The next several days were pretty uneventful, but we covered a lot of distance. We rode from 64k to Rotorua, took a day off, and then rode 88.5 to Taupo, 50k to Turangi, and 63k to Taumaurunui. On a map, this looks like a large distance, compared to our previous riding. Eric pointed out that it looks longer because this marked the first time that we actually rode in more-or-less one direction, instead of in circles of figure 8s, our usual method.

Not much stands out. We liked Tauranga because the name means "Resting Place for Canoes" in Maori. We had a really hard time climbing from there to Rotorua (from 0 to 280 meters above sea level), but we enjoyed the view, since the backroad we took winded through some pretty canyons.

We didn't see any other bicyclists. We did see two bikes... on the back of a truck that nearly ran us off the road. I think the bikes belonged to the Belgians we met in the Coromandel.

Rotorua is a huge tourist town, sort of like Arenal in Costa Rica, or let's see... Calistoga, in California. It's volcanic--all over town you can see boiling mud pools and volcanic steam. It smells a bit like rotten eggs. And you can pay lots of money for tours to the volcano, or around the lake, etc. Eric and I were pretty tired of riding, so we ended up staying for two days.

Our big tour was a visit to the Maori Arts & Crafts Institute, which was neat but felt too much like Disneyland (full of lots of smiling Maoris carving, weaving and dancing).

The best part of Rotorua was we ran into the Flying Dutch--our tandem riding friends Martin and Karin from Holland. We had a great time talking to them and interrogating them about life in Holland. (They are both nurses and gave us the low-down on hospital care in their country versus England, where they had both done internships. Bottom line: get sick in Holland, not England).

Martin and Karin were prety fearsome riders, but even they were slowing down. Since the weather was so bad, they had caught a bus from Tauranga to Rotorua. And they had put aside their plans to ride down NZ's east coast. They were planning to spend a total of four days in Rotorua and didn't know where they'd go next.

The worst part of those five days was the weather (it turned cold and rainy again) and climbing an 867-meter pass (2,844 feet) between Turangi and Taumarunui. For all you pro bicyclists out there, I'm sure that's nothing. But it definitely hurt me. (not Eric of course). Worse, my chain had been needing grease for the previous 300 miles. So I squeaked all the way into Taumaurunui.

We were planning to leave the next morning for a five day trip down the Whanganui River (pronounced fong-uh-new-ee). But the next morning, the river was flooding, so we ended up spending an extra day in Taumaurunui. It's a pleasant place but not too lively. Luckily the river was worth the wait.

next: the Whanganui River.

  New Zealand Main Page      World Trip