Travelled: 393 kms (Total 4,061 kms)
Departure day, Thursday, dawned clear and tranquil, perfect cycling weather. With Sue as our very able guide, we rode from Havelock North and connected with the Hawkes Bay Trail through to Napier and stopped for lunch at Hapi, (imagine a macron over the “i”) the excellent café at Chantal’s, the famous health-food/organic store.
The trail is a delight to ride, past orchards, wetlands, the ocean-front and a very cool representation of a Māori star compass, Ātea a Rangi.
Aids such as Ātea a Rangi would have been essential to the teaching of knowledge required to allow the extraordinary feats of navigation that Polynesian peoples accomplished as they criss-crossed the Pacific – so cool to see an example.
Riding around the seafront, past the port and skirting the harbour it was on to Bayview where Russell was waiting to pick us up for the drive through to Lake Tutira – luxury indeed and a most enjoyable morning – thanks Sue!
The Lake is very pretty in its autumn colours, presenting us with a lovely sunset and not a breath of wind.
Darkness fell pretty much immediately so it was an early dinner in the dark and early to bed.
We woke up to a very misty Friday next morning that soon gave way to another stunning day.
We were off in the direction of Lake Waikaremoana without knowing quite where we would be spending the night. The ride was undulating and 44km (& nearly 700m of climbing) later we were in the small settlement of Raupunga after passing the tallest rail viaduct in the Southern Hemisphere and crossing the Mōhaka river.
The 95m high Mōhaka viaduct was commenced in 1930 and finally opened in 1937 after some delay due to the 1931 Great Depression. It’s a spectacular sight, quite dizzying to think of trains crossing such spidery-looking meccano so high above the river.
The kind locals in Raupunga were happy for us to stay in the tiny picnic area adjacent to great shelter & toilets, and we settled down, after meeting some of the delightful local kids and royally burning the dinner (trying yet again to do two things at once), for comfortable night.
Taurus, the eldest of the boys, came back the following morning and helped us decamp. He generously washed all our dishes for us & helped to pack away our now wet tent, doing such a great job, thanks Taurus!
There was one particularly tough climb out of Raupunga and then a rolling 38km under an increasingly threatening sky as we approached Wairoa.
Just before town the rain started, coming down quite hard as we looked for refuge. As luck would have it, right at the end of town we found the East End Café – an absolute gem of a place and everything we could have asked for. The chips fried with garlic cloves and rosemary were a winner and the gluten-free Pretty Lynn Cake was pronounced the best!
We stayed in a cabin at the delightful campground (winner of the best kitchen award) and awoke the following morning to a much better day and loaded up for the ride into the Ureweras, which by this time had become a menacing spectre for Jeanette.
The prospect of a grade 4 ride over steep gravel roads in worsening weather conditions loomed increasingly large in her imagination. So it was with not a little trepidation, a few tears & a lot of courage she set out. I was, as usual, oblivious.
Leaving the hidden gem that Wairoa is, we again had no planned destination.
After a pleasant 48km following the Waikaretāheke River, we came to Piripaua and the beautifully maintained grounds outside the hydroelectric power station there.
There were no signs saying we couldn’t camp so our natural assumption was that we could. Tent up we sat back, boiled the billy, and again awaited the shout of officialdom.
The sun was shining and it seems like a perfect spot for the night
The Waikaretāheke forms the outflow from Lake Waikaremoana and there are three power stations on its route, the last being Piripaua, commissioned in 1943. Lake Waikaremoana itself was formed by two massive landslides around 2,300 years ago that constitute the highest dam in the country, being 250m above the height of the original stream.
There is something other-worldly about hydroelectricity generation and older power stations in particular – enormously powerful and mysterious forces generated by beautifully crafted spinning machines and harnessed in a mesh of porcelain and wire – so much the stuff of His Dark Materials.
Remote and unsupervised they attend to their work and 100km away a kettle obediently boils. Some unfathomable dark mystery of the universe somehow creates that thing most prosaic, a hot cup of tea.
It is truly amazes me just what curious monkeys with magnets and a bit of wire can do.
The night was cold and dawned clear with the usual heavy dewfall. As we waited for the sun to inch its way into the valley to warm us and dry the tent we had plenty of time to pack up, have breakfast and make coffee.
Jeanette bought me an Aeropress as a birthday present prior to leaving Auckland and it very quickly became a daily ritual to make café au lait each morning to have with breakfast. The addiction is severe and coffee delicious.
So, properly caffeinated and fed, we were on our way – a big day today with 606m of climbing over 17km on a gravel road to the Lake Waikaremoana Holiday Park. Slow and steady wins the race, and it was slow and yes steady did it.
The gradient turned out to be very kind, the gravel road was like a well compacted cycle trail and the sun shone all the way. What more could we want!
I took a slight detour down to Lake Whakamarino and the township of Tuai before heading back up the hill to Lake Waikaremoana, while Jeanette continued tackling the climb.
At the top our first view of Lake Waikaremoana was just stunning, lush green hillsides falling into the calm blue waters below for as far as the eye could see.
Then an easy rolling ride into Home Bay and the Waikaremoana Holiday Park & into a cabin for 2 nights as rain was due the next day.
The promised rain came through overnight and Tuesday dawned cloudy and cold. It was the 1st of June already, where had all the time gone?!
Nice and cosy in our air-conditioned cabin we ventured out to the stunning Tuhoe Building that housed the Visitors’ Centre at the entrance to the holiday park. With no cellphone reception except at the centre of the lake we were grateful for use of the free WiFi there and spent a very pleasant few hours working and plotting the next four weeks.
