grips with: learning to not fall into bad
habits due to a feeling of comfort and
security. I've always firmly believed
the best way to secure belongings is
not by lock and key but by keeping
anything valuable out of sight. De-
spite the short distance, the ride to
town left me exhausted and I broke
my own travel rule by Iocking my
camping drybag to Robin. I parked in
a well lit area with scores of security
cameras and went about my night in-
stead of carting it into the hostel with
me. Unfortunately, I woke up to find
it, and my painstakingly Craigslisted
camping gear, gone. While the hostel
owner was a dream in helping me file
a police report and get hands on the
video footage of the incident occur-
ring, there was never really any hope
for getting it back.
Later on, when I started to looking
at replacing the gear, I was also taught
a second lesson to remember: the val-
ue of a necessary item is not what it
cost you but what it costs to replace.
I had taken my time, collecting high
quality gear for good prices either
used or on-sale for the trip so I nev-
er considered its true value and to
replace in one shopping spree would
have cost nearly 5x what I original-
ly paid for it. So, unfortunately, my
idea of a mainly outdoors adventure
through the rest of the country was
put on hold until I could figure out the
best way to replace it.
Thankfully, Simon didn’t let me fall
into a funk and got me up and out of
town. We headed the long way to Wel-
lington so we could stop for a photo op
at the place with the longest name in
the western world: Taumata whaka-
tangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi
pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai
whenua kitanatahu.
Yeah, talk about a mouthful!
While it’s just a hill in the middle
of nowhere, it was a pretty significant
stop for me: the first, and only, place
I’ve let someone else climb aboard and
pilot Robin. After being such a posi-
tive influence getting me out of the pie
drawer and feeding me healthy food,
getting me out and active, and being
a fellow “For the Ride” ambassador
with his own death machine, I mean a
Triumph Speed Triple, at home I was
nervously confident nothing too bad
could happen letting him take her for
a spin. With the weight from my lug-
gage thrown in the back of his Subaru
‘Legend’, Simon hopped on for about
30km before deciding that was as far
as he wanted to go without proper rid-
ing boots and pants or, more likely,
after being terrified seeing me behind
the wheel of a car for the first time in
5 months.
The majority of the 7 hour ride to
Wellington is rather unremarkable
with one extreme exception: the Ri-
mutaka crossing from Featherston to
Upper Hutt, just shy of Wellington.
This is a short 30km of full lean
left to full lean right, straight up to
straight down, immaculately main-
tained pavement that starts with a
section of giggle inducing warning
signs letting riders know they should
consider avoiding the area. Heading
into the hills, my excitement at final-
ly riding one of the highest rated road
rides in the country was peaking …
and it was terrible! Not because the
road was bad, not because the scen-
ery was anything but outstanding, but
because I ran into the back of an im-
mense wave of traffic slowing down to
under 10km/h in the hairpins leaving
me unable to enjoy the scenery as I
frustratingly imagined the potential
of the ride. (Spoiler alert! A month
later on my ride back to Auckland to
leave New Zealand, I was able to un-
impededly enjoy the ride a few times,
including a 2-up back and forth, and it
lived up to every ounce of awesome I
had read and imagined.)
Arriving in Wellington was not what
I expected. The city sits in a stunning
bowl of ocean and mountains, beau-
tiful scenery within arm’s reach from
anywhere, but once you get into the
actual city, it firmly lodges itself into
the list of places I’ve been that are just
TRAVERSE 26
another city. Bars, adult clubs, fast
food, skyscrapers, malls, traffic … it
just seemed to lack a certain charac-
ter. While the city itself may not have
moved me, it did have two attractions
that did: the Weta Workshops and the
Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New
Zealand.
The Weta Cave tour was a continua-
tion of my previous Lord of the Rings
fanboydom, and Simon and I knew it
was going to be an awesome experi-
ence from the moment we rolled up to
see a 10 foot tall troll out front. The
couple hours spent diving through
the movie magic of Weta’s impressive
cinematic history had the cinephile in
both of us exploding. While I would
love to say the highlight of the excur-
sion was the incredibly knowledgeable
guide full of fun stories, like learning
that Viggo Mortensen was detained for
going for a jog in full chainmail with
Anduril on his back, or the inspiring
visit with one of the WETA costume
designers at the end, if the whole tour
had consisted of only the short por-
tion at the end where we were able to
get our hands on some of the props it
would have been worth every penny.
Te Papa could consume a full day
if you have the attention span for it.
Free to enter, the museum spans 6 lev-
els with exhibits ranging from mod-
ern art to dinosaur teeth, Maori histo-
ry to the depths of the ocean, and an
outdoor living exhibition. The display
that enduced the majority of my emo-
tion was Gallipoli: The Scale of Our
War.
Through realistic oversized sculp-
tures, voiced and written stories, ar-
tifacts, and interactive displays high-
lighting 8 men and women who were
present, the exhibit shows the brutal
conditions and extraordinary circum-
stances around the World War 1 cam-
paign in Turkey. This installation was
able to do what every exhibit hopes
to do: engage the visitors and elicit
an emotional response - I have never
seen so many upset people in a muse-
um before. Regardless of whether you