February 25: Gisborne

"Welcome to Gizz-burn!" yelled a local surfer, looking up from his van as I cycled by. We were riding along Opuki beach at the Gisborne city limits. The endless blue of the sky met the aquamarine sparkles of the sea's swell seamlessly, and the two media rolled and broke together along a soft beige sandy beach... Civilization!

Today we finished up our East Cape cycling adventure, having run 562 miles of rugged hills and coastline in 2 weeks of sweaty climbs, endless vistas and comfy, small village hospitality. Reflecting on this past week in heavily Maori inhabited land, one was constantly reminded of the enduring effects of British colonialization, even today. The depressed state of east cape towns, with their high rates of unemployment, public assistance, and domestic problems, are all trickle-downs from racial repression caused by the arrival of the English in the early 1800's.  Jom, our Maori host in Ruatoria, told of his father's generation being beaten for speaking their native tongue. Reminds us of stories Ellen's Lushootseed teacher told of west coast Washington kids getting their mouths washed out with soap if they spoke 'Indian.'

Gisborne is the small east coast city where the many logging trucks that have passed us, loaded with plantation-grown white pine, were headed. (As we learned, to unload logs onto ships headed for China to be mushed up into paper and cardboard to wrap all the trinkets that get shipped back to the world's growing appetite for trinkets). We found ourselves (or rather the i-site did) a B&B directly on the beach, and one order of fish 'n chips later, we were as cozy as we weren't all morning fighting the elements to get here.

We've decided to rent a car tomorrow and see some of the interior of the North island.

On the road again, only in a different way...