The Visitors’ Centre is built with Tuhoe living building ideals in mind but connected in this case to existing power and sewage systems already in place at Waikaremoana
The next day dawned beautiful clear and after a full first and second breakfast (I was given beautifully made venison burgers by the lovely couple who had come across from Matamata to service the heat-pump units on all the units) it was off around the lake to our next camping spot at Orangihikoia.
(On going back to wash the breakfast dishes and confessing that the burgers hadn’t made it to lunchtime, as intended, he was given half a dozen venison sausages as well!)
The clear day provided a stunning ride through bush lined road with the occasional peek at the lake as we rode through to the Orangihikoia campsite alongside the Te Whiri Stream.
Although the temperature was not too cold for riding our fingers were tingling & hands aching as a lot of our ride was in the shadow of the hills.
By the time the tent was up and lunch by side the steam was done the sun in our patch of Te Urewera was gone for the day. We tidied up and had a wander around but without any walking tracks to follow and the temperature dropping we were snuggled into our sleeping bags just after 4pm.
Lots of time for reading and writing blog notes!
Getting up to relieve our aging bladders give us one of the best, if not the best, night skies that we have seen. The sky was absolutely full of stars and the Milky Way was so distinctive amongst them all – an absolute treat to see.
The clear night skies gave way for a thick lick of the frost brush. The tent was stiff with ice. We had a solid door not our usual flimsy material opening. And it was cold out.
Deciding to wait for the sun to rise over the hills before arising for breakfast we eventually gave up that notion and got up about 9am. There were patches of sun but not quite in our spot. Having decided to move the tent into the sun, we moved it back again when our original spot got drenched with the warm sun. Amazingly we managed to get the tent totally dry before getting in the road about midday. No problem when you’ve got all day!
Packed up and straight into a nearly 6km climb, taking 47 minutes with stunning views over the valleys. And the reward at the top a 14km descent into Ruatahuna.
The descent was bitterly cold requiring more layers to be donned and grateful for the warm gloves to help with the fingers. Toes were another story though!
Just short of Ruatahuna, we passed through Te Waiiti and their beautiful marae.
We stopped in Rautahuna at the beautiful service buildings housing a café, general store and the tribal offices. Too late for any café food we had a hot drink before a short ride on to our campsite beside the Mimiha stream.
With the sun already gone from the campsite, it was tent up (between the horse poo) and on with dinner. All done and inside by 6:30pm. Getting very cold again with no frost in the forecast but given our position in valley I wouldn’t be surprised.
There was very little traffic and we received a toot or a wave from everyone who passed by – a real sense of feeling welcome in this remote kingdom.
The following morning dawned frost-free and with the tent perfectly positioned for the the sun we smugly set about making breakfast. This was the signal for a mist to roll over the hill and into our little valley, cutting short our celebrations and ensuring we had a wet tent to pack up.
The ride out of Mimiha and Te Urewera was beautiful with bush reminiscent of the south Island West Coast – 45km today with a good 350m climb and 30km downhill (with a few bumps) to tonight’s stopping point of Murapara – 725m climbing in total.
With a wet tent and fading light we decided on a roof over our head for the night. Into the village for for fish & chips and a bottle of red before retiring to our very very comfy motel unit and an episode of Repair Shop – imagine, a whole 6 months to catch up on!
The day dawned clear again with another biggish day at the office planned – 67km and mainly flat reported Google. We were pretty much immediatly into a 350m climb over around 13km with 715m of climbing for the day – mainly flat indeed.
Our destination was Rotorua where Roger & Laura had so generously offered to host us, themselves returning home the same day after three months away – how nice is that!
The ride was on a cycle trail for the last 33km, and the final 14km downhill on a concrete path – so cool.
In the event we were ahead of our kind hosts and hung out on their recommendation in The Good George with an excellent bowl of fries!
Keen cycle tourists themselves Roger & Laura have ridden in the US, Europe and the UK and extensively in NZ – such a mine of information and a real inspiration for us.
After a couple of days rest the ride into town was spectacular, through the pines with an understory of ferns & bush which, after crossing the road gave way to a geothermal moonscape around the lake.
Rotorua has such a lovely feel to its town centre – the measures to calm traffic and provide generous pedestrian and bike-friendly areas just so effective in creating a relaxed atmosphere.
We had six thoroughly enjoyable days with Roger & Laura and one lovely evening with Roger’s father Grahame, and his wife Sandy, treated like royalty. Thanks guys, so much appreciated.
So after nearly a week of high luxurious living it was time to start planning the road North. Our good friend Andy was planning to meet us in Paeroa and we now had deadlines to meet.
What we are reading Greg – The Washerwoman’s Dream by Hilarie Lindsay and Jeanette – My Father’s War by Adriaan van Dis
JG on balance 
Lovely once again to see very familiar places on Hawkes Bay, Lake Tutira, Waikaremoana etc. All places visited, walked and rowed esp on Lake Waikaremoana.
And soon, very soon you will be home at Earthsong. See you tomorrow x hugs
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Another amazing read, was puffed by time I had finished, those hills, the scenery, lovely people met and cafes found, let alone waking to heavy dew or frosts. Intend to re-read, calmly retracing your ride, seated in Lazyboy, cuppa by my side 😊👍💖
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Ecalpemos must be a sister ‘city’ of Erwhon on the Taihape/Napier Road. Quite a place from the looks!
See you back home tomorrow,
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Beautiful Hawke’s Bay – recognised so many of the places you were… Thank you! It’s absolutely amazing the remoteness of where the two of you have been. Gosh the places you’ve seen that so many would not have and the people you’ve met on the way. Looking forward to catching up on your return very soon!!!
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