We finished our tour around the Coromandel Peninsula in Whitianga, where we bought tickets on a bus to take us back to Thames. We covered the distance in a little less than two hours, but with the hills in between it would have taken us at least two days on our bikes. We had plans to head down to Te Aroha and we decided to take advantage of the Hauraki Rail Trail, one of New Zealand's great cycleways. Our bus arrived in Thames around 2pm and we covered the 33 kilometers to Paeroa much faster than we expected, even with a little detour to the Cheese Barn outside Matatoki for some fancy cheese and homemade ice cream. Since we couldn't find a suitable place to camp and we were way ahead of schedule, we decided to head another 7 kilometers down a side trail towards Waihi before camping in an empty car park outside of Karangahake Gorge. We had our rainiest night yet, but our tent held up just fine, and we stayed warm and dry through the night.
The next morning we packed up camp and headed down one of the many walking trails along the gorge. The area was rich in gold mining history and there were ruins, relics and old machinery from the mining operations everywhere. We went on a short walk on a narrow path down the gorge and headed up a set of stairs to the Windows Walk, an old mine shaft carved into the mountain with holes overlooking the gorge that were used for dumping waste rock down into the river below. We hadn't brought our headlamps which turned out to be a good thing since without our slow shuffle through the dark we probably wouldn't have seen the glowworms hanging like miniature stars from the ceiling of the tunnel. We headed back along the trail and collected our bikes before heading back to the Rail Trail and down towards Waikino. The next section of trail passed through a long, dark tunnel cut through the mountain and then opened up to rolling farmland before passing through the Victoria Battery Site, more ruins from the gold-mining days.
We spent so much time enjoying the scenery that we arrived in Waihi with just enough time to take a quick look around before turning around and riding the 14k back to our previous campsite. We woke up in the morning to a rooster right outside our tent who was kind enough to inform us that it was 8am, and we packed up and headed back towards Paeroa to find some breakfast and visit the library. We were able to spend a few hours charging our batteries and surfing the internet before jumping back on the trail and riding the last 21 kilometers to Te Aroha. We had reservations at Te Arhoa Landing for the following night, so we headed a few minutes out of town and got permission from another farmer to spend the night in his field. We were treated to an amazing sunset at our most scenic campsite since our first night in Kawakawa Bay.
We enjoyed sleeping in and wandering around Te Aroha this morning before checking in to our river chalet just after 1. This is our first night indoors since we arrived in Auckland, and our first real shower in almost a week, so we were more than excited to take advantage of all the luxury. We're staying in a small unit right on the river with our own kitchen, bathroom and enormous bed. We splurged at the grocery store and cooked an enormous meal that we ate on our porch while we watched the ducks swim in the river. Our booking included a 30 minute private mineral bath at Te Aroha Spa, where we got to relax our tired muscles and soak away all the soreness, and we're currently watching The Hobbit on the TV in our room to prepare for our trip to the Shire tomorrow, since our booking also included tickets for an afternoon tour.
See more pictures here!
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