chose a café (there are a lot of them to choose from) with an outside patio and (as also is typical) a dangerous range of goodies on offer.  Our server was a 23 year old Auckland native who, upon asking where we were from, wanted to talk sports and the UK Wildcats.  I’m a real disappointment in that regard, never knowing anything about such matters, but he was undeterred.  He talked about rugby, cricket and even a bit about Moto GP.  He asked how we like NZ and when we told him what we’d been doing here, he admitted that he’d never been to the South Island.  He seemed puzzled just a bit when we told him how wonderful we thought his country was, since as he put it, “It’s just home”.
 
By now we’d used up most of our time and we needed to get back to our room to get sorted out for the long flight home, so we just stayed on the bus for a drive through tour of Auckland, a city of one and a half million people (who may end up somewhere else if that darn volcano blows….) doing the sorts of things folks in big cities do all around us.  There was heavy traffic, lots of construction going on everywhere, more scooters and bicycles on the roads than motorcycles and I didn’t think riding here would be much fun at all. 
 
It’s April 2nd and it will be for about two days by the time we get back.  We left Auckland at 10:10 am on Thursday the 2nd, we’ll arrive in Seoul Korea at 6:00 pm on April 2nd after 12 hours in the air, stay there for two hours and then arrive in Los Angeles California at 3pm, still on April 2nd, after another 13 hour flight.  One night in LA, then arrive in Lexington at 8pm on the 3rd.  I may eventually get all that straightened out, but don’t count on it. Don’t ask me what day it is for a while.

(Gas & pastry stop near Lindis Pass)

 
We finally had to leave Wanaka, reluctantly.  We held off until the last minute, then saddled up and went into the mountains headed for the Lindis Pass and then back down to the coast.   The Lindis Pass is often described in various writings as “Legendary” and it’s easy to see why.  The road climbs from outside Wanaka, rising quickly along the edge of a mountain range so that one can feel the pressure increasing in the inner ear.  We can see below us the road from which we came, down in the valley.  Soon we’re in a high valley, much like that found in the high desert of eastern Oregon or the dry side of the Cascades.

We’re following the Lindis River through the mountains down to where it is dammed above the coastal plain. There is a brief period of swichbacks as we cross the highest part, then we descend to the town of Omarama, the jumping off point to go up to the backside of Mt. Cook.  But we can’t make that diversion today, the leash is tightening, pulling us toward the sea and the end of the trip.  We head down the river, ever descending, to Oamaru.  As we pass the huge dam and artificial lake there is a thin ribbon of water that has been diverted from the dam to afford irrigation and water control, I assume, that follows the road like a liquid sidewalk.  

The road is flatter and straighter now, following the river valley until it finally meets up with Route One and the Pacific Ocean is again in view.  It’s but a short jaunt from here back in to Oamaru where we will stay for the night at “41 on Tyne” a small B&B near the Blue Penguin Colony.  We’d noticed it the last time we were here, as we walked to the colony, and thought it looked interesting. The “room” there is actually a separate cottage in the steep front yard of the house which sits above it on the hillside.  The driveway is quite an incline, not anyplace I’d want to leave the bike for the night, so our host Carola tells me to put the V-Strom in the yard beside the cottage, an area reached only through an opening in the trees, over a small bank.  It will be quite safe there…once I get it there.  It really isn’t as difficult as it looks and the bike is quite easy to handle once the bags are off, so it goes right where I want it.  We’ll worry about getting it back out in the morning!  We want to explore this old harbor town again to get a better feel for the limestone buildings and the old wharf area we breezed past last time. 

(The Opera House building in Oamaru)

(Brenda & friend in Oamaru)

We walked for about an hour and a half through the streets of Oamaru, including a several block diversion to visit the historical home of native author Janet Frame, who grew up here.  Her modest house has been preserved as it probably looked in the 30’s when she lived here from age 7 to 19.  We can imagine that the area around it was somewhat different then, the street most likely not paved, the housing not quite as dense in the neighborhood.  The town in this part is on hills, reminding us just a bit of parts of San Francisco, but as that town must have looked in its very early days.  We walk back down to the town center, crossing the wide main street toward the harbor.  We have now learned that the space afforded in the street was not due to extraordinary vision of the future needs, but instead the necessity of room to turn around freight wagons, pulled by teams of 12 bullocks, as they moved cargo from the harborside to the warehouses and mercantile establishments up on the main road.  Nonetheless, it certainly gives the town an expansive feel, a look like a place where big things have happened and can happen again.
 
By now we’re feeling a bit peckish and in need of yet another fine meal….oh, the difficulties of travel in NZ !  We had already selected the Portside Restaurant, where we were going to eat the last time we were here.  It was closed then for a holiday, but we now had a second chance.  The restaurant juts out into the bay overlooking the seawall and, on one side, the area of the penguins.  We ate out on the deck as the sun disappeared over the city behind us.  At a nearby table, a young family was eating, with the kids often disappearing down to the waterside to play. One little girl, perhaps 7 years old, came back to the table crying.  When her mother asked the reason, she said, in her charming accent, that another child had told her she was “annoying”.  Such a civilized epithet for children to use !

(Even a cup of coffee is art in NZ...the silver fern is their national symbol)

We walked back to our lodging, hoping to see a straying penguin, but no such luck tonight.
 
Our last day on the road, Monday the 30th.  We awoke in Oamaru in our “self contained” B&B cottage and availed ourselves of the variety of cereals, coffee & tea there for us.  Our host, Roland, arrived at our door with fresh bread he bakes for guests.  He and his wife are ex-pat Brits who apparently emigrated to Australia, then on over here to NZ.  He was in engineering for a while but now does part time consulting and full-time B&B.  In such a nice place, not a bad situation to be in.

