A gray day greeted us through the massive sliding glass doors of our room. Lake Taupo's reflection of the dismal sky left it looking like a great disk of diamond-plate steel. My mood was in tune with the weather. I couldn't help but think our luck had run out on us after the event of the day before. My perceptions seemed to come true as we rode through the drizzle along the lake and cars whooshed by us. Fortunately the cloudy sky began to dissolve, sun cracking through the breaking clouds. Just as we began to be bathed in the sunlight we came across a rather large sow which we goaded into posing for our camera with a granola bar.
What I'd anticipated as a calm and easy morning became a little more challenging as we ascended to the tops of the cliffs surrounding Lake Taupo climbing some 200 meters in two kilometers or so. Riding along the top we were afforded views of the massive lake formed by a collapsed volcano millions of years before. In the exhilaration of our descent I began to forget the way the day began as we reached terminal velocity down the other side. Circumstance soon reminded me of my earlier sentiments when a pack of soccer fans started driving by us. They all had the \"stars and bars\"
of the confederate flag draped in their rear windows and jeered at us as they passed. I nearly leapt off my bike when one used an amplified megaphone as they passed me. I felt a solid hit to my kidneys as one zoomed by. Couldn't figure what had hit me, but it felt like a softball with its speed. Until that point I hadn't thought of Andy who was trailing behind me by a few hundred yards. I became worried about what indignities and assaults he had suffered at their hands and stopped to find out. He'd been hit by something too; it had left a welt on his back and exploded on impact.
We stopped at a little market and a deliveryman made a call to the police on our behalf. The route from there was stupendously lovely and narrow road that wound along the rocky lip of the lake. It was hard to concentrate on the beauty of the ride with huge double trailer lorries passing so closely to us along with the fresh memory of our recent attack as distractions. I found myself flinching as each vehicle passed. Stopping at a campground for a snack we exchanged stories with the owner, who told us she'd run the young rebel hooligans off her parking lot a few moments before.
She called ahead to the police and added to our complaint. The police told her that they'd stopped the car and hoped we'd stop in at the police station at the next town to make a report. I found some elation in the fact that they'd been at least stopped. Perhaps scared about the consequences of their actions. Even so another vehicle with the flag passed, this time throwing water balloons at us, renewing my flinching reflex. Our experience at the police station left me in no way assured that there would be any consequence to our report. The desk officer gave me no confidence that there would be any follow-up.
Surely no one would ever be able to comprehend the report he wrote before us; every other word contained a grave misspelling. Afterwards we downed a fast food lunch and were on our way. Our route following lunch could take us two different ways. One via a quiet road up six kilometers sharply to over one thousand meters. The other over a busy road though more gradual. I lobbied for the quiet one; we could simply \"take our medicine\" and do the climbing more quickly. I am not sure if this was the smarter decision, for the climb reduced my legs to wobbly rubbery appendages and we still had some 45 kilometers to make our final destination.
Our guidebook described the terrain as flat for the next hours and a pair of older cyclotourists affirmed that when we met at a café while snacking. The owner of the roadside tearoom was a motorcycle and cat enthusiast. The walls of his little shop were covered by posters of BMW two-wheelers while the furniture and floor seemed covered by his cats. In reality there were only two, an Abyssinian and a Persian. They were absolute whores for attention. The reality of our afternoon was that it was a constant uphill and we ascended yet another 600 meters that evening before reaching our destination.
Our residence that evening was to be the Grand Chateau Hotel in Whakapapa village. We recognized it on the side of the massive volcano from the postcards we'd seen of the volcano erupting behind the building. It loomed ahead and above us for miles. When we drove up the driveway and entered the lobby, our receptionist asked us if it was raining out, so drenched we were with sweat. The name Whakapapa presented some problems in and of itself. First, in the Maori language the sound \"wh\" is pronounced as an aspirate \"f\". Second, an \"a\" following this consonant is pronounce \"uh\".
Making the name of the town sound obscene if you dared to pronounce it correctly. We were in a \"no-win\" situation, if we dared pronounce it correctly the locals blushed and looked as us as though we were being presumptuous. Pronouncing the name as we would in English yielded a quick correction. More often I allow myself the luxury of pronouncing everything wrong and giving the Kiwis the pleasure of correcting me. The hotel itself was Andy's favorite type. Sporting a faded grandeur and vacant feel that evoked the same spine chilling effect you'd get from watching \"The Shining\" late at night in an empty house.
Before dining in the massive formal dining room we played a game of pool on a table so large I felt like Alice in Wonderland. It had special long cues and bridges in order to use it. Without exaggeration, it was at least 3 meters by six meters, perhaps larger, and the balls were less than regulation size \--making our game all the more challenging. At dinner I nearly fell asleep at the table. My belly was full and my legs were aching. It had been many months since I'd ascended over 1300 meters and ridden over 100 kilometers in a day.