Author: neil

A variety of birds were tweeting and hooting and squawking and beeping through what felt like most of the night, but that’s a more-enjoyable source of campground noise than partying humans, so I couldn’t be mad at them. When we woke and got out of the tent, Rett immediately rolled her bike and everything up…

Day 5 We had booked two nights at the Alpine Chalets: 13-mile hike day, and then today’s rest day. When we made the booking, we got an email offering us a “free upgrade” to the second floor for better a better view of the mountains. Well that’s a nice offer, but we have the bikes,…

Day 4 When you Google “Tongariro Alpine Crossing”, you’ll see it variously described as “one of the ten top day hikes in the world”, or “the best day hike in New Zealand”. Is that all just a load of search-optimized bullshit, or is it legit? As someone who just hiked extensively in Glacier, Yellowstone, and…

Continuing south out of Turangi we had six more miles to do on SH1, and although it had us rising up toward the volcanic high point at the center of the North Island, we were now well-clear of Lake Taupo, so the shoulders, good visibility, and surprisingly-low traffic left the slow-rolling chipseal as the sole…

We didn’t have the time or energy to see anything in Taupo last night, so this morning we headed to the waterfront center that had two exciting draws for us. One was “The World’s Coolest McDonald’s”, which has a genuine DC-3 airplane sitting next to it. And you can climb up and eat your meal…