Cycle: 102km

We chatted to lots of people in the morning, which is really good as we're the local novelty on bikes but does mean we set of late. Unfortunately it was really hot so we got punished on our 488m 8km ascent! There were amazing views from the top of the hill, but Claire had completely cooked in the 35 degree heat! The climb was made all the harder by the metling tarmac - our tyres were simply sticking to the road!

The 2km descent from the top of the hill was unbelievably steep and again sticky. I never want to cycle up the hill the way we came down! It was so steep for so long I don't think I'd make it. So far we've not walked up any hills at all, but I think this one would have beaten us!

We stopped off at Morere Hot Springs where the pools are hidden far back in the bush. You can apparently walk off into the bush and find bits of stream that are hot and very private, but we headed straight for the maintained pools in the bush, more specifically straight for the cold plunge pool! No hot pools for us today! After about half an hour we'd managed to bring our body temperatures back down to somewhere near normal! Whilst cooling we chatted to a couple of horse hustlers who both looked well past 65 years old! They'd spent the morning catching and "half-breaking" wild horses! The experienced guy had a 100 horses and his side-kick had 6 and was getting paid with his pick of the horses! It was simply fascinating chatting to him.

We arrived at Wairoa feeling very tired. The Foodtown was closed which was a surprise and so went on a hunt for takeaway food. I asked a guy where the high street was and he said I'd just cycled down it... We managed to get some fish and chips, but had general bad vibes about the place. There were a bunch of spaced out kids hanging around and we saw a guy with a dark green 100% tatooed face which was a bit of a shock.

Feeling a little unnerved we tentatively made our way to our campsite. Luckily it was the best one we've been to yet! It had absolutely immaculate facilities with a cool car BBQ! Some friendly motorcyclists gave us the rest of their bottle of wine so we had a nice relaxing evening feeling safe and secure.