Journal Entries

Another glorious day, blue skies 19 degrees and little wind. We cycled from Whitianga to Waihau Bay. About 75 is but up and down over headlands amounted to about 800m of climbing. We’ve earns our beer!

Last night we stayed in a secluded B and B right under a mountain and just above the beach. Such a pretty spot helped along by corona and a Marlborough Pinot given to us by a generous host.

First sight of the ocean. We’ll be following the coastline all the way around the East cape for the next week. Slow start today with Chris having a flat in the first kilometre and then also managing to fall off his bike when coming to a stop. Our supposed 8am start ended up being closer to 11am with several coffees under our belt. Not sure how I’ll go over the next 3 or 4 days with updating the blog. Internet connection is already dodgy and apparently gets worse the further out we go.

Stunning scenery and apparently gets better! Absolute cracker of a day today makes it even better.

Feel the serenity! Lake Rotoiti is the second of 3 lakes we cycled past on the way out of Rotorua.

Yousd swear you in England. It’s green and lush and after battling headwinds for twenty Ks we’ve just devoured some ham and cheese sangers and continue on to Whakatane.

Just about to start! It’s a beautiful clear and crisp Rotorua morning. Apart from a struggle with Chris front brakes, and an elegant Chinese woman burping in our faces as we were trying to fix it, everything has been going swimmingly.

4 days to go until we fly out to New Zealand. I’ve even started packing which has to be a world record for me in preparedness. Here’s the route map and elevation. It’s mainly sealed roads except for the last two days when we cut up through the mountains back to Rotorua. Hopefully we will have gained some fitness by then because it looks a wee bit hilly!

Snake sunning itself along Lower Crabapple Road.

The Bluebonnets were incredible along Welgenhausen Road today.