Greetings From New Zealand

Greetings from New Zealand!  After a month in a country where the dominant landscape color was brown, what a change New Zealand is.

We flew from Melbourne to Auckland and made it to our B&B in the northern suburbs.  What a beautiful and relaxing place!  Between the home and the water is a linear nature reserve, and every 1/2km or so along the street is parkland which intersects the reserve.  It is hard, even after seeing it, to imagine the lushness and variety of birds.  NZ created parklands along all the rivers (which start in bush lands) in the Auckland area that enter the bay, bringing bush birds, as well as shore birds into the area.  

With a view of the Auckland skyline, as seen through a soon lens, as it is probably 5km away as-the-birds-fly...

We to a couple of days to re-assemble our bikes and get oriented and to replace the brake on Carol's bike which was toast following our flight.  We rode to town and hopped a bus for Hamilton, from where we set our on our first day's ride.

The first 83km were flat and quite picturesque...though along quite busy highways with a wide shoulder in most places.

Then we hit the Kaimai Range...the green portion on the map above.

One Cat 4 and four---count 'em, four---Cat 2 Climbs...all within 10 km.  It was as grueling as anything we faced in either Italy or Australia.

Finally, we summited and started downhill and into a land of bright green fields that glittered in the (finally) sunshine.  We limped in to Tauranga after 122km and one last stiff climb at the city limits, where the view from our hotel was almost worth the effort.