Philosofiction

Steve Bein, writer & philosopher

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Scavenger Hunt: North Island Edition

November 26, 2022  /  Steve Bein

My Tour Aotearoa guidebooks give me a list of photos to collect as I ride. “Checkpoints,” they call them, though that seems a bit stern to me. Maybe for official racers it’s the right term, but I prefer scavenger hunt.

1. Cape Reinga.

2. Ninety Mile Beach. Only sixty miles long.

2 1/2. The Bluff, halfway along Ninety Mile Beach. Not on the official list but wild horses can’t be held back.

3. Tane Mahuta. That’s one big-ass tree. Easy to believe it belongs to a god.

4. Matakohe Post Office and Telegraph Station. The alternate route photo point when the Pouto Point ferry is closed.

5. Mount Eden, Auckland. Believe it or not, this is the nicest photo I got. The summit was a rainy, foggy miasma.

6. Waikato cows. In this case, kattle kindergarten.

7. Matamata iSITE. An iSITE is a tourist information center, and this one is in the neighboring town to Hobbiton. As it’s above ground, it’s not a hobbit hole. Very important to get that straight. Hobbits build more than just holes.

8. Centrepoint of the North Island. Not centerpoint.

9. Ongarue Spiral, Timber Trail.

10. The Bridge To Nowhere. This is as close as I could get to the Bridge, because of the trail closing. (Still thanking my lucky stars for that. Today I met a rider who was there on the 2020 ride when someone crashed and punctured a lung. Not the way I want to spend my sabbatical!)

11. Durie Hill Elevator Lookout, Whanganui. Another lookout spoiled by a dreary, rainy day.

12. Totara Reserve. Not a particularly scenic part of the ride. I’d have chosen Whanganui National Park myself.

12 1/2. Whanganui National Park. See?

13. Giant Kiwi, Eketahuna. As a philosopher it troubles me that Eketahuna’s slogan is “Real Kiwi Country” yet its most iconic landmark is a fake kiwi.

14. Summit Tunnel on Rimutaka Rail Trail. First commissioned by Elrond Halfelven, 3,000 years before the invention of the railroad.

15. Cook Strait from the ferry. Yet another dismal day for legendary lookouts. The weather did clear a little once I was off the ferry:

Fifteen more to come! South Island, here we go.