The Suzuki came out of its berth quite easily, as I expected, just a bit of care needed with the turn onto the sloping driveway, and I backed it down to the street to accept its burdens for the ride home.  We loaded up for the last time and hit the road south, going slower now, trying to drag out the last bits as long as we could.  Another stop at Moreaki Point for coffee and view (and to pet “Havoc”, the chocolate lab who belongs to the café .  His name is the antithesis of his personality….if only our Malcolm could be so calm !…and he greets each visitor with solemnity, assuring each that if only they will abandon their journey to spend the day petting him, all will be well.)  The boulders hadn’t moved any since our last visit. 

At Waitaki, we veer off of Rt. One and head over the mountain on what is described as the “bicycle route to Dunedin” that Roland at the B&B had recommended.  It turns out to be not exactly my idea of bicycling, since the inclines are steep and very, very long, but the views of the valleys below are amazing. (My friend Gary Griffin would find this to meet exactly his idea of bicycling, by the way.) When we get above Dunedin, the whole city spreads out beneath us, rimming the bay and climbing up the sides of the hills. I can’t look long, since even a short loss of attention to task could have us over the side and provide a very exciting but brief end to the trip.   When we finally reach the bottom of the hill, we’re on North Street which I recall is the route to Baldwin Street, billed as the “steepest street in the world”.  Anything that is the most of whatever it is “in the world” deserves to be seen, so I sought it out.  If it isn’t what it claims, I can’t imagine what would be.  I stopped at the bottom, marveling that there were in fact houses arranged up the sides of what had to be nearly a 45-degree slope…or more, it’s hard to tell from down here looking up.  There was a single car parked at the top, facing down (I’d hate to think of backing down this hill) and I wondered just how well its owner trusted his emergency brake.
I didn’t go up the hill (partially because Brenda, being sensible, refused to go up with me if I did) because I couldn’t see what was at the top so the thought of turning around a rented bike on such an incline just didn’t seem like a good idea.   From there, we headed on down into the center of Dunedin, the city traffic marking a return to the real world we’d avoided for over three weeks.  We needed lunch (well, OK, didn’t really need it…I won’t need to eat for at least another month) so we diverted out to Port Chalmers, a small working port town out on the bay, for one last meal on the road.  We selected a likely looking café where we ate interesting salads (by that I mean that I’m not really sure what was in them, but it was quite good) out on a little courtyard under trees and pondered the end of the line….and where we’d like to go next.
 
We returned the bike to the Weir’s home on Maori Hill and unloaded the bags.  Howard & Judith weren’t home yet, but they’d left the door open to their loft apartment over the garage where we would stay until the next morning when our flight left for Auckland.  When they did return from work (Howard’s a firefighter and Judith’s a teacher) they invited us for dinner to share fresh fish Howard had caught a day or so earlier off the coast.   It was yet another grand meal (the best fish I think I’ve ever experienced) and lively conversation with a most interesting couple (them, not us) aided by a bottle of excellent local wine.  The Weirs run this motorcycle hire business as an extension of their love for the sport and their marvelous country.  Not quite so many riders from our country make it down to Dunedin, here on the south coast of NZ, for independent rides.  The majority seem to fly into Auckland (apparently the only direct international flights into Dunedin airport are from Australia) and rent there or take organized tours from there or one of the larger cities in the North.  As Howard pointed out, the best motorcycling is to be found on the south island and the population here is one-third of the north island on twice as much space.  In my view, the big cities of the north would be a distraction from the ride.  It makes more sense, for my kind of trip, to take the short flight from Auckland down here to Dunedin, rent a bike that seems perfect for the conditions here, and start a fantastic ride from the moment one leaves Howard & Judith’s driveway.
 
Tomorrow it’s back on a plane to Auckland, then a day in the big city, and head for home.

(early morning, Wanaka. The park begins across the street from our room. The trail goes either direction from here)

(those mountains in the background are waaaay far away!)

The lake was relatively smooth this morning and the ducks were out enjoying it. I walked the short distance across the park into town to pick up morning pastries for breakfast. The bakery were I sought something for Brenda had warm sultana scones just out of the oven. In the parking area for the small lakeside park a station wagon full of young people were just coming to life after having slept in their car the night before. A tall young woman stood beside the car, rubbing her eyes, while inside, a tangle of indistinct bodies and sleeping bags was stirring like a basket of puppies trying to wake up. Back in our room Brenda had pastry and coffee in bed while I worked on the computer handling what I could from my office, where it was just after lunch yesterday. Soon however 3 or 4 of the ducks from the lake had wandered up to our sliding glass door demanding their expected payment for being cute. We of course complied.

("Come across with the pastry kiddo, and nobody gets hurt, see". We've got beaks and we know how to use them")

Later in the morning we sat out for the walk on the travel path around our side of the lake. We saw a group of children preparing to take off in small sailboats, apparently being instructed by some men in the art of sailing.  Like all young boys, they were more interested in testing the limits of the craft in motion, spinning around in the tightest turns possible, than in accuracy. The trail goes to a camping area called Eely Point. The views of course are indescribable in my poor vocabulary. People may find it strange when they ask what we did in a tourist area like Wanaka, when we say “we walked” but I can’t think of any better way to see this gorgeous country. It also occurs to be for most people who go on vacations to do something at a place, they spend their time traveling to get to a thing they are going to do. When we travel by motorcycle however we are doing the thing we want to do as soon as we leave the parking area. We are doing our activity all the time, not just when we arrive somewhere. We saw ads for rafting, jet boating and bungie jumping but we’ve already had our excitement just getting here. We are now content to walk these quiet forested paths with the beautiful aftermath of nature’s power in our view at all times. Storms damage a relatively wide area by human standards, but nature’s wind is temporary and limited in scope.  A tornado may tear up a swath of buildings or blow down some of man’s other constructions, but a glacier rearranges mountains, creates lakes that go for miles and flattens out areas the size of major cities. 

