Cycle: 27km

Recovery day! Hurray!

Jonny our Canadian bike mechanic friend gave our bikes a once-over and seemed to be quite impressed with what we'd got, which was a bit of a relief!

We were feeling quite tired from the previous three days, and apprehensive about 3 big hills on the way to Coromandel town, so decided to have an easier day and get close to the beginning of the hills. Before setting off we spent the morning in Thames planning Sandra and Tony's visit and investigating boating options for fast-tracking back to Auckland. All-in-all it was very successful!

The cycle was really what we came to New Zealand for. Lovely flat coastal roads winding in and out of bays. We took it in turns to set the pace at 1km intervals just to get the kms ticking off - a strategy that worked very well.

The campsite we stayed at was the Tapu Creek campsite, which was a couple of kms off the coast road, and was beautifully set in the mountains. We were (again) the only people there, but the rain held off for long enough for us to dry the tent out. There were luckily a load of doves kept by the owners who kept us company whilst we ate our soup for dinner! It seemed a shame that they got such few customers because it's probably the nicest campsite we've been to yet (albeit with fairly limited facilities).