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Cherie Thiessen - Travel Writer |
| Two Souls Departing - Traveler Magazine |
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| text and photography by Cherie Thiessen | ||||
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Cycling New Zealand's North Island |
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Maori legend has it that at the site of the famous pohutukawa tree located at Cape Reinga, Maori spirits depart on their journey to their final resting place. A weathered white lighthouse also marks this northernmost point of New Zealand where the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea meet. It was our plan to cycle north from Auckland on the west coast along to Ninety Mile Beach and the Cape, then back along the Tasman Sea coast and south from Auckland to explore the Coromandel Penninsula. We had six weeks of warm weather, melting into fall in which to cycle 1200 kilometers, hardly a marathon. |
Because New Zealand only has 5 million inhabitants, it would be easy to imagine quiet roads, and sometimes they were. Our route, however, didn’t take us on many. Sometimes it seemed those scant millions were all funneled down our route, a two-lane road never meant for the thundering traffic it now struggled to expedite. With no shoulders and a battalion of commercial traffic including logging trucks, fuel tankers, and semis it makes for impatient drivers, frequent congestion and occasionally suicidal cycling conditions. One such day was en route to Tauranga after completing the Coromandel route and heading towards
Rotorua. |
“Oh no, a pilot car!” my partner hollered behind me. I saw the car rush past bearing a “wide load following” sign, felt the earth heaving beneath me and turned sharply left, down the steep embankment, buns over bars as we both tumbled to the bottom. I wasn’t going to tangle with an obese truck on a lean road with oncoming traffic. I almost departed that day in true Maori fashion. |
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