(this would be "the old man of the sea", but it's a lake and the "old man of the lake" just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

(same old man, same lake, farther along)

We stayed two days at Wanaka, a town we both loved from our first night here a couple of weeks ago.   I went for a solo ride while Brenda stayed behind for some quiet time in town.  I thought I’d go explore the road around the west side of the lake going toward the mountains we could see rising in the distance.  This road quickly leaves the lakeside and twists off into the foothills (read “mountains” in Eastern Ky terms) rising and falling in perfectly radiused turns as if designed by a motorcyclist.  Since it follows the curve of the hills, one could ponder just how sympathetic Ma Nature is to our needs after all.  The mountains take a long time to seem any closer, an indication of just how doggone big they are.  I finally realize that I’m not actually going to get there if I have any chance of getting back to Wanaka before suppertime and, as has been a constant feature of this trip, my stomach won out and I turned around. 

(and it goes on this way for miles and miles....)

One of the things that I have neglected to mention so far is the number of one-lane bridges in New Zealand. I guess it makes engineering sense in that you only have to build a bridge one-half as strong since it will never have two lanes of traffic on it. The system seems to work rather well when there are so few cars on the road. One comes to a set of lane markings that tell you a one lane bridge is coming up and there is a round sign with two arrows pointing in opposite directions, one larger and a different color than the other. If the larger colored arrow is pointing in your direction of travel, you have the right of way and if it’s the smaller arrow then you must yield to someone coming through the other way. Everyone seems to understand the system and it works well except when the bridge is around a blind curve and you don’t see it coming until you are already on top of it!
 
When one is only used to traveling by car, the view of the world framed by a windshield and hardtop becomes the “normal” one, the frame (literally) of reference for how the world in motion looks.  Even in a convertible automobile with the top down, the driver is held in one spot, level to the horizon, front view still constricted by the windshield frame, side and downward view limited by the car’s bodywork.  When I talk about what I see, what I experience, from a bike to someone who’s never been there, I can tell that they have no reference point for understanding what I’m trying to impart.  Kurt Vonnegut once wrote in parable about the Tralfamadorian’s, an alien race whose experience of time was not like humans.  In trying to explain it, he likened the human experience of time to a man seated rigidly on a railroad car with his head encased in a turret, immobile, with his view only forward, only of what visible out of the gunbarrel-like tube extending from the turret.  The railroad car could only go in one direction and the man could see “time” as what unfolded through the barrel’s aperture as the car moved inexorably forward.  The Tralfamadorians, in contrast, were above the plain upon which the track ran and could see everything around it, forward, backward and on all sides, at once.  While a motorcycle doesn’t afford quite that degree of omniscience, it is an improvement of the same kind, if not degree, over the car experience.

(we didn't actually hear any frogs whistling, but it is fun trying to picture how they'd look doing it)

By the time we left the café, the rain had picked up again and the ever-present wind was beginning to become bothersome at times.  I missed a turn at the beachfront area of Fortrose (at least there was a road shown on the map which I never saw on the ground….it might have been gravel and unmarked ) and we ended up going on into Invercargill, where, due no doubt to an oversight on the part of the New Zealand tourism commission, there is no center-of-town monument to Burt Munro, and his garage, with its Offerings to the Gods of Speed is not one of the places marked as a “must see”.  We did come into town through neighborhoods that looked just like the one in the movie portrayed as his.  Lunch was at an old hotel café where we were served by a pleasant young woman who told us she was from TeAnou.  When I asked her why she had left such a pretty place to come to an industrial city, she said “because I’ve lived there all my life”.  She said she’d probably go back when she got older.  It’s the universal human urge to go “somewhere else” and see what’s over the next horizon.  As we left town, on roads I’m sure Burt traversed on his Indian, the wind and rain resumed, making travel rather slow.  We had decided to go north again, to pick up in our last days here a few of the favorite places we’d visited before.  Our leash was growing short, the bike has to be turned in on the 30th, so we can’t get too far out of range of Dunedin.  We headed for Wanaka, but made it only as far as Roxburgh that night.  As we came back into the mountains of Central Otago, both of noted that this seemed to be the area we most liked.  The scenery is still mind-blowing, but not so overwhelming as the craggy mountains of the West Coast where nature isn’t quite as far along in her softening process. Here in Otago, the high hills are again covered in limestone-looking outcroppings and the valleys are deep, with the landscape at times looking like Ireland, other times the north of Yorkshire in England and others, Bavaria.  It’s easy to see why peoples from all over the world have come here to settle…for an awful lot of them, it looks like home.  At Roxburgh, we found a small motel off the main road, with an unusual parking arrangement.  Each unit has its own “garage”, a secluded covered parking area lacking only an outer door to be fully enclosed. 

(Even for NZ, a motorcycle-friendly place if ever there was one, this is exceptional)

Inside the unit, there was a bedroom separate from a kitchen/living room, more than adequate for staying extended periods of time.  And all this for about US $45.    We asked the proprietor about getting a meal.  He called the local hotel (here in NZ, “hotel” usually means a combination of pub and restaurant, not always or even typically with any lodging function) and gave us directions to it, just around the corner.  When we got there, the publican escorted us back into the dining room which was normally closed for the evening, but opened just for us.  He and his wife catered to us in our “private” dining room, with an excellent meal, local beer and wine and charged us the princely sum of about $40 US for the experience.  When we expressed our gratitude for such service he replied “We do this all the time”.   As I said earlier, this country is set up for people who travel.

