By the time we got to back to Auckland, Eric and I had ridden about 500 miles. Our next plan was to ride south to Wellington, then hop a ferry to the South Island, and keep riding south. When we were in Auckland picking up our bikes at Cycle Action, we talked to our buddy Frank about our route. He recommended that we "flip" up to the Coromandel Peninsula. As in, just take a little side trip. It was definitely worth it. But it took a whole eight days.

The peninsula is directly east of Auckland and doesn't look like much on a map. It runs north-south. It's about 50 miles long and 25 miles wide. Our guide book marked it as a primo destination for bike tourists.

It was. We met lots. On the train out of Auckland (we decided to take a commuter train for the first 30k to avoid traffic, which had been pretty bad on our first sally forth from the city), we met two women from East Germany. They didn't speak much English so we didn't talk to them much. They did say that one of them had toured in Portugal, and the other had never toured before.

We got off in a town called Papakura. I thought we'd probably stay there since we arrived in late afternoon. But No. I let Eric talk me into riding a mere 12k up the road to the next town. It was easy riding, but when we got there, there was nothing. Then I let him talk me into riding another 15k to the next town. Again, nothing. But a guy in a gas station said we could find camping at Orere Point, just another 15k up the road.

So you get the picture. Somehow we ended up riding 45k very late in the day. And those last 15k were harsh. We went over a hill with switchbacks. On the way we met more cyclists--a pair of women from Denmark. They were just kind of relaxing at the bottom of a hill. I thought maybe they had a flat. They said, No, We are just taking our clothes off. Amazing how you can speak a language and not really speak it. They were just removing their jackets.

We camped that night at Orere, a tiny town on the coast, directly west of the Coromandel Peninsula. To get to the peninsula, we had to ride south the next day to Thames, and then up north to Coromandel.

At camp in Thames we met more cyclists--a tandem team from Holland, and a couple of Belgians riding very expensive bicycles. Let's face it, all the Europeans had expensive bikes. Many of them were bought just before the tour. We were the only ones with bikes that had a few miles on them.

The road to Coromandel was quite hard. It was flat at first, but then we hit two major hills. Somewhere in the middle, we ran into some 40-something-year-old Canadian cyclists sitting on the side of the road. They were pooped. They had read there were three hills. We psyched ourselves up for the third hill. I kept looking for it the whole way to Coromandel. A few weeks earlier, when we were riding up north, we had hit two massive hills in the last 3k to our campsite. I knew it was possible that a hill could just pop up in the bitter end. Thankfully it didn't.

Coromandel has lots of comforts for a tired cyclist. Eric and I dug in right away. We went to a cafe and got some spicy wedges (like large fries) and carrot cake and coffee and beer. Then we rode a few blocks down the road, set up our tent, and went to a local play. It was called Hot Water, and was about a (what else?) absurd and disfunctional New Zealand family. It was about a NZ family that loses its family vacation home to the new Maori husband of their rebel daughter. (Maori land claims are a hot topic here. The Maoris have claimed specific deeds of land in NZ, as well as whole areas, i.e. the west coast of the Northland).

The play also had an American character: a backpacker, who of course is lusted after by all the Kiwis. She also happened to be a journalist from, as she said, ACK-RAWN, Ohiy-OW. Eric thought her attempt at an American accent sounded like a speech disability. Anyway, we had lots of fun.

In camp, we met still more cyclists--Jim, a Canadian machinist, and his wife Libby, an Australian born teacher, who were bike touring with their two sons, ages two and four. They were pulling their kids and all their gear and their kids gear in trailers. They were camping every night and cooking all their meals. All the other riders bowed down to Jim and Libby. I can't believe they got their kids over that hill on the way into Coromandel.

The fourth day was the hardest. We rode from Coromandel, on the upper west side of the peninsula, to Hahei, on the upper east side. In between the two were two massive hills, both unsealed (that's NZ for dirt roads). They were the kind of hills that make you ill to look at. Since Eric and I were just ahead of Jim and Libby and their kids, I was inspired to make it over both hills. I kept thinking, at least I'm not towing a 50-pound child! How do they do it? (Jim and Libby later told us the hills weren't so bad...)

After the hills we caught a very tiny passenger ferry from Whitianga (pronounced fit-ee-ong-uh) to Cook's Beach. The bikes barely fit inside. Eric played Scotland the Brave for the ferry driver. It sounded grand. That night at Hahei we camped with the Belgians and a German cyclist they'd met, Marco.

