The view from the Old Motu Rd
Soaking in the hot water stream After skydiving and volcano hiking we spent another week in Taupo at a free camping spot called Reids Farm, right next to the Waikato river 3km outside of town. We explored town, went out to eat, and reconnected to the outside world at the library. We visited the Anarchy Boarding Park and took wakeboarding lessons, and the next day had a relaxing afternoon floating down the Waikato river on $6 pool toys with a stop off at a natural hot spring emptying into the river. On our last day in Taupo we rented a car and drove 2 hours West to Waitomo to the famous Black Water Rafting Company, and took a three hour excursion through a glow worm cave. They dressed us up in wetsuits, gave us some inner tubes and tools us down into Ruakuri cave where we climbed over rocks, jumped off of underground waterfalls and floated beneath a glowworm studded ceiling that looked like the night sky. So far Taupo is our favorite city on the North Island, and we were a bit reluctant to leave, but we had reached the 7 day camping limit at Reids Farm so it was time to move on.
We had spent a good deal of time at the library researching our route, and after hearing horror stories about big mountains, narrow roads and heavy traffic we decided to take a North Eastern route to Gisborne rather than go South through Napier. Despite having done very little distance on the bikes in the last several weeks we had a much easier time in the saddle than we expected. The weather was hot and the road was hilly, yet we managed our biggest day so far, riding 9 hours and racking up 135.6 kilometers, beating our previous distance record by almost 50k. We started by retracing our route back up the 5 past Reporoa before turning East onto the 38. There was a long steep climb out of Taupo and then rolling terrain after that. At Rotomahana we turned onto a back road that cut through to the 30, but turned onto a private logging road after a lady pulled over to suggest it. It was paved the entire way rather than gravel like the way we would have gone, and she said if security caught us to just say that we were lost. We almost made it, but a security truck pulled us over just 5k from the end of the road. He we friendly enough a let us continue on, and we popped out on the 34 just a few k before the junction with 30. We stopped at a dairy in Te Teko and each downed a whole liter of chocolate milk before continuing on until just after dark, when we came across a holiday park at a natural hot spring and decided to spend the night.
1000 kilometers and counting! Our big ride the day before put just shy of the 1000 kilometer mark on Steve's odometer, so the next morning we reached that milestone a little over 30 minutes into our ride, shortly before we arrived in Whakatane at noon. We made it just in time for the end of their Sunday farmers market and picked up some veggies for dinner along with a bag of fresh cherries and two delicious tangelos. Leaving town there was a HUGE hill on the way to Ohope, and several more big climbs after that, and although we only covered 71k that day we both agreed it was more exhausting than the 135 the day before. We rolled through Opotiki in the evening just in time to buy some spam for dinner from a convenience store and found a spot to hide our tent in the bushes of a pull-out next to a beautiful beach before jumping in the ocean to cool down.
Jennies bike in front of the fountain of life. From Opotiki we turned off the main highway and headed down the Moto Road Trail, a 67k cycleway that follows the historic coach road from Matawai to the coast, which was the first road between Gisbourne and the Bay of Plenty. It opened in 1915, and was originally only passable in the summer with the aid of planks and ropes to get the cars through. It was a beautifully scenic ride through gorges and over farmland, but the incredibly steep hills and rough gravel made it pretty slow going under the intense New Zealand sun. The description of the trail said it would only take 5 hours, but when we looked again we realized that we were going the opposite direction of the way most people ride and so would be going uphill pretty much the entire way, effectively doubling the time it would take. On the second big mountain we began running short of water and I was just starting to get worried when we came upon a little stream trickling down the side of the mountain, with a handwritten sign that said we could drink the water. We were so excited that we both drank ourselves sick and refilled every water bottle we had before we moved on. We spent the night close to the summit of the third big climb, clocking in at only 51k in almost 7 hours of riding.
Motu Falls Our long uphill battle the day before paid off in the morning when we were able to start our day with a gentle ride along the ridgeline, with only a few more moderate climbs between us and a 3k stretch of downhill into the tiny farming community of Motu. As we came into town a man traveling down the road on a lawnmower pointed us in the direction of a community rowboat on a tiny pond, so we rowed out onto the water to eat our lunch before taking a 10k detour to visit Motu falls. From there it was an easy 14k on a flat, paved road to Matawai where we stopped to have a beer at their historic pub that is famous for its 2-headed sheep. We left town on the main road but soon turned onto another gravel road to head towards Rere Falls, and we set up our tent in a small turnout on the side of the road just as a big rainstorm rolled in.
The next morning we step off on our shortest ride of this leg of the trip, just 38k to the farm we were planning on staying at, but it seemed to take forever. A few more long uphill stretches in the morning and a long stretch of downhill just before we arrived, and a few surprises along the way. We had rain off and on as we got underway, and two rogue sheep led us down the road for several kilometers before a pair of bulls startled as we road by and jumped the fence into the road in front of us. We arrived at the farm just in time for lunch and then got to work helping around the farm. The current plan is to stay here in Rere for a little while and then head to Gisborne.
For more pictures from the Motu Trail check out the photo post.
For more pictures from the Motu Trail check out the photo post.
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