the route

Tuesday, April 1

Auckland. This is our last full day in New Zealand (as we will spend most of tomorrow in the airport packing up the bikes). In the background of the first photo is Rangitoto Island which is a dormant volcano. The skyline has changed with the emergence of a futuristic new space needle that towers overhead. Today we biked around town looking mostly for souveniers and packing materials. Note: Bring your own duct tape with you to NZ duct tape is REALLY expensive here. We stopped in at Terabyte (a local multimedia outfit) to say hello and send off a site update. Steve, one of Terabyte's Creative Group Heads, had been following our site and invited us to drop by and go skydiving with him. Drop, we did. Jump, we didn't. We then spent most of the afternoon up on Ponsonby Street checking out all the neat shops. We went to Ponsonby which is another suburb like Parnell with more shops, cafes, and restaurants. Ponsonby, though, has a little more casual and funkier feel to it -- a bit more lived-in feel. We have just finished packing up our gear and are looking forward to the bonus of two tomorrow mornings.
A while ago someone wrote to us asking if we went door to door looking to use a phone line. Ever since then I have been taking note of the type of people that allow us to access the net using their line. Then the other day it all fell into place at once. It started with a nice, long conversation about the internet between this woman at the motor park and myself, as I asked if it would be alright to hook up the laptop. She said it would be fine. That way she could learn something new, as she confessed to not knowing much about this internet stuff, but was curious.
That is when I stepped away to go get the computer. By the time I returned, the woman's husband had poked his nose into the situation. I will be polite and just say that his discussion with me was much different (and much louder) than my talk with his wife. He for some reason had a big problem with anyone tieing up his phone line with that internet stuff - so I did not get to use it.
There it was, my answer, all in one place. Both knew very little about the internet. However, one found it interesting and the other thought it was best to just avoid it at all costs. That is how it has been for the entire trip. Lucky for us we have just stumbled onto the ones that are truly interested.

See the map for this day

	Tuesday, April 1
	Auckland. This is our last full day in New Zealand (as we will spend most of tomorrow in the airport packing up the bikes). In the background of the first photo is Rangitoto Island which is a dormant volcano. The skyline has changed with the emergence of a futuristic new space needle that towers overhead. Today we biked around town looking mostly for souveniers and packing materials. Note: Bring your own duct tape with you to NZ duct tape is REALLY expensive here. We stopped in at Terabyte (a local multimedia outfit) to say hello and send off a site update. Steve, one of Terabyte's Creative Group Heads, had been following our site and invited us to drop by and go skydiving with him. Drop, we did. Jump, we didn't. We then spent most of the afternoon up on Ponsonby Street checking out all the neat shops. We went to Ponsonby which is another suburb like Parnell with more shops, cafes, and restaurants. Ponsonby, though, has a little more casual and funkier feel to it -- a bit more lived-in feel. We have just finished packing up our gear and are looking forward to the bonus of two tomorrow mornings. A while ago someone wrote to us asking if we went door to door looking to use a phone line. Ever since then I have been taking note of the type of people that allow us to access the net using their line. Then the other day it all fell into place at once. It started with a nice, long conversation about the internet between this woman at the motor park and myself, as I asked if it would be alright to hook up the laptop. She said it would be fine. That way she could learn something new, as she confessed to not knowing much about this internet stuff, but was curious. That is when I stepped away to go get the computer. By the time I returned, the woman's husband had poked his nose into the situation. I will be polite and just say that his discussion with me was much different (and much louder) than my talk with his wife. He for some reason had a big problem with anyone tieing up his phone line with that internet stuff - so I did not get to use it. There it was, my answer, all in one place. Both knew very little about the internet. However, one found it interesting and the other thought it was best to just avoid it at all costs. That is how it has been for the entire trip. Lucky for us we have just stumbled onto the ones that are truly interested.