In my few weeks of traveling through NZ I saw and often chuckled at the native names of the villages I passed, like Kawakawa, Kerireri, Piropiro. Some of the names are tongue twisters, and there’s more: in Kiwi language, “w” followed by “h” gives “f”, so Whakapapa sounds ambiguous and even funnier to me.
Today, I needed to get from Whanganui to Rangiwahia, a hundred kilometers away. On a map it is more or less a straight line, but in reality there were many twists and turns, not to mention uphills.
It was sunny and very hot, despite a mere 21°C. An ozone hole, supposedly located right over New Zealand, made me feel its presence.
Eventually, not without difficulties, I made it to Rangiwahia, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. There are a few houses with barns, a lot of sheep and a basic campsite.
I was there all by myself. I enjoyed the sun for a couple of hours, trying to even out my farmer’s tan. Then I had my dinner – a can of fried beans I bought in the previous town, knowing there’s nothing at Rangiwahia. And that was it.
Today in numbers:
103 km – distance cycled
15 – letters in the Maori alphabet