Paul's Touring Blog

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Hi Everyone, very far behind on the blog so here’s a quick update. We’re in Christchurch and hanging around here until our flight leaves early Tuesday morning for Melbourne. We have been putting miles on and will be getting some hiking in today and tomorrow. So many pictures to go through, too, which I hope to do on our flight. In the meantime, here’s a link to our Photos Album for this trip: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xUwss5zA7MBJqy8G7

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We’d been carrying a bag of oatmeal since Te Kauwhata and finally opened it for breakfast, with a side of coffee from the convenient little kitchenette in our room. Today was going to be a long day, so we needed the fuel. We both enjoyed the respite from riding and got a great sleep to prep us for the ride to Pukerua Bay.

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The last post of the Timber Trail saga. We had a good rest and woke early at 6:00. Got packed up and hit the trail again. 20 km (12 mi) left to go. There were still some ups and downs, but there were also some very good downhill sections with a nice crushed gravel surface and we were able to pick up some speed. 

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It rained most of the night. We got up at 6 am to get an early start on the next part of the trail. We skipped making coffee and breakfast to get on the way faster. Cloudy, but no more rain. Already we were having doubts about how rough this trail was (we had info that it was gravel, but mostly it was single track MTB intermediate level). However, our only other option was to back track the way we came and ride by road to Taumarunui where we were catching the bus on Thursday. That option didn’t appeal to either of us, so we sallied on.

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A hearty cup of coffee, yogurt, cereal and some more lively discussions, goodbyes and thanks to Marin and John, and we were off to Pureora and the Timber Trail. A quick stop in town to get a tarp for a tent footprint, and we headed out. A little drizzle started falling just a few miles outside of Otorohanga, and soon was a steady rain.

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At breakfast we continued with last night’s conversations. As Colin had builders and an electrician coming that day to work on his house, we bid Colin good-bye and he gave Dana a big home grown Avacado and a few hard boiled eggs for her lunch. We packed up and headed into town to get some cooking gas and visit the local bike shop as I still needed to have some work done on my bike.

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Another good night’s sleep and we got up to bid Theresa adieu as she had to leave to visit a sick friend. Darren fixed up breakfast and we got everything together and bid him goodbye, too carrying a couple of apples and a banana courtesy of Darren. We stopped in “downtown” Te Awamutu to visit the hardware store and get some gas for our camp stove as we hadn’t confirmed a stay that night and our backup was to camp at Lake Ngaroto. No gas at the store!

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After a good night’s sleep and some breakfast, we headed out on our way to Te Kauwhata and our Warmshowers hosts, Darren & Theresa.

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We arrived in Auckland Friday the 30th at 6 AM after completely losing Thursday due to crossing the International Date Line. The flight from Baltimore to Houston was 3 1/2 hours, an hour and a half in the terminal in Houston, and a 14 1/2 hour flight from Houston to Auckland. Not very restful, but uneventful as all good flights are. It took some time to get through customs as they need to check our tent for biological pathogens. The tent passed, as did all our luggage, and within an hour we were outside the airport in the 75 degree weather putting the bikes back together.

Our new adventure takes us to New Zealand for three weeks, then to Australia for five weeks. Much of our time since the Holidays has been spent planning and packing, though if you asked us what our exact plans are, the answer would be, “Dunno, exactly.” Roughly, we’re flying from BWI to Auckland NZ, cycling through the North Island to Wellington, ferrying to the South Island and flying out of Christchurch to Melbourne.

In Australia, we’re hoping to visit Tasmania, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane (and the Gold and Sun Coasts) and the Great Barrier reef. Flying a bit blind, so to speak, but we’re building on our recent upper Midwest tour and what we’ve learned about New Zealanders and Australians, and we expect we’ll be just fine.