Current Location: Wellington, Aotearoa
First I have to thank the people of Mapua for making me feel so welcome. Ann and Bob for putting up with me for 3 weeks was great and the food was amazing. Graham “Snookie” Snook and Jim at the bar for the laughs and the rest of the regulars there as well, the music and beer was excellent. They even let me join the library there so I could get my fix of books which was mighty nice of them.
Riding into Picton a couple days later it finally sunk into me that the road forever gets shorter. Arriving into Picton after 5 months on the south island the realization came that the road is getting shorter and time is running out. Even though I may have 5 months left in New Zealand it’s not enough time. On the ferry ride over to the north I pulled out the Peddlers Paradise book for the south island and flipped through all the roads I’ve been through. The thought came to me though that theres so many more routes that are left there to do. To put it plainly it was bittersweet coming across to the north again.
In Wellington I met up with some crazy kids that I met on the Milford track who are letting me stay at their place until the end of the weekend. We had a posh dinner the night I arrived to celebrate.
I wrote everything above this past Wednesday when I arrived into Wellington and didn’t post it because I thought I would have time later to finish it up. As it happens Sharon and Ellen (the crazy kids I met on the Milford Track) managed to keep me busy all weekend which is more than I could have asked for. We did cycle rides around the penninsula a few times, some mini golf, a Lithuanian birthday party with lots of Lithuanians, ’twas truly a crazy weekend. Thanks also to Linus (Sharons flatmate and the birthday boy) for letting me crash at the apartment for the weekend.
I had forgotten how much more traffic there is on the North island as compared to the South island, I miss the west coast of the South island where traffic was non-existant at times. Right now the plan is to head to Levin where a co-worker of Sharons needs some help at their B&B fixing things around the house. Hopefully I can stay there for about a week or so and get in some hiking in the hills around here and then off to an orchard back in Otaki for a little while that wanted some help.
Promise to post pictures when I find a computer that can manage it, it’s been tricky as of late.