Photo shows the Hokianga Harbour from Opononi, half way through our cycle trip.

We are in a cheap motel in Paihia in the Bay of Islands after a sometimes gruelling cycle trip around Te Tai Tokerau / Northland. While puffing our way up and down Northland's ups and downs, the nasty virus was hatching its plot to conquer the world and teach humanity a sharp lesson. We are now a day away from New Zealand's lockdown, with numbers of infections here beginning to follow the same exponential growth curve as elsewhere in the world, albeit somewhat later.



Discarded bikes on the entrance way back on the cycle trail at Kaikohe.




Wairere Boulders at the end of the cycle way.




Pakaraka (extinct) volcano above Lake Omapere.



The Harrison Reserve on the cycle way on the way to Horeke.



The Warawara Range in the distance as we wind our way out of the Hokianga. Ex Ranch Saraoni was not far north of here in the Takahue Valley.

Whether the NZ Government's move will stop the spread of the disease or just keep it at bay until a vaccine is developed, or antivirals prove both safe and effective, is in the lap of the gods. Mind you, talking about gods, the religious have become strangely quiet all of a sudden!

Thanks to all our NZ friends for offering assistance and accommodation when the barriers to travel were first announced. They will be just as affected as everyone else in the world as the crisis escalates, so stay safe everyone and see you all at the other side!



Long finned eels in the Kaihu River, near Dargaville, oblivious to the human madness elsewhere.




Tane Mahuta, Northland's largest kauri, in Waipoua Forest, will probably be glad to see the back of people for a few months.



Grafton was the small NSW town where the Christchurch mosque killer was brought up. Residents stuck up this sign after the slaughter and subsequent aftermath. The billboard has gone up again after Aussies look across the ditch once again for leadership.

Hopefully, if there is one thing that comes out of the current global madness is an awareness of the link between some of the nastiest viruses that have emerged so far and humanity's impact on nature. Ebola, SARS, MERS, Swine fever and now SARS-Cov-2 are all thought to have made the jump from wild animals to humans. SARS-Cov-2, the so called novel coronavirus, is thought to have originated in the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, just one of many markets where wild animals, both alive and dead, are available for sale and consumption on the spot.

SARS-Cov-2 has horseshoe bat and pangolin genetic markers within its RNA strand. Whether it really did jump from pangolins to people is neither here nor there. People have intruded so far into the habitats and existence of wildlife that it is inevitable that this sort of transmission is more likely as George Monbiot points out in the Guardian.

We have just had our first day under lockdown. Hardly anyone around, although we did drive aimlessly to the supermarket.

The Bay is looking beautiful in the autumn sunshine and we saw at least 6 yachts sailing out, presumably to hide away in one of the outer bays. We have heard that the Queensland Police are clamping down on boaties trying to move around there but whether it is just in marinas we are not sure. Tutukaka marina is closed except to liveaboards and they are not allowed to leave in their boats. Welcome to the new reality!