The old hotel with the marvelously personal dining service

The Roxburgh Motel

The next morning we left Roxburgh headed north, feeling the pressure of time running out.  It’s only a short run from there to Clyde, the small town where we’d spent our first night on the road.  We wanted to have “elevenses” (a charming English custom of having a snack at 11 AM, to tide one over til lunch) at our favorite café there.  We arrived just about on time, parked in front of the café and strolled over to the outside tables.  An older lady sat at one with her morning paper, coffee & pastry and a Border Collie under the bench.  The dog, as is typical of her breed, seemed eager but too well trained to do anything out of order.  With the owner’s permission I began the pet the animal who let me know that this was exactly the right thing to do.  The owner laughed and told me I’d get tired of doing it long before the dog would.  She was right.  We (Brenda and I, not the dog) went into the café and were greeted by the owner who recalled us from three weeks earlier.  She seemed pleased to see us, as though she expected us back like locals.  We sat outside on the street, enjoying our wonderful breakfast plates (these folks really understand the concept of breakfast, in my book) and just soaking up as much of the flavor of the town as we could.

(Brenda on the sidewalk in front of the cafe in Clyde. The border collie is under the table behind her)

(The cafe across the street is, I think, our favorite of an overall wonderful lot in NZ)

Back on the bike, we made our way up beside Lake Dunstan toward Wanaka   This road had amazed both of us three weeks earlier and it hadn’t diminished a bit.  As we left Clyde, the road climbs up the side of the mountain on the east side of the lake, high above the water’s surface, then begins to drop in curves down to just above the shore, though “shoreline” isn’t exactly a good description.  The side of the road, to my left (I’m in the left lane, remember) ends and then there is a dropoff of sheer rock about 50 feet down to the surface.  I can’t spend a lot of time looking around. At Cromwell, the road crosses the lake and heads up the other side, now in low hills bordered by vineyards and orchards.  Here the wind picks up in earnest, causing us to slow to 60 or 80 KmPH just to keep the bike on the road. The wind is a constant feature here in New Zealand and it seems to my non-native view, a somewhat unpredictable feature. It often comes from the direction you don’t expect and then sometimes can change direction 180 degrees without warning. Obviously, the farmers here pay attention to it because they erect large windbreaks that we see often from the bike.   At a distance these look like an ordinary box hedge such as you would have around your suburban yard, except when you get closer you see they are 40 feet or more high and 20 feet wide, composed of evergreen trees that are planted so close together that the branches intertwine making a solid barrier.  What I don’t know is how they trim them into such perfectly box- like shapes. I can’t imagine a set of hedge clippers that size. These windbreaks can be as much a half mile long beside the road or outlining a field like a fence.  We often saw herds of sheep or cattle arranged along the base of these, seeking shelter.  On the motorcycle the wind can be a problem.  We are constantly banking into it as if going around a curve when we are on a straight stretch of road.  When it strikes suddenly as when one comes through a canyon, it can almost upset one’s balance. When going into a head wind its like being battered about the head and shoulders. Going along of the sea coast one can see the wind blowing the water up on shore but the prevailing wind that you are fighting is coming from the opposite direction.  I’ve come to expect it somewhat, but it always manages to surprise me.  The wind died down as the road got further from the water going into Luggate and making the turn up into Wanaka.

(the sun comes up over Moreraki Point)

This is a walk way which goes around the edge of the point beyond the village. The path winds along the edge of the cliff at the bottom and continues climbing in a series of switchback paths and steps to the top.

(the steps keep going up and up)

I took some detours out on to points of land that jutted out in the bay. I was standing on one of those perhaps about 300 feet above the ocean as the first red rim of the sun peaked above the Pacific.

(I was standing out on this point when the sun came up)

From that point it seemed to rise rather quickly as light filled the sky and it illuminated my path. I climbed on to the top encountering several sheep on the way who seemed mildly curious about my presence. As I got near one group of three they seemed suddenly to just step off the edge into space but in fact they had just gone over a ledge onto a slope that was at least 60 degrees or more. It seemed not to phase them in the least.  Finally I got to the top and the Whaler’s Memorial, the monument which commemorates the ancient sailors who stood up here, spyglass at the ready, waiting for the telltale spout of a whale in the distance.  From this highest point one can see an arc of about 300 degrees of ocean and all of the village of Moreaki.  Since I don’t think the ancient ones had cell phones, I hope they had some communication system to get the word back to the village, By the time they walked back down the hill, the whale would have been in Samoa.
 
I made my way back down the hill and circled Fleur’s with the camera taking pictures of where we had been the night before. Back at the cabin we packed up our things and backtracked to Moreraki point, the only place where breakfast was available for miles. We were eating there as yet more tour buses pulled in to disgorge their hordes of camera-toting tourists, each looking for the nearest bathroom.  I much prefer our way of travel.
 
From there we headed south again on route 1 going in and out of Pacific views. From Moreraki down to Palmerston where we left route 1 to head into the mountains, the road skirts along the edge of the pacific with again no development visible to the naked eye. It really is like stepping back in time.
 
