Of Middle-Aged Misadventures and Earthquakes

I hadn’t really thought to write about our second week in Gisborne, but to wait maybe a month and post another entry after settling in and gaining a better sense of things. As it happens, it’s been a rather eventful week and worth recording, I think.

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The kids were off to school on Monday and very excited about it. They waited by the door for a good fifteen minutes before we left home, and upon arrival ran off to their classrooms before I was able to take first day pictures as Michelle had requested. After a year at home together, it was kind of hard to see them go.

After a couple days of running errands, on Wednesday I finally got on my mountain bike and headed out for what I believed to be a three-hour ride (cue Gilligan’s Island theme song). I’d forgotten to set aside a couple things before the movers packed up our home, so in the first couple days here I had to buy new bike shoes and a backpack with a water reservoir. Threw a couple probiotic manuka honey energy bars (yum) into the pack, filled up the reservoir, and I was off just before 9 AM.

It was about three kilometers toward the city center and then another eight up a narrow paved road that follows the Waimata River out of town. Along the way I passed the Waimata Cheese facility, a large enough operation that it lends the air in the neighborhood a wonderful milky ferment (if you’re into that kind of thing). I also saw a couple kingfishers, which I was absolutely thrilled about, as they’re lovely, cartoonish-looking little birds.

At kilometer 11 I took a break by the turn-off onto dirt, took stock and a few pictures, ate a bar, and felt fortunate. Next, about four kilometers on the dirt road, where I didn’t see a soul, just some logging equipment and maybe two driveways. The smells on this leg of the trip were amazing, too. Rich and sweet at first, and I wasn’t sure why, though I suspected it was related to the pink flower petals that seemed to have fallen everywhere. Every now and again, a strong whiff of liquorice. Then the familiar smell of fresh-cut timber as I passed a logging operation. There were sections of monoculture that looked like Douglas Fir, but for the most part it was a lovely, diverse forest, with massive blackberry bushes crowding the road. The berries were a size I’ve only seen in the Pacific Northwest, but those I tasted weren’t as sweet as I’d hoped.

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My instructions told me that at the end of the road, I was to “pass through the gate,” and follow the trail to another dirt road that I could see was quite close. However, when I reached the end of the road, there were TWO gates. And I, it seems, I took the road less traveled by.

After a long descent on seldom-traveled doubletrack, I passed three or four baches (in this case, hunting camps) and crossed a stream, then began a long, meandering ascent. There was much evidence of ungulates, but I didn’t see another mammal, just hordes of birds, including a curious fantail which I was too slow to photograph. I optimistically assumed that the trail would eventually take me up over the ridge to my south and back down into Matokitoki Valley, which is where I was supposed to catch another dirt road back to civilization. It was not to be. I rode (mostly walked) another four kilometers up a gorgeous trail parallel to the road, finished my water and the other bar, and realized that by staying on this trail I was just going to continue into the interior, far, far past my goal. All the walking was hard on my feet as my new shoes were a bit small, and my legs were cramping as the ride was a bit more that they were used to, not to mention that I went through my water much faster than anticipated. The sun here’s no joke.

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At this point I could turn back, which probably would have been the best choice, or bushwhack to the nearest road, which is what I decided to do. However, I was way up on another ridge, and the only way down was through very steep pasture. I decided to do it along a fence line, which was helpful but the line was so steep that I sometimes had to slide on my butt. About an hour later I reached the bottom and hit a stream, which felt wonderful on my tortured feet, though there was no question that drinking it meant instant giardia. I waded downstream for maybe another half hour before I found a path up to a dirt road, which I followed until it, too, started turning away from the closest pavement, so I set out through the bush once again, and finally made my way to the road. Made a few repairs to the bike, then pushed hard for the nearest convenience store, another few kilometers down the way, across from the hospital where Michelle was working. Drank (slowly) some water and Gatorade and made for home as quickly as I could. Which was slow, as pushing at all made my legs cramp. At this point I was talking to myself, encouraging banalities like “you can do this” as commuters in business suits whizzed past me on one-speed bikes. Arrived three minutes before I had to pick up the kids. When I finally went back to clean up the bike, I discovered the back wheel was completely flat. Not sure when that happened. In any event, 35 kilometers into what was supposed to be an 18-kilometer ride, I was home.

