A mountain with a unforeseen gravel road – holy macaroni!

(Whitianga, New Zealand, 11th of January 2017)

We woke up to a gray sad morning with drizzle and gray clouds. We had breakfast consisting of sandwhiches with parmesan cheese, vegetables and nutella (not at the same time) and some cold potato with salt and then decided to wait a little before we started today’s trip. The distance we had planned to ride was only 36 km long, across to the other coast of Coromandel Peninsula and the city of Whitianga, and it was supposed to be only one mountain to climb.

At nine o´clock it was still still raining but as we were restless we took off anyway, dressed in our rain jackets.

We had chosen today’s tour on the basis that it was shorter than the other roads across the peninsula and that we would only have one mountain to climb. In addition, we were hoping for less traffic as the path we had chosen wasn´t the main road. When we had cycled a few kilometers, we became aware of why this route was not included in our bike guide book and why it is not as busy as other roads – it was a dirt road!

We decided, however, to give it a chance and stepped on. I do not think we used the word fun on the bike ride but rather words like interesting, experience and exciting. The mountain we climbing were 15 kilometer long (from flat land to flat land), but luckily it wasnt too steep at start. When we got to the steeper bits and we met a lot of road machines working on the road, making the surface really gooey it was almost impossible to continue to ride. We had to walk some bits in the mud and our bike shoes became full of goo, and then it was very difficult to click them into the pedals. But that was not a big problem, when you are cycling down a gravel road you do not dare to ride faster than XNUMX km / hour and it feels quite nice to keep the shoes out of the pedals to parry if you would skid.
With shaking hands and muddy bikes we eventually got halfway down the mountain and the real road came back. What a joy! We flew the last mile of our 40 km long trip to Whitianga and our deluxe “Peninsula Motel” where we had booked 2 nights. We thought we could be worth a toilet and a kitchen in the hotel room and to stay close to civilization.
With slightly mushy legs we took our bikes and cycled to the supermarket to by food for the coming days. We did not put our bike clothes on, nor our helmets and after a while we were stopped by a policeman whom told us that we need to have helmets on. In New Zeeland everyone should, according to the law.
For supper we gave our tired bodies some pizza that tasted great and then we went for a walk in the small town. We found some information on ferries and buses for the tours we plan to do the next few days.

/ Christel