Auckland - ready to get on the bikes

Auckland – November 13, 2016

We arrived in Auckland before 0600 on November 11^th, having departed Vancouver on the 9^th, then crossing the date line during the 14-hour flight. It was comfortable, but 14 hours in an airplane never gives you a normal 8-houts of rest. Food was good and they served some nice NZ wine. So no complaints, just that we were travel-weary.

Arrival was on time. Bikes were out before the normal baggage. Immigration and customs clearance no problem but they’re very strict about bio-hazards, meaning anything from foreign soils that could introduce foreign diseases that could put agriculture and wildlife at risk. So the tent and ground sheet needed a thorough inspection - some sort of lab inspection which didn’t take all that long for us at that time of the day but for people arriving later in the day, they had some significant delays because it’s a one-at-a-time process.

While waiting, we ran into Walli from Toronto with whom we’ve done previous rides. That was a surprise since she had left Toronto over a day before we left Vancouver. A three hour flight delay in Chicago meant she missed the flight out of San Francisco and ended up a full day late. Made us appreciate the non-stop flight direct from YVR.

Our pre-arranged ground transport worked perfectly. If you come here, we highly recommend pre-arranging transport. We’ve heard people in the group who did not and ended up paying half again more for one person than we paid for the two of us.

Arrive at hotel a eight in the morning – we didn’t expect a room at that time, so all the bags and bikes got stashed for the day and we headed into town to get New Zealand sim cards for the phone. Turns out we were in town before stores opened. After getting the phones, we used the hop-on-hop-off bus for the rest of the day to get an intro to Auckland. Amongst other things was a stop on the top of a now-extinct volcano with a good view of town, including this photo with the harbour bridge. Auckland sits between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea – just 11 kilometers between the two seas and they boast one of the highest ratios of pleasure vessels to people in the world.

We also got a stop at the transportation museum including an airplane exhibit. They had two Short Solents here – those are the post-war development of the Short Sunderland flying boat that was the mainstay of RAF coastal defences in WWII. The flying boat era, in my mind, was one of the absolutely lovely eras in aviation but it was quickly replaced by land-based aircraft after WWII. The Pacific Islands used them into the fifties, and now there are precious few to be seen anywhere.

Saturday was an all-day excursion to Tiritiri Matangi Island which since the 1980s has been protected (amongst other islands) as a wildlife sanctuary – most of the other places are not open to the public. Interesting history for wildlife in NZ… apparently NZ had no endemic mammals – none - nada. They had lots of birds. Those that scrounged for food on the ground had little need to be able to fly since they didn’t have predators on the ground, and so it is that you have the kiwi and some other species that absolutely cannot fly, don’t even have wings, and others that were described by our guide as being rather unskilled flyers. The European settlers arrived and brought in mice, rats, stoat, possums, and various other such rodents. They thrived – they fed on the birds that didn’t realize they were now lower on the food chain, and they had no natural predators in NZ. That changed everything and resulted in NZ at least in some places having a higher rodent population that other places in the world.

two Tuis fighting for the perch

The effort at Tiritiri Matangi has been to eliminate the rodents, and they have succeeded in doing that, and reintroducing endangered endemic NZ bird species some of which are down to a few hundred birds left in the world. As careful as NZ is to avoid foreign soil entering the country, Tiritiri Maranga is just as careful not to allow normal NZ soil to arrive on the island as there are diseases that are killing the native kauri trees through something that gets in through the roots. All in all a great day over there, wandering and seeing a number of birds, none of them in cages. Tiritiri Matangi means something like ‘wind tossing about’ in Maori language – it lived up to its name by the time we left when the wind was howling and from time to time they had to pause getting people onto the boat.

Little Owl

On the way back to Auckland, we notice Canadian Navy presence – HMCS Vancouver was anchored there. The New Zealand Navy is celebrating its 75^th anniversary this later week and HMCS Vancouver is here along with vessels from10 or 12 other Pacific Rim nations to celebrate that anniversary. Too bad that we leave tomorrow morning and will miss it.

HMCS Vancouver

Bikes were put together today, we know where we’re going tomorrow, and we think we know how to get there. So after I post this, it’s out for dinner, then pack things up to be ready for a departure around 0730. No promises when I’ll next post something… probably four or five days on a rest day.