It was a humbling experience, particularly in that the lesson is one that I thought I’d already learned: middle-aged people returning to their outdoorsy passions after having spent a few years home with kids have a tendency to hit it too hard and get hurt. Last year when half of our friends (including me) returned from winter break with ski or snowboard injuries, we talked about this phenomenon a fair bit. Anyway, I feel fortunate to have escaped with little more than blisters and sore legs. Hopefully this time the lesson sticks.

So that was Wednesday. Honestly what I thought I’d have to say about Thursday was that it brought the first rain we’ve seen since arriving in Gisborne. It was a welcome relief from the blazing sun, particularly for the nascent herb garden, which it seems I have mistreated. The rain brought dramatic light over the hills, and on the other side of the house, quite an impressive rainbow.

Thursday was also Michelle’s first night on call at the hospital, and she had to go in for a delivery around 1:30 AM. I was vaguely aware of her departure. Then about an hour later, the house began to shake. I mean REALLY shake. After a moment’s disorientation, I made my way across the bucking floor to the kids’ side of the house, bracing my hands against the walls like I was on a ship at sea. The whole house was clanking and rattling. Emlen managed to sleep through it, but the quake had woken Maika, who was wondering what the hell was going on. We hung out until it was over. The shaking stopped but the noises continued for a half-minute or so, which was a bit disconcerting.

I phoned Michelle, who as it happened had completed her delivery and was driving home during the earthquake, and thus was totally oblivious to it, and thought I’d lost my mind. When she pulled into our neighborhood, however, a number of neighbors were already driving out, heading for high ground for fear of a tsunami. We discussed it, realized that we were totally unprepared, and piled the kids into the car in pretty short order. We drove a lot further inland than was probably necessary, and parked on the side of the road for about an hour, using our phones to get informed as to the protocol, subscribing to the relevant twitter feeds and reading the relevant websites. We’ll be better prepared for the next one. Our house, as it turns out, is in a yellow zone, which means it’s vulnerable to a tsunami, but only one that’s triggered by a big quake relatively close to home. According to GeoNet, which reports seismic activity in New Zealand, the quake we felt was magnitude 7.2, at a depth of 14 km, and centered 125 km east of Te Araroa, which is on the coast about a two hour drive north of here. There were actually a couple stronger quakes that followed shortly thereafter, but which occurred further out, and so we did not feel them, though much of the island was threatened by the possibility of a tsunami resulting from the third quake, which measured M8.1.

Michelle tweeted about her experience, which somehow made the next morning’s news and garnered her a great deal of attention, which amused us all. She and I dropped the kids at school Friday morning, had coffee together at the cute little surfer coffee shop down the road, and then she was back to the hospital. The next town north, Tolaga Bay, had been evacuated due to the possibility of a tsunami, and the hospital parking lot was still quite full of people waiting for word that they could return home. Pretty soon after her arrival, Michelle’s colleagues started getting calls from their kids that their friends’ parents were picking them up from school and that they, too, wanted to come home. She called me and we agreed that we’d best err on the side of caution, so I went and picked up the kids. Who were pissed! Emlen, because he was going to miss yet another day of swimming in the pool, and Maika, because she was just sitting down to draw with pastels.

I placated them with mince pies and ice cream. Our favorite little pie bakery has a smoked fish pie that absolutely kills me (the rest of my family finds it meh). The ice cream place across the way only does berry flavors, but they mix the frozen berries into either ice cream or yoghurt to order and it’s probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had (it’s going to get old, I know, but in the course of two weeks I’ve had the best honey, ice cream, milk, plums, fish, and oranges of my life. The coffee is also excellent, but Caffe Ammi, you know I’ll always love you). You can taste the cream in it — a possibility that had never even occurred to me. Anyway, Michelle met us and we spent a nice afternoon together, and once we got the all-clear, it was back to the beach.