Wutheringbikes Home -- New Zealand
<< >>

18th Dec 2010 - Another Rainy Day at the Pacific Coast

A very short day indeed - 9kms from Wenderholm .Regional Park Camping through to Orewa top 10 Park. We waited for the rain to stop at Wenderholm Regional Park and so we didn't get going until 11.30am. And that was after a quick look at the historic house, which seems to only be 160 years old and to be a highly composite thing with bits of various buildings put together. It looked quaintly colonial in the clapperboard style but it wasn't to open for another hour or so and we were desperate for breakfast having run out of food the night before plus we were both suffering from slight caffeine withdrawal syptoms. So we pushed on the 7kms to Orewa and a huge supermarket but by now the rain had returned. We hung aroud that area eating and shopping, being evangelised by Korean missionaries, looking tramp-like in our soaked unshaven state, gulping down yet more food as if we'd starved for a day or two....Then we headed off to find a campsite and immediately my wheel went flat - some sort of problem with the valve (well yes, a great gash at the base of the valve). I changed the inner tube but the rain came back and it was completed in lashing rain straight off the warm Pacific (where several kite surfers were having a great time in the moderate breezes). Finally reached Orewa Top 10 holiday park and set up camp, drinking gallons of tea, doing the washing and reading heaps of pages - I'm reading Katherine Mansfield short stories because she's a NZ authoress whose house we visited in Auckland and her works are available for free for my kindle on www.gutenberg.org. Pretty good so far... of course the style is familiar, a touch of Chekhov plus a hint (anachronistically) of Virginia Woolf.Amazing to watch the lobsters fixed on the TV while we read fascinating stuff. TV is soooo 20th Century. I guess after driving your 4WD along the state highway for many an hour you need a bit of equally mindless recreation...All those ads telling you that a flashy car costing several years of work is just what you need. Ho ho ho. Oh, and the most mindless pop videos in which the separation of real talent from commerce has achieved new levels.We also chatted for a while to Andreas, a german cyclist, who has just done 3 months around NZ and is heading back to Germany for Christmas. He has kept a diary/blog in german at andipossum.blog.de (excellent site from andii but video ads autostart so be prepared for some noise). He warned us, as others have, of the black flies of the southern island which have a ferocious bite (the scottish midge sort of thing), but very practically he left us his fly spray which he won't be needing back in Swabia (which area got Guy onto german, swiss, etc, dialects and their preservation).

Wutheringbikes Home -- New Zealand