Day 1 - January 11, 2023

Day 1:  Arrive in Pukenui

Arrive in Pukenui.  Transport from Auckland to Kaitaia is available with Tua Tahi Shuttles, Intercity Coachlines and Barrier Air.  Meet with your tour leaders and fellow bikers at 5pm for your pre-departure meeting and first meal together.  

I was a little bit discouraged by the rain yesterday, so thought I would check the forecast.  Tropical cyclone Hale is in the area, but hopefully will be at its worst to the south and east of here.  Although the morning started out quite cloudy the sun did break through and with any luck we won't have to start the cycling tomorrow in a cyclone!

What I did wake up to this morning was this.............

...... outside my motel room door.  I guess I'm in the right place.  Turns out a few more people have opted to rent bikes and they have a few spares, so they arrived with a fairly full trailer.  The tandem on top is an e-tandem that a couple from the UK have rented.  The Escape Adventures (EA) folks modified their rig to accommodate its transport.  Apparently it took 3 or 4 people to get it up there.  One of the US couples arrived in NZ yesterday but it seems their bikes are still at the Seattle airport - what did we do before airtags?  So - they'll be using two of the EA bikes until theirs catch up with them.  It sounds like they have the bike situations all sorted.  Here's mine - all shiny and ready to go.

No Brenda, I'm pretty sure it won't be quite this shiny on day 40.  

The one US couple who arrived yesterday went for a bike ride today, but I opted for a rather lazy day.  Here are some views from the hotel.

And a few more photos from a short walk I did.

The shuttle van just arrived with the rest of our crew so I best go meet them.....  Nice group; should be fun!

We had our first meeting after dinner to talk about tomorrow's ride.  Thought I would include some of the highlights.  Breakfast at 7, in the van to shuttle to Cape Reinga and the start of the ride at 11:30.  Wait, what?  Four hours to digest my breakfast?  Well, you see..... most of tomorrow's ride is on the beach and we have to wait for the tide to go out.  So - shuttle to the beach, walk out to the lighthouse, etc., ride about 23 km to the beach, walk barefoot through a creek for 2 km to finally get on the beach no earlier than 3:30, ride 50 km on the beach, take a rough road ('secure dentures & fasten bra" type of road) for about 10 km back to the highway and then back to our Pukenui motel.  Oh - and pack a headlamp; one recent group took 7 hours to do the beach ride.  Let the adventure begin!