Travel Journal
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Coromandel, NZ to Tapu, NZ
The warm glow from our cabin door lighted the cool pre-dawn darkness at 6am, due to our alarm waking us earlier than it has in quite some time. Despite no tent to takedown, we still didn’t get rolling until 8:30am, so we must be out of practice. The “good” news was that the headwind was… Read more…
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Coromandel, NZ
Day 2 Rain is coming in a couple days. We have no dates ahead on our calendar that we need to ride to, so “living cheaply but comfortably in New Zealand” is our main goal. Despite the rain, this water-warmed peninsula covers the “comfortably” part, this holiday park covers the “cheaply” part, and the town… Read more…
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Kuaotunu, NZ to Coromandel, NZ
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…
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Whitianga, NZ to Kuaotunu, NZ
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…
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Hot Water Beach NZ to Whitianga, NZ
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…
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Tairua, NZ to Hot Water Beach, NZ
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…