At Palmerston we got fuel and headed up into the mountains going northwest into central Otago. We followed ridge lines through the soft brown hills, actually mountains, on sweeping curves that would come around the edge of one hill and open up into a huge valley below with such dramatic change that it’s disorienting for a moment. There are mostly sheep farms here though quite a few cattle as well. The streams in the valley floors are wide and flat with crushed rock sides, again the handiwork of some ancient glacier. The changes in color were subtle but impressive. The browns and greens shaded into each other and just when one got used to the pattern, another curve would reveal something quite different in a rock formation or another valley. We stopped at a little town of Middlemarch which is what passes for a hub in this area. I’m guessing that the town may have had a population around 500. The central Otago rails to trail system is located here and we could see some of the converted railroad track down in the valley. We met some bicyclists as we stopped to look around for a café and they told us there wasn’t one (we found out later that they just hadn’t gone far enough in to town yet) so we went in to the little general store/deli on the corner.  The young man running the place was from Seattle, having married a New Zealand girl who didn’t want to live anywhere else.  He had a BMW R-80 back in the states and was very interested in the V-Strom as an alternative.  I told him I had no complaints about the bike, but he was concerned, being used to Bavarian boxer simplicity, that the valve adjustment ritual would be too difficult.  I suggested that a modern bike like this should be treated like a car, just taken to the dealer once a year for service, then forgotten about (except for the chain of course!) until the next time.  Even though this was only a small grocery, nonetheless he had quite adequate sandwiches available and desserts that still further added to my waistline.

(the general store & deli in Middlemarch)

On the way out of town we find that there was another café just a few blocks down the road, but by now even I couldn’t eat any more. Shortly after leaving town, the terrain changed dramatically again. We were still in relatively low hills but now they were covered in limestone type rock. There were tall stacks of flattened limestone rock looking like the desert formations in the western USA and the fields around them just covered in hummocks of rock. The trials rider in me wanted to go play on them but the sheep probably wouldn’t have been amused. Eventually we came down from this high country back toward the coastal plain. We wanted to avoid the large city so we took a side road that promised to take us to Berwick. This turned out to be a narrow barely paved path which when it reached what should have been Berwick, turned to gravel. Normally gravel roads aren’t any big deal here in New Zealand, we’ve been on several, but this one apparently had just received a fresh coat and the gravel was perhaps 6 inches thick. That combined with a relatively pronounced slope made travel two-up on a heavily laden motorcycle somewhat exciting. Brenda was not happy. We turned around and went back to where Berwick should have been and for the second time in this trip pulled out the GPS we had brought with us. It confirmed that the “Berwick to Henley road” was the small again barely paved track to our left which would take us away from this gravel and toward route 1 headed to the southern area known as the Catlins.
 
We rejoined Route 1 not far from where we had picked it up in the beginning three weeks ago. We had now completed the circle of the island by going over the same territory headed south toward Milton. This road is gently curved as it crosses the foothills which separate its path from the ocean only a few miles to the east. We could smell the salt air and see the gap behind the mountains that indicated there was nothing there but a broad expanse of water. Just south of Milton we went through the town of Balcultha where we diverted south to the southern scenic route described in our brochure. This was to take us through the Catlins which is a coastal route we thought would follow the water. It turns out not to be quite that scenic. The ocean is several miles away and apparently the small towns are to be reached mainly by gravel roads which Brenda was in no mood to try at this point.. We stopped in the night at Owaka, a town of 300 people which contains several small motels and two full time restaurants. We ate dinner at “The Lumberjack”.

There is a bar at one end made of polished wood with two sets of draft beer taps. On the right is a large stone fireplace with a roaring fire. There are few chairs setting near the fireplace and in these sit customers with glasses of wine. The menu looked like something from a fine restaurant in a big city. We made our selection and ordered a bottle of wine to go with our meal. The food came wonderfully prepared, perfectly seasoned and with pleasing presentation.  Such a meal would be proudly served in any of the really nice restaurants in Lexington or Louisville, though this town by population wouldn’t even qualify as a neighborhood in one of those cities.

(Main street, center of town, Owaka.)

More random thoughts.  Every small town we’ve been in has thriving businesses, locally owned and operated, staffed by workers who are, by American shop-clerk standards, overly friendly and helpful.  It occurred to me that one way this is possible is that these local businesses have no health care costs.  The local people don’t have to leave the small town and the local shop to go to a bigger city or a chain-store/restaurant company to get health care insurance for themselves and their families.  They can stay in their own town.  Minimum wage is higher here as well, something around $12 NZ per hour. (As a comparison, the price of an entree in one of these restaurants is about two to two and a half times an hour’s minimum wage.  In the US, a similar meal in, for example, a TGI Fridays or Rafferty’s would be about 3 or possibly 4 times an hour’s minimum wage, and it wouldn’t be nearly as good.)  With people being able to live and work in the same small town, the towns have a much better-cared-for look.  As I write this, I’m in a town of about 300 population that also has two excellent restaurants, a library, a community center and a town swimming pool & park.

(Just another typical NZ cafe with good things to eat....the reason why my riding clothes are shrinking fast)

On the road we headed south on Route 1 for the Moreraki boulders only a few miles, maybe 20 or so, south. These are a natural phenomenon, which look like enormous bowling balls on the beach. They are perfectly spherical and some are much as six or more feet in diameter. The rock flow on the beach looks like lava rock and I came up with a theory in my head about igneous flow and surface tension forming this shape, but I was, of course, completely wrong.  Apparently these Moreraki boulders are not igneous in nature but are ,according to the information brochure we picked up , concretions formed something like pearls when a particular kind of mineral begins to attract other minerals to form around it in layers which eventually build up to these huge round boulders. They form on the sea floor when conditions are right and then in this case, when the sea floor is raised by tectonic collisions (which also formed these lovely mountains) the boulders are in the resulting seaside cliffs, waiting to be exposed by erosion, then rolling down the cliff to congregate on the beach as if someone very large had left a pool game in progress.

