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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.
Colin had suggested the Warehouse as the place to get gas and we headed there first. We go the gas and while we were in the camping section, picked up a new dry bag for the tent as it’s original bag was long past waterproof and had a couple of holes. My sleeping bag dry sack also had suffered a puncture. Rain was in the forecast and two things you don’t want to be wet. This new 20 Liter dry bag held both.
I wasn’t as lucky at the bike shop as they didn’t have the cassette I needed so I would have to continue nursing Papa Hobo along until we get to a bigger city.
The short 30 mile ride to our next stop in Otorohanga was along quiet country roads. The town itself was quiet and cute and we stopped in the local information center and were helped by a nice woman named Sis who loaded us up with brochures for cycling trips and the Waitomo Caves, which were the reason we had headed this way. After a quick stop at Walgreens (pharmacy AND full grocery store in NZ), we took the brochures and headed to The Thirsty Weta for a couple of beers and some pizza. It soon started raining and I sent a note to our Warmshowers host Marin with an ETA after the rain stopped.
The ride up to Marin’s was short, but mostly uphill. The major hills we climbed were two days behind us so it wasn’t so terrible, and we soon met Marin and her husband John on their farm, Marin holding the reins of their newest horse. John showed us to our cabin — where their son had stayed before he left for college and a career in Mechatronics Engineering. Cozy spot with a great view, John pointing out the different mountains we could see from the balcony (one covered in clouds unfortunately).
We got settled and cleaned up and joined John and Marin for a lively discussion of their farm and how it’s now run as a “Share Farm” – owners bring their cows to them for care/feeding/milking and split the profits. Their house had a picture window the size of the room looking out over the farm and the spectacular view, including a deer farm across the road. Marin & John had done a guided bicycle tour in Kenya and Tanzania and we wanted to pick their brains about that. They delightedly related their experiences there and in Thailand and more.
They also spent a good bit of time helping us plan the rest of our time in the North Island. We settled on skipping the caves as Dana wasn’t that interested, and I could take it or leave it. We got here as I was originally planning on riding from the Caves to the coast or heading down to Wellington. Darren had warned me against the coast road as it was under construction and narrow and rather dangerous. Our other option was to head south to Whangarui and on to Wellington, but that sounded a bit sketchy too. Dana also wanted to get to the South Island sooner than next Monday or Tuesday — it was still quite a haul to Wellington.
I checked train and bus schedules and John and Marin suggested the Timber Trail citing the suspension bridges and the rainforest scenery and wildlife– and Colin had also mentioned that trail. Suggestions were flying, trains were sold out, buses were available, and we finally settled on riding to the far trailhead of the Timber Trail, riding part of it, then the rest on Wednesday to Ongurue, and getting to Taumaurunui on Thursday in time for the available bus to North Palmerton in the afternoon.
Not a fully fleshed plan, as we still had to figure out whether to ride or transport to Wellington and the ferry to the South Island, but it was a plan. The weather tomorrow is iffy, but probably will be some rain. Wednesday looks better — partly cloudy melding to sunny later in the day.
After all that, or maybe before, John put some steaks on the barbeque (not for Dana, of course!), and Marin whipped up some mashed potatoes and a salad and we shared more touring stories and as with everyone previous including people on the street, the sad state of politics in the US. Let’s just say there’s no MAGA fan base here.
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