Biking Aotearoa... Memories from my trip in new Zealand

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Me and we 'wanted a few days to come, not only physically, Italy. It 's not been easy riabituarmi the routine of the house, the sky gray and polluted, the mountains that surround me, cold winter and ... the usual debates and political wars of Italy! After two days I was already 'regretted be returned: a look at the news was enough for me to understand that nothing had changed in a year's absence: tits and ass before, policies of the shop every now and then some flash from the world. The only solution, 'was shut down the video, leave the house and meet old friends and relatives: pleasant days I had in mind even in Italy.
To leave me behind, at least for the moment, this beautiful years down under and the last two months by bike, I wrote this cast ', which I recalled from New Zealand, without reading the diary writings km. Cosi '... to see what' and I 'of these islands was the opposite. This' below and 'the result ...

Carving Kia Ora ... Welcome:
Pronounced features, olive complexion, physical statuary and showy tattoos to cover her face. It is they, the Maori, the first human beings to have reached these islands in the middle of the ground and have colonized. Today they welcome me with a smile on her face and shouted a greeting: Kia Ora-Welcome! The dance has a significant position in their culture and even the warriors before battles staged a dance to demonstrate their virility 'to the tribes' opponents. Today the "Haka" is the battle cry of the national rugby team, the famous all black of New Zealand (once again defeated early in World Cup in the past). E 'lei, Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, which I revealed its beauties, its hilly landscapes framed by isolated marine landscapes.

Paradise cicloviaggiatori:
Taupo Four million people on a territory roughly equivalent to the Italian one, the streets are the New Zealand ideal for lovers of two wheels and 'why in recent years and it' has become a paradise for cicloviaggiatori. If they meet in tens, from the most 'preparations and the most obstinate' disorganized and relaxed. With brand new bike or old pieces of junk that are struggling to stand. In the evening camp is a group, we will exchange information on the road and there is laughter in the company four. During the day you pedal, it salutes, helps if you need it and 'often lonely and immersed in the peace of nature that dominates in this region.

Power of the earth:
The rocks were painted a thousand different colors to senda melle content of the mineral waters that spring from many sources. The white steam that rises a thousand craters present merges with the white clouds to create strange shapes sull'azzurro imaginary background of the sky. Te Puia, Pohutu, Te Wairoa, Wakarewarewa, Waimangu, Wai-o-Tapu ... names complicated, twisted, sometimes unpronounceable. Names of places where the mysterious gods of the earth, water and fire have created one of their best works' great. Fumaroles, boiling mud pools, thermal springs, gayser. Water color as the palette of a painter who is preparing to design a framework neorealistico and the sunlight that lights up everything through the smoke and reduces sailing Wallpaper: flowers, leaves, shrubs, water, rocks glow preciously .

The canvas of the imprisoned in the spider web:
Morning awakening: humidity 'can be' cut with a knife. The sun, first tentative and as more and more 'safe, low dissolved fog envelops everything. A spider's web, drops of dew depositatevisi the night, the rays strike oblique to split the light into primary colors: a work of art that makes me remain imprisoned in her spirals for hours.

The pearl of Te Urewera:
The asphalt ends suddenly, behind a curve, a small road sign to warn the beginning of an odyssey, "Gravel road gravel road" c'e 'scritto. But hides much more. From here you enter a different world, isolated and happy to be. The Te Urewera National Park you can 'cross only by foot or long quest'arteria of rocks and dust Ninety kilometers of hills and forests of conifers to reach the shores of Lake Waikaremoana, a pearl set in the heart of the park.

Cone in cone:
Volcanoes, perfect cones and undefined slopes. Mists and perpetual snow, black lava rocks as the pitch and improponibile trails that climb the slopes of Tongariro National Park and more 'on the west Taranaki, isolated and imposing, also concealed by the low cloud layer. Among them km bike, the Whanganui valley and the joy of being immersed in complete solitude, in a sort of spiritual Vaggio, a meeting between me and nature ... and my all.

The island of the South:
Milford sound, traffic-free roads linking small towns and warm, all buildings with one or two floors. Among them, the forest seems to swallow the road, the rivers seem to want to sweep away from one moment to the bridges that cross the rain and makes the brilliant green landscape and the chill gait and arduous. Birds in flight and inept Opossum furtively through the streets in search of eternal struggle between predator and prey. Often inaccessible bays of the south coast are the ideal shelter for animals such as penguins dodge and away games of the most preferred 'socevoli dolphins and sea lions enterprising.

Ice boiling:
The ice dominates the landscape far beyond the horizon. The more 'high peaks of New Zealand is reflected in the crystal-clear lakes. The ocean, not far away, receives the rivers that descend first violent and roaring, then quiet and silent, like a voracious inghiotendoli bottomless pit. The warming has not risparmiao nemmmeno this corner of the world at the end of the world. The ice retreat and yet are still there ', not far from the coastline, almost at sea level. Their front and 'high but fragile, helicopters are constantly shuttling from their hangar up on top, up to Tasman and Cook, the two explorers who discovered this wonder and now live forever engraved in the name of these rocks as imposing the dolomites.

Tribute to Sir Edmund:
The high peaks of the Southern Alps have been for years the field of training of Sir Edmund Hillary, who conquered in 1953 'for the first Everest with Sherpa Tenzing companion. The fate willed that I come to the village at the foot of Mt Cook, only a couple of days after the disappearance of the climbers, a national hero not only for his exploits in the mountains but also and especially for its social commitment to help the people guardians of those giant white and both have given. Passeggio between these peaks with the thought for him and for them to honor Sir Edmund.

Haere mai Aotearoa:
Thousands of miles are behind, hundreds of people encountered, dozens of national parks visited. Everything from a bicycle seat, all for the mere sake of knowing and seeing the world. The time sbiadira 'images, confuse' names and visions but not erase 'ever, the memory of a distant land, cold and hot at the same time. Not erase 'the last days passed between whales and dolphins, before getting on a plane that took me away from the long white cloud, which dominates this land to the antipodes.

On my blog www.lifeintravel.it is now available free book Aotearoa Riding - North Island. on the first month spent in New Zealand.