At 5:30am we were awakened with a surprise bit of rain, that wasn’t in anyone’s forecast. Our bikes were uncovered, but rather than wapping all the bags, I just ran them under the gazebo where we had eaten last night. Another advantage to effectively having the campground to ourselves! I have a sun-tracking app that… Read more…

Another wet-tent morning, but with our third 15-mile-or-less day in a row (this one with no other excursions planned), we didn’t need to hit the road until 10am “checkout”, which gave plenty of time for the rising sun to dry everything out. I think that’s a first; normally we need to get moving out of… Read more…

Clear skies above us overnight combined with well-hydrated grass below us to make the tent and every surface on our bicycles super-wet. Compounding the water-water-everywhere was the fact that we arrived back from the beach last evening after sunset, with wet clothes and shoes that had zero chance to dry. Now nearly four months past… Read more…

Our strategy of circling the Coromandel Peninsula via short rides gave us time to do a hike before we left town this morning (it also helped to leave from our upgraded camper stay vs. packing up our would-have-been-wet tent!) Paku Hill is an oddly-close mirror to Tauranga’s Mount Maunganui, some 50 miles away down this… Read more…

With the rain cleared out, we were back on the move again after a week in Whangamata. But now that we were entering a period of “fine” weather (an official NZ term), we also didn’t need to rush our way around the Coromandel Peninsula, and small but relatively-frequent towns will allow us to keep the… Read more…

Day 3 The owners of our accommodation run SurfSUP, the only operator that guides people to Whenuakura Island, more-descriptively known as “Donut Island”. This is a small round dome of an island three-quarters of a mile offshore, but it has a secret. On the side hidden from shore, there is a sea-cave sliced into its… Read more…