Auckland To Pukehohe

Our group photo courtesy of Richard Hanke

The sky was grey when we got up this morning. There was a slight drizzle as we walked over to our special breakfast buffet room at 7:30. There was lots of food including eggs, ham, sausage, potatoes, mystery pasta, cereal, fresh fruit, juices, yoghurt, coffee, etc. we got our fill. 

We all met again at 9:00 for our group photo, posing with our new New Zealand cycling jerseys.

Our bags were loaded in a trailer being pulled by an 11-passenger van. Then we were gone.

It took us 35km to get out of Auckland and its suburbs. Most of the time we were on the Great South Road. We rode past many districts with their strip malls and residential areas. The traffic was moderate on this main road and the drivers were courteous. We even had some welcoming us to New Zealand.

When we turned off of the main road, we were in bucolic country where we could see grazing cows. It was along this stretch of road all the way into Pukekohe where the rain started. It was light, but it became heavy on the steep downhills. I was riding with Pam Kane and Michael Blake. We decided to stop and put on our rain jackets. It was still warm (in the low 70s), so we did not have to cover our legs.

We arrived at our hotel around noon.

Our ride was short and reasonably flat. Here is a link to it. https://www.strava.com/activities/248779259

I met Ann at the hotel. She is riding in the van. To do so, she is in charge in setting up our nightly social hour. Our room was not ready, so we walked down the street with Michael to a local cafe. We were soon joined by Pam, Paul Ciano and Richard Hanke. We had really good sandwiches and salads. We also had fun rearranging the furniture so that we could set together. We got some strange looks.

After we got back to the hotel, Ann went shopping with Asbjorn, our driver and general Australian nice guy. They brought back supplies for our social hour. The social began at 5:00 in our directors' room. It was crowded, noisy and hot. We had to do it in a guest room because of a liquor serving policy - the hotel must supply the liquor if we had the meeting in a conference room. It was pleasant, though. Everyone was happy and everyone could make their PB&J sandwiches for tomorrow's long ride. During our route review for tomorrow's ride, there are some changes in the route because of road construction. I will let you know how many riders get lost.

Asbjorn drove several of us into town for dinner. We had a decent meal in a Mexican restaurant. On the way back, we missed a turn and were able to see a very nice neighborhood.

We are now back at the hotel and it is early enough to get organized for tomorrow.

I took no photos today. The run out of Auckland was not very inspiring and once we were in the country, it was raining.

A Day In Auckland

It was raining when we woke up after a good night's sleep. Being 21 hours ahead of Pacific time is like a three hour time change except that we are a day ahead of home. Jet lag is not a major issue than trips to Europe. In any case, we expected rain and it was refreshing considering the draught conditions on the West Coast.

We decided to have breakfast at our hotel. The continental breakfast was enough for me. I had juice, cereal, breads, coffee and yoghurt. Ann settled on scrambled eggs on toast along with her coffee. We went back to our room until 10:00 when it was time to take my bicycle case down to the lobby. This was the rendezvous spot to load a courier van to transport all of our cases to Queenstown, our tour destination.

By the time that the van was loaded, the rain had disappeared and the streets were getting dry. I decide red to put on my cycling gear to do a short shakedown ride to make sure that I reassembled by bicycle correctly. I rode down the hill in front of our hotel and took a right when I got to the water. I cycled a few short miles along the beach. I started out on a rough bike path but soon jumped onto the street where it was smoother. I watched several serious cyclists hammering up the road before I knew it would be safe and legal. Drivers are very courteous and leave lots of space when passing.

My ride went past several small districts when shops and cafés serving to full houses. On the beach side of the road, there were lots of people strolling but few people in the water. It was lots cooler than yesterday and a little breezy. 

I turned around and headed back, catching some good views of the city. I rode past my turn back to the hotel so that I could visit the local bicycle shop and see the main waterfront area of the city. The bike shop was large with lots of upscale bicycles and accessories and friendly clerks. They were very interested in my S&S coupled bike which they had never seen before. I saw Bob and Michael at the shop. Michael's Richie breakaway bicycle also caught their attention. 

I rode down the road a little farther to reach the old ferry building and the cruise port. The Sea Princess was at the dock.

I turned around and found my way back to the hotel. Riding on the left side of the road is not so difficult if you concentrate all of the time.

