happy new year!

the weather here? unpredictable.
that's why instead of doing the circuit around tongariro national park we're now in ohakune, a small mountain village, celebrating new year and tomorrow we're setting off for the whanganui river - kayaking for the next four/five days.
anyway, have a great time partying wherever you are and hope to hear from you all!
cheers!

wild pigs in the east cape?

napier, that's where we've just got today, after four long days of struggling with the muddy tracks of lake waikaremoana, an extremely scienic and misterious place, where christmas spirit evaporated into the misty air as we were following the path, hoping to spot a wild pig or a deer within the thickness of the forest...
the remoteness of the place together with its magic made all of us people doing the trek somehow closer, time seemed to have stretched so that by the end i felt as if i'd been there for ages...now being back among people does make me feel a bit panicky, that's why our next destination will be tongariro national park - another week away from civilisation.
sadly, our time with the bikes is coming to an end, after cycling for almost a month i have to leave my karakoram - dearest friend on two wheels...
anyway, there's a lot to tell after doing the east cape - one of those most remote places in new zealand, where the majority is still maori (a lot of them wearing genuine face tatoos!), renowned for their hospitality and openness. although the weather did not spoil us, we had a great time cycling for a few days accompanied by a mad french guy - a real hardcore cyclist, then beating our distance record (over 100km per day) and finally spotting our first possums as they came to visit one evening.
there is so much happening every day that i can hardly follow it all with my mind, but this it what makes me feel happy. this is the challenge that i was missing.

ho ho ho!

merry christmas everybody! just managed to get to gisborne, we're going to spend christmas trekking in waikaremoana lake (yeah!)
i hope you're having great time celebrating!
cheers! the santa is with me huhuh!

wrinkles in the south

wrinkles - that's what our cycle guy calls hills in the coromandel, which, after doing five days there, we dare call them too. huh! our muscles are like stone now and getting up another couple of metres is not a deadly adventure anymore :-)
so. our first day in coromandel was a surprisingly succesful one after we managed to go almost 60km and get over three 'big mamas' even though we started cycling late afternoon. incredible views were a great excuse for taking breaks and pictures. the serenity of the place called new zealand, again, filled us completely.
next couple of days was a chain of what i'd nicknamed 'antisuccess events'. well, there it comes:
- i don't really know how the scientists know that, but it IS a fact that women can't read maps. at least some of them. we really wanted to do the coastal walk so next day we set off happily for the very tip of the coromandel peninsula. three hours (and climbs) later we realised that we're only halfway. being very determined we didn't give up though and decided to leave the bikes and hitchike the rest of the way there. so we did, catching a nice ride with a canadian-american couple...
- after damaging my phone by getting it in the ditch i hoped the new one i had just bought would last me for a while. apparently, after walking seven kilometres to get to our destination, i realised i didn't have the phone. well, instead of seven we did twenty, going all the way back to look for it cause i might have lost it in the grass when i chased wild turkeys with my camera. it wasn't there...
- we did tha walk (which turned out to be a very scienic and pleasant)and only when we got to stony bay did we realise that this place was completely deserted and the only means of transport we could count on was our own legs. fortunately we were spared a thirty-something walk thanks to a DOC (Departament of Conservation) park wardens who threw us onto the back of their pick up and got us out of the place...

well, there's always something good to happen to make up for the bad you bring on yourself. i got my phone back - i left it in the car of the couple that gave us a lift the other day. somehow i managed to target them so me and my nokia were reunited.
we managed to complete the coromandel circuit within a few days (some of them quite adventurous :-)))) and headed for rotorua this morning.
i hope all of you are having fun. see you soooooon!

heading south

ok. so you get our ass sore. then you get some pain in the back, along with it comes your knee saying 'no' to climbing hills. and finally, there are those bitchy little bugs that suck on your blood so that you wake up at night just to find yourself scratching your legs frienziedly. yes. these are the best moments of cycling the northland :-))). oh, i almost forgot about being swept off the road by the wind and getting completely soaked while pedalling in the rain that never seems to stop...
we all know that once you've had it, it could only get better. and it WAS the case for us. nina, the urugwayan cycling maniac and me - we actually got hooked into doing some more of it so now, after a short break in auckland we're heading south. this means MUCH more steep climbing (what i call DOING DA BIG MAMAS)and rough, unsealed roads. but this is the price we'll pay for awesome views, serene beaches and trekking in two national parks. not bad, heh? i just hope we'll make it. with me bossing around...
anyway, i'm doing my best to download some more photos.
i'm also starting a new LINK called PEOPLE AROUND THE WORDS which is basically going to be a gossip site about all those crazy or dodgy folks i have met downunder.
i imagine there's lot of snow back home :-)))

northland on two wheels

we're finally leaving! that's what i was just thinking when the bus suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere, just 45 minutes after we left auckland. we were going to brynderwyn, north, from where we were to start doing the loop called 'twin experience'. after two minutes or so, the driver realised that he forgot to ....put the fuel in! nobody wanted to believe him but apparently, he'd run the engine so dry it took him another...three hours to start it again! huhuh.
anyway, we finally managed to get where we wanted and even got to cycle a bit that day. so far it has been five days full of pedalling in the wind, sun and rain, meeting all sorts of animals and people on our way, trying to learn a bit of maori, exploring kauri forest... i even managed to throw my bag (with all my id stuff, phone, voice recorder...) into a ditch full of slimy and smelly stuff - had to dive into it which left my shoes ans feet deliciously stinky throughout the day...
yesterday, after a whole day of cycling in the rain we got to a tiny village, where we got the shop opened especially for us, and the guy told us about a cool place nearby. so we went there, got a nice place under the roof, got invinted to a birthday party, got fed, got some drinks and sang some birthday songs in our languages. what amazingly laid-back people they were! and today we got to kaitaia and arranged a trip to cape reinga, the furthest northern point of new zealand. a bit strange feeling to be among so many people again after a few days of floating on the green surface of serene northland...