Olive harvesting in Pokeno. Later on we took of to Albany to get the 60kg of olives pressed.
Hey Everybody!
Hope all is well with everybody. Sorry for really poor updating on the blog the last month but been kind of busy just cruising around :). Have been moving on for pretty much the last month and heres short travelstory from life on the kiwi-roads. enjoy!
Left the town of Motueka and Riwaka Valley a
month ago. Felt kind of done with the apples down there and decided to move on after a total time of about 8 weeks there and about 6 of picking. More than a month on the same place and I start to get bored and have to move on again. I packed my stuff and headed of to Nelson and later on Picton to catch the ferry "over the ditch" to Wellington as they say down here. The biking up to Picton was kind of uninteresting becuse I done that stretch like 3 times already.
I arrived to Wellington wich I guess most of you know is the capital of New Zealand. Really nice city located on the southern tip of the north Island. I would refer to it as an tiny Vancouver. I stayed one night in the city with two american ladies I stayed with on the way down south. The next coming day, I continued my journey northeast towards Hastings and Napier. The first day after leaving Wellington was, as always expected after getting out from a big city, really boring. First the problem with finding the right roads through the suburbs when you cant bike on the motorway. A never ending story of jumping down and up on sidewalks, stopping for red lights and looking on the map 75 times during 2 minutes. Just not that good but something you have to deal with.
On my way northeast towards Palmerston North I hit kind of nasty weather. During on of the nights I came to the town of Shannon which is a tiny town about 30km before PN. I had nowere to sleep for the night and I was running out of daylight.There was no backpackers or camping in town either but I found the rugbystadium in the middle of the town and thought it would be perfect to spend the night under the roof there. when I had my dinner it was getting darker and the lights was turned on on the whole arena wich resulted in that it was a bad idea to stay there during the night. I moved on and along the street I met Bryan who invited me in to his and his wifes house for dinner a nice chat and later on good sleep in a decent bed.
My travel continued the following day towards hastings for a couple of days and I had to admit it didnt happend to much. The weather was bad and the scenery uninteresting when I passed through towns like Dannevirke and Norsewood. Slept in kind of funny places thou. Found a playground on a schoolyard outside Dannevirke where i sleept in some kind of small house there when the rain was puring down outside.
I reached Hastings later on and decided to pick some more apples there for a while. It was sunday and I cruised around the town for a while before I found the A1 backpackers were i decided to stay. I told the lady who had the business that I was looking for applepick work and she made a phonecall to some ray and after 2 minutes I got work. Had a great time in Hastings and met a lot of funny people but after the third day of picking I got some trouble with my ankle wich kept me away from the work. Stayed there the rest of the week anyway becuse I payed for it and spended the days drinking piss and did ocasionally visits on the internetcafe.
After Hastings I took of with the intention to travel out on the eastcape wich I did and I had the best of times between Gisborne and Mt Manganui. When I was on the south island my ipod got destroyed in the rain in Invercargill so pretty much what I can do to entertain my self on the bike is singing. It doesn't sound good at all and a lot of times I think for my self, ooh man, you have to stop doing that:). I was getting closer to the town of Tolaga bay northeast of Gisborne. The scenery was amazing and I was sitting on my bike just enjoying my time and of course sang some johnny cash lyrics. From nowhere this Maori guy named Ihi showed up behind me on a roadbike with the biggest smile I ever seen and asked "How's it going there, got a good voice:)". I never felt so stupid but dropped it after few seconds and we cruised togheter in to Tolaga bay where he lived with his family. He and his friend Tanga invited me for surfing at lunchtime and on the night we went spotlighthunting on the back of there pick up on some gravel roads in the froest outside town, great fun and of course, illegal:). We got a venison.
The day after in Tokomaru bay I met great people at the backpackers "Brians Place". The swedish girl Kira who was working there and the swdish guy fredrik who was staying there, well, he was from skane but lets consider him swedish anyway:). I also met this german chic called Andi and a swiss chic called Florina who I basically was traveling with for the next coming week. They were in car of course and I was biking but we enden up on the same backpackers night after night.
Been having kind of a cruisy holiday the last couple of weeks with a lot of staying at backpackers, barnights and meting a lot of fun people wich been great fun. Arrived up to Pokeno some days ago were I stay with Ken and Tricia wich was the couple I met my first day here in NZ. Unfortunately I've been sick the last couple of days but its getting better now.In the coming days I'm gonna make my way south and visit Karen and Russell who has a big dairyfarm in Eltham for a while before I'm heading up to auckland again to catch my flight to Anchorage in Alaska the 1 of june.
Beutiful scenery out on the eastcape, North Island, NZ
Wiew over Ken and Tricias vineyard in Pokeno just south of Auckland. North Island, NZ
Wellington, the capital of the country in the far south of the north island
This is what you'll see biking along the eastcoast of the North island
The travelroute in New Zealand
As some of you know my camera got stolen down in motueka so kind of short of photos. Here are some random ones from Google thou wich is the same scenery I been biking through the last weeks
Take care people
Edvin