(I'm just another large round object on the beach)

(Brenda and others waiting for the "Great Rack of Moreaki" to descend and start the billiard game anew)

After leaving there we stopped in at the town of Moreraki Point which, despite its very small size (probably less then a 1,000 people) has an  internationally known restaurant called Fleur’s. This restaurant is in an old fish house sitting out on a point jutting into the Pacific and Moreraki Bay. We went there for lunch and sat out on the balcony overlooking the ocean. Our meal was fantastic. I had groper, a local fish not be confused with our grouper, and Brenda had seafood chowder with two kinds of homemade bread. I also had a chocolate torte for dessert simply because I didn’t want the meal to end. Brenda had a glass of wine but since I was riding the bike I did not partake. We sat there quite awhile in the warm sun looking out over the Pacific in this beautiful spot and decided that we really didn’t need to be going anywhere all that quickly.

(On the balcony at Fleur's)

We left Fleur’s and went down the road and found the Moreraki Motel with a vacancy. This is not a motel in a conventional sense but instead a collection of small buildings which have been converted into rooms for rent for a day or longer.  What we ended up with was a small “holiday cabin” or closer to what they would call a “Bach” here. It is a small cabin with a kitchen, living room area and two small bedrooms. It looks like it has been constructed piecemeal with no particular planning. However it has two large windows in the front which look out over the Pacific, a view that one would pay a small fortune to have in the states. Here the price for this is $95 NZ, about $56 US at that day’s exchange rate.

(What you get for $56 in NZ. With little effort, Brenda could have thrown a rock in the Pacific from there....had she been so inclined)

With lodging secured we took off an exploration walk. We went down the heritage trail, a path that has been made alongside the ocean leading back toward the Moreraki boulders. The beach here is mainly rocks rather than sand (come back in five million years or so and it will be sand, so I guess it’s a “starter beach”). The path climbs up and down the cliffs, in and out of secluded tree-lined tunnel-like walks, but from most of it you can still see the bay. Brenda thinks that she saw a penguin diving for fish and coming up to breathe.  Again, we were the only people out there that day.  And, as is the usual situation here in NZ, no litter marred the trail.
 
Later that evening we walked back to Fleur’s for supper. The  rather rustic old building was packed for the evening meal but we had made reservations for our same balcony area. We sat out there while the sun went down over the mountains behind the beach and the air grew colder. Even though it finally got down to probably in the 50’s we were determined to stay outside as long as possible. Brenda had the scallops and I had white fish fillets with whitestone rarebit and the carrot soup. It was all excellent. We managed to finish off a bottle of wine, since we were walking back to our lodging rather than riding the bike.
 
While having dessert inside (we finally couldn’t take the cold any longer) we ended up in conversation with Fleur herself who informed us that her friend had just gone to Kentucky to learn more about Bluegrass music. We got her to autograph one of her cookbooks for our daughter in-law Rhonda and she took my pen to remember us by.
 
We walked back to our lodging by moonlight along the narrow winding road that skirts the edge of the bay. A person could get to like this sort of thing, if he worked at it.

The road from Blenheim makes a turn south and is in the hills away from the coast for awhile. These are brown hills, higher than what we call mountains in Eastern Kentucky but still only “hills” compared to the real mountains farther south. The weather, as is all too often the case with us, had turned bad. We went in and out of showers and the ever present strong wind off of the Pacific. At about Wahranui the road came out of the hills and began following closely along the coast line. I was astounded to see mile after mile after mile of undeveloped Pacific Ocean coast line bordered only by this road and a railroad track. There were no condos, no high rise hotels, no theme parks and no billboards. Nothing but seemingly endless black sand and rock beaches with the Pacific Ocean lapping up on to the rocks. Once in a great while there would be a farm house, a modest board structure whose back window would open out onto what in California would be a multimillion dollar view. Here that view is enjoyed by a farm family and a variety of livestock presumably at a far lower cost.

After many miles of such vista, we came to “The Store” a log and wood structure with a café over looking the beach. We stopped for lunch and, in what sounds now like a broken record, found a wonderful variety of excellent dishes well prepared and served by eager staff. The place was crowded by New Zealand standards in that there were at least five or six other people besides us. We took a table out on the balcony over looking the ocean and when I got up to go over and talk with some other people, a seagull tried to make off with my food.

Later I walked down the wooden steps to the beach, crossed the broad expanse of the grass covered plain to get to the rocky shore where I walked out and stuck my fingers in the Pacific. I was the only one on the beach.

(Brenda looking down the steps at "The Store" leading down to the beach)

(The Store, as seen from the water's edge. See all the crowds on the beach?)

Our destination this particular day was Kiakoura where whales are to be seen most of the year. As noted in an earlier post, we had decided to take the helicopter flight in search of the leviathan. We stopped in Kiakoura just after lunch but the weather had closed in to the point that neither the helicopters nor the whale-watching boats were going out. We made arrangements to take a flight the next morning then went to find lodging for the evening. We ended up at a sea side motel in rather Spartan conditions but comfortable enough. We walked the mile and a half back into town to explore a bit. Kiakoura like many of these adventure destinations was full of young people with back packs. We got some pastry and coffee and sat at a sidewalk table for a while people watching. I decided that the variety of pastries available at this particular bakery was such that I would be forced to have another just in the interest of research. I doubt seriously if I would have any clothes that fit when I get back to the States.
 
That night we walked back to our hotel dropped our various items we had picked up in town and walked back to a nearby restaurant which had been in place since 1873. A photograph on the wall, taken back in the late 1800’s showed it looking much like it does now.  There we had excellent meals, fish for me and salad for Brenda along with a bottle of wine from a nearby winery. We had  only to walk a couple of blocks back to our hotel. This restaurant is across the street from the Pacific Ocean beach, with a view unimpeded by any development. Our table overlooked the sidewalk straight out to the beach.  The meal was of a quality to be expected in a “black tie” restaurant in the states. Yet with the dollar to dollar exchange rate, we spent something closer the range of say Ramsey’s, maybe Cheddars, but with the wine thrown in for free. I really like New Zealand..   
 
