Taupo to Tarangi 63km
The cycling along lake Taupo was quite beautiful. A giant volcanic crater now home to a gorgeous lake. I stopped several times to take pictures. At a particularly nice picnic area I stopped to finish the strawberries (a box of strawberries and several bananas have proven to be the perfect snack to have along the way). A very nice retired couple pulled up to share the table with me. The were the typically friendly Kiwis who were quite happy to chat with some guy on a bike. When the learned that my grandfather had also been a dairy farmer, and I had once milked a cow, they seemed pleased to tell me all about their lived as 'kettle fermers'.
They told me about their one and only trip to the US. Turns at their experience of America was limited to the lovely environs of Los Angeles. They visited LA for a week and seemed quite impressed with the street that has all of the movie stars on it. They did ask me just how far away the mountains were. It seems the entire time they were in LA there was a 'strange haze' obscuring their view of the mountains making it difficult to determine how far a way they were. These folks were shocked to learn the brownish haze was actually smog. These nice people in their late seventies had never seen smog! Other than the sulphur fumes in Rotorua there is no air pollution in NZ. Certainly the one thing I will miss the most about living in Park City is the air. While Sugar House is suitably pleasant the air--particularly right now--sucks. Oh well, I'm gratefully some distance away from that particular unpleasantness at the moment.
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