Day 7. Waihi to Aongatete. 40 Km

411Km / 255 Miles

After a couple of days in my own little cabin, I was ready to hit the road and get down and round onto the Bay of Plenty. Tonight I was catching up with friends who I had met 2 years ago at my first job in Canada: up at Mt Washington on Vancouver Island, where I spent the winter as a “lifty”. I can’t say I kept in touch with many people from that job, but I clicked with a handful of people up there. This job was one of the ones I had when I was going through a pretty shit time personally (more on that in a later blog… maybe?) Moving on from that, I was staying with Ryan and Bex tonight in Aongatete. I remember them saying 2 years ago “if you’re ever in NZ give us a shout” and well… here I am! And thankfully I had managed to figure out my schedule to suit them so that I could hang with them for an evening and stay with them. I was ready for a short ride today, and some socialising with old friends 🙂

I left Waihi at 8am, and headed straight to the beach, which I then cycled along for a couple of kilometres before joining back up to the main road. The beach was EMPTY! The beach was also beautiful (and full of shells) and with the morning sun and the clouds lifting it was just a perfect time of the day to be there. At this point I’m still unaware of how big Covid-19 is becoming. Im just enjoying the empty roads and beaches.

From the beach I made my way to Athenree Hotsprings! I knew there were some of the most amazing natural hotsprings here in NZ, and that eventually I would be finding them, but this was going to have to do for a hotspring for now. The hotspring resort consisted of two natural mineral spring pools with a continous flow of spring water into them. The pools were…. you guessed it…. EMPTY too. I had them to my self for 2 hours. Oh I felt relaxed, and I felt fantastic. And with only an hour of biking left, I was feeling good about today. When checking it at the hotsprings, I was talking with the girl at reception, instantly I thought I recognised her from somewhere… Im asking about the hotsprings and how I haven’t been to hotsprings since being in Northern BC in Canada… and I’m met with “Liard hotsprings?”. Yep, our paths had crossed up in the remoteness of Northern BC, when we were both working on the Alaska Highway. She had worked for Parks Canada at the Liard Hot Springs and I had worked for a lodge just 30 minutes south on the Highway. Liard was our “local” hotsprings (more on that in later blogs too!) We had crossed paths at some point on our several visits to the springs, and we had exchanged the odd chat here and there. Wow. Small world.

After my nice long dip in the springs, I sat over by the lake and had some lunch before hitting the road again. The ride to Katikati was easy and moderately flat. I did meet a couple of characters on the road, a “backpacker looking” dude trying to hitch a ride in the middle of nowhere – I stopped and chatted for a while, he was asking me if I needed a couch for the night and that he’s on “warmshowers” and that I should hit him up… despite me already saying I was staying with friends tonight, I think he felt he could offer something more… hmmm. He asked for my number – I politely declined and cycled on. This fella, later caught me in the town when I was refilling my bottles at a water fountain – still trying to convince me to come hang out tonight. weird. He later left and took a bus somewhere. Within a few minutes another guy comes over to me… “I think I passed you a little while ago in the truck?” hmmm, possibly I guess. I’ve been cycling from Waihi I told him. “Well, do you want a ride anyway, you can pop your bike in the truck, and I’m heading back to Auckland so can drop you anywhere”. Well first I was cycling the other way, and secondly I’m cycling not trying to hitch a ride. Again, I politely declined and went for a wander of the town. I had had my fill of weirdo’s in Katikati already (later my friends weren’t surprised at all with the characters I had met)

The little “mural” town of Katikati was a quaint little place. Just before cycling through the town I wound through the Haiku Pathway, a little “tourist attraction” with famous haiku’s carved in stone spread throughout the park. Once through the park, I come out in the centre of town and bike through the mural town. At the end of the town was the Bird Walk, full of cool sculptures which I cycled a little down, but as the path grew thin I gave up and turned around. The annoying part about my loaded up bike was if I was getting off for a wander I had to take everything with me… especially in a town like this. Haha! This concluded my tour of the little town, before my friend had offered to give me a ride the rest of the way to their house (about another 8km) to avoid the horrid roadworks that were going on between here and their house – after driving through them I was later very grateful.

At the house I hung with Bex for a bit, caught up on the last 2 years and the adventures we had been on. Ryan joined us a bit later after finishing work and cooked us a wonderful meal! The evening was full of laughter, chatting, adventure planning, route planning for the next couple of days, followed by trash TV to fall asleep to. Until the next time… see you soon!

Thanks Ryan and Bex!!!! 🙂