The next morning, Sunday, the weather wasn’t looking a whole lot better but had cleared off a bit. We made our way to the helicopter pad at 9:00 where we were informed that the whales were not in a predictable pattern these days. They had been acting “strangely” moving in different patterns than the whale watching group had seen in the years they have been tracking them. I wondered if the earthquake a few days earlier had upset the big animals’ vibration sensing organs causing them to move about in unexpected ways. The pilot told us that we could abort our trip if we wanted since they could not guarantee us a sighting. We decided to go for it anyway since it was unlikely we would be back here anytime soon and there is an absolutely zero chance of seeing a whale if you don’t go.

(Brenda on her second helicopter ride this trip, scanning the seas for Moby Dick)

Brenda and I had this particular helicopter to ourselves with the pilot “Scottie” a slender intense young man who did seem to have done this before. We lifted off and quickly were over the peninsula which forms Kiakoura then out into the bay and over open water. We were looking for, at 1200 feet above the surface, something roughly the size of our thumbs lying on the surface surrounded by a bit of white water and perhaps a spouting of spray when the animal breathed. Apparently they spend about 7 minutes or so on the surface breathing and absorbing oxygen so that they can go down for dives ranging from 50 minutes to more than 2 hours.

A whale, a sperm whale such as what we were looking for, is about the size of a city bus but perhaps a bit longer. In the enormity of the ocean, this is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. We flew around for 40 minutes but never spotted a single whale. We did see a pod of about 3 or 400 dusky dolphins and another smaller pod of hector’s dolphins, the latter being apparently a very rare species to see. We had often seen dolphins from the shore and on a few occasions in Florida waters had seen them jumping out of the water not far from where we were swimming. However viewed from above (the pilot brought the helicopter down within about 500 ft of the surface) one can see how they form small groups within the pod to go after their fish meals. We also saw an albatross, a beautiful majestic bird which certainly doesn’t deserve the reputation Samuel Taylor Coleridge foisted upon them.

(What did we see? We saw the Sea !)

We landed back at the helicopter center and departed, only slightly disappointed because we hadn’t seen a whale. Just another case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
We left Kiakoura and headed south toward Oamaru. Route 1 veers quickly away from the coast as it leaves Kiakoura and winds its way through the coastal mountains. It’s somewhat odd to be on such a curvy mountain road and realize that the Pacific Ocean is less than 2 miles, away just over that range of mountains to your left. This road snakes in out of mountain passes in such a way The Dragon up in North Carolina would snuff its flames and hang its head in defeat.

Eventually though all good things must come to an end, even in New Zealand, and the road finally smooths out onto the coastal plain approaching Christchurch. The stretch of Route one that goes across the Canterbury Plain, including the city of Christchurch (from about Amberly to Ealing) is approximately 75 miles of straight flat road with at least part of a big city thrown in for a bit of confusion.  We did find on that stretch, however, a decent motorcycle shop (I needed to stop to get a new tire gauge) where I met a young man, in perhaps his late 30’s, who further strengthened my good  opinion of NZ riders. He said he had started out as a younger man on larger sport bikes, 1000cc models, and as he got more experience had backed down to smaller ones for the challenge and feedback on the road.  His current favorite is an older (to him, that is, still modern to me!) NSR 250 Honda racer replica.  On their weekend backroad blitzes, he is usually in the front of the pack on these tight curvy roads (and as he says, “If I’m not, I just tell them, Hey, it’s only a 250 !”) I was pleased to see that the “It’s more fun to ride a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow” mentality has taken root here in the southern hemisphere.  He also showed us a mid-70’s Yamaha TY-80, the miniature trials bike, that the owner of the shop had restored.  My son had one of these in the early 80’s and I’d like to find a good example for my grandkids….but I think shipping this restored model over to the states might be just a bit more pricey than I want for something that will end up being bashed on rocks!

(This little Yamaha needs a home!)

As we got closer to Christchurch, it was raining fairly hard and the wind had never let up. We were passed in traffic by about a dozen large Suzuki cruisers obviously on either an organized tour or some sort of club run. As they came around us that it was clear that the stragglers in the group were terrified of being left behind and so they were willing to do anything to get around us and the other traffic to catch up to their companions further ahead. The mixture of large bikes being handled by what seemed to be relative novices in the rain and high cross winds convinced me that I should find a place to stay quickly. We ended up in Woodend at a very pleasant motel operated by a young couple who offered to let us put the bike in their garage. When the husband opened the door I discovered that my Suzuki rental bike would be sharing space with his Suzuki race bike, which sported essentially the same engine, and his Honda Race Bike. He told me that he had just sold a Motoguzzi that he just restored. See I told you this was motorcycle heaven.
 
The next morning we saddled up and soldiered on through Christchurch and down the wide flat plain toward Oamaru where the penguin colonies are found.

Here in NZ, like other countries we’ve been to, the notion of “travel” is something different, more like it once was in the US, with every small town having a selection of food and lodging opportunities made easily available for the person who wants to come in, drop their stuff in a clean, convenient place to sleep, with all the necessities within walking distance once the bike is parked.  It’s a very civilized, adult way to do things. 

