Six years ago I rode 2500 miles through south eastern Australia including 1 day where I climbed a net total of 10000 feet, the most I have ever climbed in one day, 2500 feet more than the second highest day. But I always said the hardest part of the whole ride was the flight to Australia from Pittsburgh.

In constrast, the flight from Hawaii to Auckland was so uneventful and we slept so much that it hardly seemed like an international flight at all.Working your way piecemeal across the Pacific is a good way to go.

We landed about 8am New Zealand time. We were in no rush so we looked around the airport a bit and found a coin operated internet machine, although we didn't use it. Also there was a free public phone for local calls.

I went to the bathroom and when I came out, Joan was hurrying me along. Apparently a 747 full of Japanese high school students was unloading an enormous number of children, all wearing their school uniforms and heading directly to immigration and customs. We rush along so that they would not all be ahead of us in line. We ended up in a large room with 12 lines and each one with at least 25 kids in navy blue uniforms.

The line moved fast though. The customs people, who were very polite, only wanted to inspect our bikes for dirt. The bikes were not clean but at least they had to no large clumps on them so we passed. The customs people even offered to retape the boxes.

We got some general tourist information before we left and join the V.I.P. backpackers club. It provides discounts at various tourist things throughout the country.

We were already impressed with the Auckland Airport but when we found the bike stands on the sidewalk out front, we were blown away. The have 4 professional bike work stands in out of the way, covered areas in front of the airport. It was wonderful. We put each bike on a stand and started assembling. One of the lowest points in the whole Costa Rica trip was that first 2 hours assembling the bike in the hot corner of the airport. But in Aukland, I actually stayed a little longer than necessary to fix a few little things.

One funny thing happened while we were working. I pumped up my front tire, perhaps a little past the max pressure. I set it aside and started working on something else. About 15 minutes later, there was a loud sharp bang, exactly like a gun shot. It was my tube exploding. Security looked our way and I assured them it was just my tube. It had blown completely in half.

It was sunny when we landed and started to assemble the bikes but by the time we finished, it was sprinkling. By the time we started riding, it was just plain raining. It rained all 20k to Auckland.

Riding out of the airport was not as bad as a lot of airports. The roads were not especially busy at first, good thing since we were learning how to "think left." But the roads got busier quickly. We found a great bike trail that ran parallel to a limited access "motorway" where bikes were prohibited. We were quite happy on the bike trail for a couple miles until it suddenly ended in a sort of construction storage lot - old concrete barricades and giant concrete pipes were left there after the last project I guess. A nice bike bridge crossed the motorway and just ended here with no signs or anything.

The rode out of the storage area was flooded with about 8 inches of water we had to ride though. From there we pretty much hunted our way though surface streets.

Meanwhile it got colder, wetter, and windier. We didn't know exactly where we were going. Our plan was just to get to downtown. We worked our way up and down the hills and though the rain until we got to part of town called New Market and by sheer luck wandered into a bike store on a back street. We desperately needed break pads and just stopped to look.

The owner, Frank, also gave us directions to some "backpacker hostels." In New Zealand, a backpacker hostel is a step up from youth hostel and a step down from hotel. They are fairly cheap, usually $20 to $30 (US) for a double. But unlike youth hostels, you don't get any chores to do.

After checking out a few, we stayed in the City Garden Hostel in a part of town called Parnell. This proved to be a good choice. The guide said the house was built for the Queen of Tonga. The proprietess said she doubted that was true.

next: Exploring Auckland and camping New Zealand style 

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