The winds were blowing hard. They had been getting worse for days, but by the time we got to Hahei, they were like gales. We were all working really hard just to pedal at a few clicks an hour on straight road. Many times I was blown onto the road, or off it. Luckily, we never wiped out. The Belgians were really bummed about the wind. The guy, Wather, a welder of staircases in his native land, had a bad cold. He said if the winds kept up he and his girlfriend might rent a car.

The next day, Eric and I did an awesome hike at Hahei. We climbed over a sign telling us a trail was closed, and then along a cliff (part of the trail had crumbled away but it wasn't too dangerous) to another trail to Cathedral Cove. The cove has a huge cathedral-sized and shaped natural tunnel. When you're in it you look up and it peaks above you. White sand and surf all around. It was splendid. Of coure the winds were howling so we couldn't exactly sit there too long.

On the way back, we got a little surprise: a massive pine tree had fallen across the path since we had hiked out on it, just an hour before. Eep.

Since it was late and the winds were so bad, we decided to only ride a few k's around the peninsula to the next campsite, Hot Water Beach. The beach has hot springs just below the sand. Every day at low tide, a bunch of people come out and dig hot tubs in the sand. You can't really sit in the holes like you can in a hot tub--it's more like you dig a little trench and lie down in it.

When we arrived, we got another surprise. This one much better than the fallen pine tree. In the camp were Bill and Lori, a Canadian couple we'd met on our first day out of Auckland several weeks earlier. Even more amazing, they had found a book I'd lost that day, and had carried it with them, on their bikes and on buses, all over northern NZ, on the chance they'd see me again. They handed it over. I was so psyched.

While we stood there chatting in front of camp, Lori called her dad. For some reason he was completely disinterested in talking to her--just asked in a cursory way if she was OK and then said goodbye. Out of character for him. I consoled him by telling her I'd called my mother, and the most important thing she told me was to watch out for ticks.

Bill and Lori had been at the beach the night before, so they knew the best place to dig the holes.That night we jumped into the hole they dug, and were joined by the Dutch tandem team! Six of us in Lori and Bill's little hole. I think they wanted a little privacy, but we had a grand time. The moon was full. Nearby, a dozen other diggers frantically dug their holes.

The water was so hot that we had to redig the hole several times to let in some cold water so we wouldn't be scalded. Occasionally we'd here cries of Scheist! from other holes as other campers discovered the problem.

The next day, Bill and Lori stayed behind--they were going to wait for a bus to Rotorua--and Eric and I took off. We rode about 73k to Whangamata. On the way we stopped and had lunch with Marco. He just graduated as a teacher of special education children, and has a two-month internship coming up in Dunedin, on NZ's south island. He's touring for about three months before his internship starts.

We rode to Whangamata separately. When we arrived, Marco gave us the news. The Belgians, who had left at 7 a.m. that day, had got into town early and gotten invited to a private home! Marco had been riding with the Belgians. But he had slept in that day. He was jealous. He vowed to leave at 5 a.m. the next morning if that would improve his odds of getting an invite.

He did get his own invite that nite. Eric and I and Marco met in a pub and played pool with a Maori woman named Josie. She knew we were already camped, but told us if we come through again, we should stay with her. She was very nice--though a little odd. She flipped her head every time she said anything. She played pool better than us, which isn't saying much.

I talked to her at length about New Zealand, and about what she thinks of Winston Peters, the Maori guy whose NZ First party is in a coalition with the ruling National Party. She said she's not political, but she's sorry she voted for him. She thought he'd help the old people, but instead, the coalition govt--NZ's first--hasn't done anything.

By the end of the evening, Josie confided that she thought many backpackers she met in the bar were a bit racist. She had invited several to come stay in her home with her and her husband (a white South African), but they declined. She wasn't put off by us though. She kissed us all goodnite.

On the last day of our Coromandel tour we rode 93k to a little town called Tauranga. Eric and I left camp sometime in mid-morning. I assumed we'd ride alone. But somehow, early on, we got bunched up with a whole slew of cyclists: the Belgians, Marco, another German we hadn't met, a pair of German girls. I wanted them to pass us but they didn't. So Eric and I passed them. I really wanted to ride with just Eric call me crazy, but I hate trying to keep up with a large group on bikes; it's too much pressure), so I pushed hard. We actually left the other cyclists behind. I was a little shocked. One German later told us he thought we had rockets on our feet.

Later, in a little town called Katikati, we caught up with a bus that had honked at us in a friendly way a few miles back. Turns out it was the bus our friends Bill and Lori were on. We got in a little chat with them for a few minutes before their bus took off.

All I could think was FINALLY. After 1500 miles of riding I can keep up with cyclists who only make it out for a few weeks a year.

next: the road to Rotorua.

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