First sunrise in the World!

Hello!
Well, let's try to get all caught up on events here. When I left off, I was just leaving from Lake Tutira...

I left around 9:30 AM, knowing that I had a long day in front of me. I said goodbye to the older couple who were staying at the campground in their R.V. They were very nice, and gave me lots of advice about roads and places to go. They run a Bed and Breakfast in Athenree, by the sea.
The main problem was just that I didn't really have any food with me, so I was hungry the whole day. It's not very easy to convey how hungry I was, so I won't even try. There were a LOT of hills, too. Several big river gorges, and then this gigantic one that took me like an hour and a half to reach the top of. It was actually near the top of this hill that I walked my bike for the first time so far. And it was raining intermittently (usually beginning when I had my rain coat off, and ending once I finally had it on). The descent was a nice, fairly long one, although it was really rainy and slippery on the roads so I had to go slow, and I was pretty chilly by the time I got to the bottom. I cycled another 10kms or so, and stopped for lunch, which was pretty much just a packet of salami. Not particularly filling, but it tasted sooo good. Kept on going after momentarily contemplating camping under a bridge (mainly continuing because I knew that--most likely--food would not just walk up to me whilst under the bridge, unless of course a lost sheep happened to wander within my grasp... ), and over, yes, another hill. However, after finally struggling over that, I was relieved to look in my cycle-touring guidebook ("Pedallers' Paradise," excellent books) and find that the final 20km were all more or less flat or downhill!! So, after lots of pedaling slowly along, I eventually made it to Wairoa. When I was just entering the city limits, there was a sign saying "Information Centre, 400m on Left". This rather disconcerted me, because after pedaling for what felt like 2-3kms more, no information centre was to be seen! I thought that perhaps I was losing track of distance and time, and was rather confused. However, after finally making it into the center of town, I was relieved to find out that there USED to be an info center there, but that it had recently moved and had neglected to take their signs down. I went into the nearest gas station/convenience store, and promptly ate about 3 candy bars, a hot mince pie or two, and about a litre of this cheap, vile-looking lime-green "Dietary Supplement" energy drink which was really just like Powerade or Gatorade, except with more sugar/flavour. I asked the nice person behind the desk
where the nearest backpackers' accommodation was, and she was very helpful in directing me to several. I opted for the closest one, and although I felt that NZ$25 was asking a bit much, I didn't really care enough to argue at that point. It was an odd place. I would describe it as "sterile", or perhaps even"soul-less" (not that you'd ever find doctors using "soul-less" needles for anything!) It just wasn't a particularly inviting place to me. The room was pretty chilly, because although there was a heater in the room, there wasn't a propane tank to go with it, so it wasn't particularly useful. The bathrooms were very, very, eerily clean, and in what I believe was a effort to make the place slightly less creepy at night-time, they had something akin to "golden-oldies" playing softly out of some speakers somewhere above your head. This failed spectacularly. I tried to never spend more than the absolute minimum in those bathrooms. Then, the kitchen was similar. Very nicely equipped with pots and pans and plates and the like, but I felt like I was back in Chemistry class, as I was cooking over a hot-plate. And they had the lights set to a timer so that if no movement was detected by the door after about 5 minutes, the damn lights would turn off. THat was really irritating during the middle of dinner when all I wanted was to eat my half-kilo of spaghetti in a WELL-LIT area. I was so hungry that when it turned off the third time I didn't even get up and just ate in the dark. Then I got a bit of a surprise: The couple from the R.V. who I had left just that morning walked in the door in order to do their dishes! So, they had decided to stay in the same place as me. That was pretty much the redeeming feature of this motor-camp. The motor-camp did have a computer connected to the internet, and it was in the smallest building that I have ever seen. I couldn't even stand up straight in it, and I'm not exactly Michael Jordan either! And I was rather surprised when I turned the computer on and it booted Ubuntu (for my fellow geeks out there)! Slightly unexpected. Oh, I'm definitely not going to get up-to-date with this at the moment. I did some hand-washing of clothes in the spooky bathroom's sinks, and then indulged in an 8-minute hot shower. I didn't like that the hot shower was a further NZ$2 though, on top of the already NZ$25 room. Went to sleep. Slept for a long time.
THe next morning, I went and walked around town. I found probably the best thing in town: the bakery! It's called "Osler's Bakery", and it has won numerous awards over the years. I especially liked their specials/day-old rack! Okay, I'm going to have to finish this later. Again. I'll try to post some more pictures soon. And explain about the title of this blog.
-Ben