Christmas & Kiwi kindness
Christmas has been and gone for another year and we were blessed with a couple of beautiful days in the Napier sunshine. On Boxing night we got a deluge of really heavy rain where we were confined to Olive (the tent) for the evening.
Armed with food for fifty and some local liquid refreshments (Hawke’s Bay is New Zealand’s second largest wine producing region), our camp kitchen, and a disposable barbecue we biked to the beach to make our Christmas lunch. Prawns and venison were this year’s main course, accompanied by corn on the cob, and, of course, potatoes. This was after a bacon and egg fry up at the campsite washed down with the traditional Schindler champagne cocktails!
We finished the festivities with a steak bbq back at the campsite where sadly our little pop up wine glasses popped up for the final time – they were great while they lasted!
Boxing Day was more food, this time courtesy of the Weeks family (Dave’s cousin Jo’s sister in law’s family) amidst their vines in the valley of Puketapu just outside Napier.
Kiwi kindness
We have been blown away by all the kindness shown to us two crazy people on bicycles. Never mind our friends who have bent over backwards to help us out with logistics, lodging and local knowledge, not to mention food and drink, but complete strangers who take a sincere interest in what we’re up to. From people on their porches smiling and waving, and friendly farmers giving us the right of way, to the stop and go roadworks men who are up for a chat to break the monotony of their day. Everyone we meet, whether on the road, in a café or a campsite, is curious about where we’ve been and where we’re going.
This past month we have had Kevin & Beryl, the owners at the Opape Motor Camp, who gave us a couple of very welcome ice cold beers as we rode in on a scorching hot day.
In Te Kaha as we sat alone on a secluded beach a fisherman from Rotoura shared his catch of fresh gurnard with us (we froze it at the campsite and carried it the next day to cook for dinner). And a local Maori couple who were our only neighbours on the campsite introduced us to kina (a salty sea urchin) which they had collected from the rocks at low tide.
Not forgetting the two strong Maori men who helped lift our bikes (one of them lifted mine single handedly) over the gates on the Motu Dunes Trail. And the kind campsite owners at Waihou Beach who gave us bread, butter & tomato when the local shop was closed.
We could go on and on with stories of such gestures which have really made this trip so memorable, but suffice to say every single one of them we appreciate wholeheartedly, and we hope we can payback the kindness to others someday.
Today we move on, but not in the saddle, we’re going to sit on the Intercity bus for a 5 hour journey from Napier to Wellington! (NZ$76)
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