In most places we’ve stayed, here and in other countries, the proprietor doesn’t ask for payment up front or sometimes even our names.  It’s all expected to be handled in the morning, like grownups, with everyone assuming responsibility.  We’ve never had to be concerned with finding lodging or food, so we never have to pre-book anything, allowing us to change plans at a moment’s notice.  It’s the way things ought to be. Not sure how or why we moved away from it in the States, but I wish we could get it back. 

(stuffing one's face again at a sidewalk cafe)

For now, traveling here  in NZ is very much like England or the Continent, but with better roads & scenery and without 90% of the traffic.  What’s not to like?
 
For motorcyclists here in NZ, the farthest you could be from fantastic (and I don’t mean just “good”) riding areas is about two hours at most, if you were mired in the deepest part of a big city like Christchurch.   For the majority of riders here, the time would be far less than  half that and for quite a few it’s just outside their driveway.  They are, as they say here, “spoiled for choice” From Christchurch, a quick ride northwest would put the rider in the middle of Arthur’s Pass and the gateway to the other mountain loops up there. To come close to that kind of scene, I’d have to ride three days from Kentucky to the Rockies.

(Crown Range road, coming down from Wanaka)

If I were a young man, which I most assuredly am not, I’d be looking to NZ as an opportunity.  Property here is a bargain, given the US Dollar to NZ Dollar exchange rate at present and development is still in its early stages.  People here have told us that the rest of the world is just discovering NZ, in no small part due to the popularity of the “Lord of the Rings” movies.  Brits have been coming here forever, often to visit relatives who have emigrated or just for a cheap holiday in a culture very similar to their own. It seems to me that a young person with time to amortize could buy a house here at the current exchange rate, rent it a good part of the year and have it available for one’s own use on vacation (keeping a bike in the garage here, of course). Yes, I know that’s encouraging the very kind of development that may spoil this place, but that development is probably coming anyway.  Nothing this good can last forever in this form.

(even the trees are laid back in New Zealand)

(Brenda at a typical "cellar door")

The Marlborough region, where we’re located, is the main wine producing area of NZ and there are wineries of various sizes, from a few acres operated by a couple and their children to huge operations with tractor trailers (“articulated lorries”) backed up to loading docks and rows of vines as far as the eye could see. We made our way to as many of these cellar doors as we could. By the time we had hit the first five or so I was very glad the motorcycle was safely locked away in the garage back at the B&B. Most of the cellar doors are like showrooms, quite nicely appointed, with knowledgeable staff (though with our limited information on good wine, they might as well have been less qualified) and interesting varieties of wines mostly not sold in the US.  Apparently these small operations don’t find the US market large enough (due, I suppose to the crowd of others both domestic and foreign) to make it worth the transport costs and getting through our somewhat over-complicated laws on importing alcohol.  The grapes here seem smaller than what I’ve seen in similar places in the US and each winery has it’s own variations as well.  It was most pleasant bicycling through the vineyard area here in New Zealand broad expanses of neat rows of vines bordered on all sides by high mountains. The vines are in most cases covered with netting which is obviously frustrating to the birds which flock around trying to find an open spot to grab the  tasty fruit..

(Brenda at the smallest cellar we visited. This woman and her husband started this winery as a labor of love and are doing all parts of the process, from growing to pressing to bottling and distribution, themselves.)

We ate lunch at the Wairiu winery where we sat at table outside under shelter, surrounded by vines and consumed excellent salads with, of course, still more wine. At the next table sit a couple who kept looking at us and we kept looking at them both of us sure we had seen the other before. The man of the couple looked remarkably like John Cleese from Monty Python in his later years. Finally the woman asked if we hadn’t been on the  Taleri Gorge train ride back in Dunedin few weeks ago and we then realized that we shared a car with them. They had been traveling this whole time as well, after visiting their daughter who had moved from Britain to New Zealand. They had just come from Kaikorua where they had done a whale watching adventure. This was something that we had planned and they advised us not to take the boat, as we had intended, since the wife of this couple, like Brenda, has some difficulty with sea sickness. They had done a 30 minute helicopter ride instead of the 3 hour boat tour and said they found it much superior. Prior to our experience at Fox Glacier, I might not have believed that but I am now firmly convinced.  It had never been in my paradigm of the world to just hire a helicopter to go see something, but here in NZ they are as common as taxicabs in the sightseeing areas.  While a bit expensive, the price in US dollars (thanks to the exchange rate at the moment) isn’t exorbitant at all and, given the time a boat takes to get to the area for viewing, the price for time spent there is about the same..  The Fox Glacier experience worked out to be about $10 per minute for the two of us for a 30 minute view that was well worth it and impossible to duplicate in any other way (except climbing up the mountain, which wasn’t really an option for us.)  At our age, these experiences have a definite “sell by” date and this was not to be missed.
 
We continued on our two-wheeled (human powered variety) tour of the wine country, stopping again an hour or so after lunch for a pastry break at Michel something-or-other (hey, we’d been to a lot of cellar doors by then !) where I had an interesting type of apple custard tart and a “long black” out on the sunny patio.  I could get used to this.

(John, doing what he does best, waiting for pastry to arrive, at Michel Something-or-Other winery)

Late in the day we finally wended our way back to our lodgings so that we could walk back to a pub for dinner.  We selected the Old English Pub, which turned out to be the only place I’d seen Guinness on draft here in NZ.  Feeling something like a traitor for abandoning my quest for local brews, I couldn’t resist the creamy black concoction that in my view, forms the standard for “good beer”.
 
Back on the motorcycle tomorrow.

Robert also has bicycles for hire, but offered free to paying guests of the B&B.   We determined to stay over two nights and use his bikes for a tour of the wine country.

(Brenda on the porch at the Old Mill House)

(A short walk from the Old Mill is the old Cork & Keg....with the only Guinness on tap I've seen so far down here)