After I showered, Ann and I went to a small cafe down the street called Rosie. We heard good things about it from some of our group. It is very popular so we had to wait for a table. Were we're glad that we waited because the food was delicious and the staff was super friendly. I had hot chocolate with salted caramel along with an omelet with smoked fish with a caper sauce. Ann had a watermelon mango drink along with brisket on a toasted ciabatta bun with bread and butter pickles. 

Our first meeting for the trip was at 5:00. Everyone had arrived and was there. John Gradwell, our ride director, went over all of the introductory subjects. He passed out really nice cycling jerseys to us. We introduced ourselves. The co-leader and driver made remarks. Then we filed out to a banquet room where we had a decent buffet dinner. I have photos of the dinner which I will post on our website after we get home.

It is getting late. I am shutting down until tomorrow.

San Francisco To Auckland

Our neighbors, Howard and Betty Shugart, dropped us off at Rockridge BART on there way to buy ice cream at the new Safeway store. We caught the 5:20PM train to SFO. Arriving around 6:20, we found the Air New Zealand counter with hardly any passengers checking in. We were a bit early for our 9:00PM flight, but I expected some congestion. It was the same way going through Security. Based on this experience, I will consider evening international flights from now on.
Because we had a long wait for our boarding call, we decided to use our Mileage Plus free tickets to the United Lounge. It felt good to relax and to eat a few snacks so we would not be starving by the time we got on the plane.
While waiting at the boarding gate, we ran into Karin and Vickie who were on our Bike and Barge trip last year. We knew that they were signed up for the New Zealand trip but we did not expect to see them on our flight.
NZ15 boarded smoothly and we found our seats in a cramped economy section on our 777-200 - Ann in the middle and me on the aisle. The window seat was occupied by a recent college grad who said that she was going on an Outward Bound excursion in the South Island.
After watching "Boy" and eating our hot meal, Ann and I took sleeping supplements and had a relatively good sleep. We awoke with about three hours remaining on our twelve hour flight. We had decent omelets for breakfast along with large cups of coffee.
After we landed at 6:30AM on Friday (we totally lost Thursday), we had huge lines going passport control and horticultural screening - New Zealand does not want any objects coming into the country that could carry infected dirt. They look for drugs, too. Ann was accosted by a drug sniffing beagle who was alerted by candy in her carry-on bag.
We went outside and caught a Super Shuttle to our hotel. Four other passengers were going on our tour so we had a nice chat on our long ride. We had to stop twice to leave off other passengers.
We got to The Quality Hotel Parnall way too early to get into our room. So we checked in, left our luggage and took a walk down to a local park. The park has a very aromatic rose garden and and shaded walking paths that lead down to the water. We saw a sign that pointed to a swimming pool, that caught Ann's interest. So we walked to the swimming beach. Although it was a nice sandy beach, there was nobody swimming even though the temperature was close to 80 and humid. We decided to walks up to a really old white clapboard Anglican Church and graveyard. Most of the tombstones were dated in the early 1800s.

Our route back to the hotel went through oak tree lined streets that had many very nice large houses. When we reached the hotel, it was still too early to get into our room, so we decided to walk to lunch. We found a cafe on Parnall Rd. Ann had pumpkin soup and toast while I devoured callamare and chips.
We discovered that Auckland is spread out over low hills. They gently rise from the bays that are on two sides of the city. There are lots of trees on the land and lots of boats in the water. The people are very friendly as we expected and they have heavy accents. The traffic is moderate and polite - they stop for you at crosswalks.
When we got back to the hotel, we were able to get into our room. It felt really good to take a shower, shave and brush my teeth after two days without doing so. Our room is on the fourth floor. Out the window we have a good view of the city and the harbor.
While Ann was cleaning up, I was able to unpack my bicycle and put it together. I will give it a test ride tomorrow.
Ann talked me into going to our hotel's cafe for a snack. We had apple pie with vanilla ice cream.
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our room and checking out our battery chargers and my GPS. We met John Gradwell, David Williams, Paul Ciano and Richard Hanke in the lobby and went to dinner at Hog Heaven, a Lousiana smokehouse. I had baby back ribs while Ann had a pulled pork sandwich. We both had average beers. I have been advised that strong tasting and high alcohol beers are hard to get in New Zealand. It was a long walk to and from the restaurant and it was worth it on the way back so that we could settle our stomachs after all of the food.

It is getting late so we are going to bed.