Friday, 1st October 2021

The forecast sun and clouds started off with quite a bit of rain which we hoped would clear by the time Gary had cycled over to our place.

Gary arrived at our place about 10.15am, raindrops glistening off his smiling face and jacket from the shower which had just passed over.  He was keen to get going but I feared the rain wasn't done with us just yet.  We set off at 10.45am and five minutes later had pulled over to chuck our rain jackets on.

They didn't stay on long though as we quickly warmed up on our long slow climb to Pukeiti gardens. We were rewarded for our efforts with vistas out over the green Taranaki countryside down to the Tasman sea. 

About 10km into our ride, we entered the bush as we skirted round the edges of Egmont National Park. It was a very scenic ride up to the famous rhododendron gardens of Pukeiti. But best of all, just after we arrived it bucketed down.

So what else to do but enjoy a leisurely lunch and coffee, happy to have escaped this downpour.  After lunch I persuaded Pete to come with me to look at a few of the flowers while Gary caught up with his old deputy principal from Boys High, Lynn Bublitz, who amazingly enough remembered his former student from 35 years ago. 

We lingered as long as we could as the rain continued to fall but at 2pm decided we had to make a break for it. The temperature had dropped and we had steady drizzle to start with but as we headed downhill and moved closer to the coast, the rain eased off and so did the chill in the air.

At the end of Carrington Road, we turned left onto Wiremu Road and enjoyed a relatively flat, traffic free ride. Gary was perplexed at the amount of times a small plane passed over us however.  We had warned him that travelling with us, he might be subjected to a few visits from the paparazzi, but he thought we were joking. Well now he knows......

We turned right onto Ihaia Road which took us the final straight 7km into Opunake. Found the Opunake campground nestled down by the beach and Gary got a cabin, while Pete and I put up our new tent far enough from Gary's cabin that we hoped we wouldn't hear him snoring! Was the campground big enough for that? Was Opunake big enough?

We would have to wait and find out.  Saw the famous Tip Top ice cream being advertised at the camp gates so asked a fellow camper to take a shot of us there so we could send it to good mate Toffa who owns the local franchise.  Then we walked up to the local Indian restaurant and there was our fellow camper again so we sat at a nearby table and had a chat to him and his wife while we enjoyed a delicious Indian dinner. 

Had a nice walk back to the camp in the dark, looking forward to a good night's sleep after our 55km ride today.