To read from the beginning, click here.
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.
Today was the start of a three day holiday weekend in NZ; Waitangi Day, the national day of New Zealand, marks the anniversary of the initial signing—on 6 February 1840—of the Treaty of Waitangi. There was a lot of traffic and though the first few miles from “Palmy,” as the Kiwis call it, was on a very smooth bike path, but quickly transitioned to a highway. Fortunately, the holiday kept the truck traffic lowand the shoulders were adequate. At one point, we got off the main highway and snaked our way through Levin, and further down the road a nice paved/gravel trail from Otaki (where we took a break for lunch) much of the rest of the way to Pukerua Bay.
The end of day took us to Catherine’s and Dylan’s, a Kiwi couple in their 30s, our Warmshowers hosts for the night. They were so kind as to host us even though they had another guest, Butch from the UK, staying with them. They also had a rescue Greyhound named Sponge. Dylan was a wealth of information about everything from gold mining to the Maori language — truly a Renaissance man (and he builds his bikes himself), and Catherine was equally astute. We chatted over a wonderful meal of Dahl & rice, and heard their touring stories and learned that Butch toured the world working Burning Man festivals. Quite an interesting evening and at the end we slept in the living room on very comfortable cushions in our sleeping bags.
Leave a Reply