It really is ridiculously beautiful here, and "here" for today is Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. We rolled in about noon on our air-conditioned bus, after leaving Auckland this morning. Our pickup point was in a park across the street from our Auckland hotel; this made it easy to cross the street with the boxed bikes and the duffle bags, as the rush hour traffic was pretty much at a standstill. I should clarify - it was easy for Wayne to do all that. But I did wash up the breakfast dishes in our tiny hotel room kitchen so I wasn't just sitting around sipping coffee. Oh, coffee! We have learned to speak Kiwi when ordering coffee - I have a long black and Wayne has a flat white. No snickering now! They do make excellent coffee here, along with delicious wine and Wayne hasn't complained about the beer at all - and of course the fish and seafood! And the lamb! It seems they have good food and drink figured out.
But back to the Bay of Islands. After last night's reunion dinner, we have widened the circle of friends to include the other cyclists in the group, some other TDA 2011 participants, friends of the organizers, and friends of friends! All in all making an interesting group, and we got to know some a bit better over lunch in a cafe overlooking the lovely blue water. It was a busy afternoon, going to the beach and in for swim. That's it - but we have busy days ahead so I guess this is the tapering part.
I should go and see how Wayne is doing with getting our bikes put together, but it sure is nice just sitting on this deck with a cool breeze blowing! Tomorrow we get to be tourists, then we start early Sunday morning with a 2 hour drive up to Cape Reinga and then we begin the ride with a long stretch down 90 Mile Beach.
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