After storming like crazy all night, the weather cleared somewhat this morning. In fact, the sun came out while we were eating breakfast! So we saddled up and headed out into a stiff cross wind off the ocean. Fortunately, we soon turned off onto a more sheltered country road. One stop was at a historical site at Rimu, a former mining town. Informational panels explained how the scene before us (see below) had been utterly transformed by hydraulic mining and dredging for gold.
That has been one of the paradoxes of New Zealand for us. Everywhere, you see rather brutal looking clear cuts that seem to be a routine part of New Zealand silviculture. Coffee was in the town of Ross, under which some NZ$7 million worth of gold was recently discovered. One of our guides says they're contemplating moving the entire town over onto the tailings from a previous mining venture so they can dig up the current town site to get the gold. What that will mean for the cafe where we had our coffee, I have no idea. It was a really interesting pastiche of strange old implements such as this sawing machine.
As we left Ross, we saw several ongoing mining operations, which seemed so incongruous in the otherwise stunning beach scenery.
And, although the Kiwis like to say that there are no poisonous critters in New Zealand, that doesn't count the dead ones deliberately poisoned in their ubiquitous attempts to control the non-native pests like possums (protected in Australia), stoats, rats, etc, that are devastating the native birds and plants.
One rather interesting place we visited today was the Bushman's Centre in Pukekura (population 2), full of possum and deer pelts, weird knicknacks, merino and possum woolen articles, and countless gags in dubious taste.
They even had a family of thar, a chamois-like mountain goat native to Nepal.
Shortly after that, I had my obligatory encounter with an abandoned cat (I seem to have one on most bike tours). As we crossed Evans Creek, I heard a plaintive cry from below and looked down to see a little kitten stranded mid-stream on a rock. After a while, I spotted a second one just making its way to shore. I could see no way the first kitten could reach shore, nor how I could reach it.
Deciding at last that I couldn't do anything immediately for it, I cycled on until I caught David, who had the phone. We called 111, the NZ equivalent of 911, and they connected me with the police somewhere. After some explanation of the problem (yes, I'm in a cycling tour of New Zealand -- they must get a lot of this), she promised to contact the local council to do something about it. Sure enough, when we reached out night's destination, there was a message from the SPCA saying they had gone looking for the kittens but not found them. I'll never know.....
After lunch (at km 76) in the town of Hari Hari, it started raining in earnest, and the temperature dropped into the low 50's. We had only 22 km to go, but there was the small matter of Mt. Hercule to get over. It turned out to be a relatively easy climb and a descent I would have loved if the pavement had been dry. As it was not, it was somewhat tricky descending thru about 25 tight turns with cars passing impatiently. At last, we reached Te Taho, a tiny little community with a sort of farm stay establishment that did not blink an eye at 8 soggy cyclists turning up and dripping all over their floors. A wonderful home-cooked meal, and so to bed.
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