In typical fashion, Steve came up with a way to cram even more into the event. Getting up before five o’clock, he was off to an early start on the final day to meet some friends as they passed through Tokoroa riding the length of the country (tag-teaming it) in a week (!) fundraising. I was having none of that and stayed out of the rain until at least it was not dark. Eventually I decided I couldn’t justify staying warm & dry any longer and got up on a proper bleak morning. Colin pulled the pin, finding it even more difficult than I was to motivate himself to ride 150 km in the rain to end up back in the same place.

With the rain strengthening and a slight wind at my back, at least the bakery was open – best pie of the four days, & “I should know, I’ve followed a few”. This was the day of the route I had been most looking forward to as the Mamaku Ranges were a place I’d driven over many times, without exploring off the highway; also, I knew little of the South Waikato – which was where most of the middle portion of the day took us. The rain was consistently soaking me as I gained about three hundred metres in the morning traffic of school buses and trucks; I was dismayed at how much litter was on the side of this particular road – by far the worst I’d seen in quite some time. Even with the steady rain, I had to stop and remove some layers from under my jacket as it was hot work climbing.

Reaching the village of Mamaku, the route turned south and followed the ridge line as it climbed up to 700 metres altitude. Soon it was a fantastic gravel road with little traffic. There was a variety of farms, native bush and plantation forest. Unfortunately the views weren’t much in the gloom. The gravel surface slowly deteriorated, without getting too bad, and the potholes were now filled with water. Unusually for a gravel road, riding in the worn tracks was noticeably slower – it was the rough bits with jagged exposed rock that were faster, easier riding; these bits were somewhat jarring and uncomfortable though.

The rain eased the further I got from Rotorua, but it was still a rather bleak morning.

Turning off the ridge, it was a fast whizz down to Tokoroa, where Steve was waiting after having ridden an extra thirty kilometres at road bike pace down State Highway with the Pink Stripe (or whatever they were calling themselves). Sometimes I think I’m relatively sane.

Main Street Tokoroa was a, ahem, cultural experience. At least the food was cheap and the portions large – which may have been deduced without walking into the bakery.

Erik’s (that’s him sitting with a milkshake and a coffee above) route now took us on rural backroads north to Putaruru. There was one notable pinch climb, but generally it was rather pleasant going as the rain had long left us (or vice versa). Steve was starting to feel either the effects of four days in a row in a saddle or putting his little extra excursions on top of that; we continued at an agreeable pace (well, it was agreeable to me).

There was a strange prevalence of Series I Land Rovers around Lichfield.

Putaruru also added to our cultural learnings for the day as we stopped for a small lunch.

Leaving town and dropping to our lowest point of the day, we basically only had to cross back over the Mamakus, descend to Lake Rotorua and that would be the hard work over. Off the sealed road, it was a steady climb up a long gravel road. While surrounded by trees it was easy to feel as though we were making our way on to a big plateau – but occasional glimpses showed steep valleys dropping off the side of where the road threaded its way up.

Great gravel grinding.

Steve realised we’d not got a selfie yet. I think you can see a bit of a grimace there. After five hundred kilometres and four days, the place had been found where it hurts to sit on the saddle, yet it hurts just as much to stand up on the pedals. I never doubted he’d make it, but apparently that was a little naive.

Just as we neared the end of Leslie Road, there was a seven hundred metre stretch mired with huge puddles and masses of mud churned up by 4WDs. I negotiated most of it until decided I could ride through the edge of this one:

I couldn’t, much to Steve’s amusement when I ended up with rather wet & muddy feet.

Back surrounded by farmland, we got a good look at scores of these unusual formations. For some reason I thought them volcanic plugs, I’ve no idea if that’s correct.

Reaching the ridge again near Mamaku village, this time we turned north and rode into the wind along the ridge. Finally we had a big downhill back to lake level. We weren’t in too much of a rush to finish a great weekend’s riding, so stopped in at the bakery again for more pies.

And then fought off the local birdlife as pies were devoured.

The last ten kilometres to the finish was flat and appropriately it followed a new cycle path through Kuirau Park, past all the steaming pools. We didn’t crash through any of the barriers, thus avoiding become another newspaper story of being scalded to terminal demise.

The last little bit on this unusual cycle path – a little bit of frivolity snaking along the Green Corridor (although this bit is patently not green).

Just like that, four great days of 550 km riding, exploring, eating & hot pooling was over. Typically there was no fanfare or anyone to mark the occasion. Except, suddenly there was. Coincidentally, Colin strolled by and then Rob (who did the two-day event) rode past on his way home from work. That was a nice little finish. A most excellent long weekend, thank for all the hard work planning & organising it, Erik.

The previous day must have been somewhat tiring as I slept unusually well in a small tent. Packed-up we cycled off – that was the last we saw of most of group, as they were doing the three-day option and taking an entirely different route to us four-dayers. In a contrast to Day Two, the day started gently with the easiest section of the day. It was reasonably flat along Te Kopia Rd for a while as we watched the geothermal steam languidly rise.

The climbing started in earnest, and so began a day which felt like we were constantly going up or down. It probably wasn’t quite like that, but that is how I remember it. As we neared the Waikato River (the longest in the country) the land use turned to forestry again, the road became shingle and turned sharply south-east. With a few more rises and falls, going past some beautifully remote-feeling spots we reached an intersection and were shortly stopping to snack and look as we crossed the river. I thought it remarkably still.

Turning onto State Highway One I was surprised to see we were only twenty-two kilometres from Taupo! And we were about to get closer as we were dumped beside a passing lane with little shoulder and holiday weekend traffic. Thankfully that was over soon enough as we passed our highest point of the day. On the back road to Kinloch we passed plenty of lifestyle blocks before heading through more forestry and dairy farms; of note was a sprawling complex of tomato glasshouses heated geothermally, a new diary factory and geothermal power generation.

There was some respite from the climbing before a prolonged descent towards the river again and catching up to Colin as he was standing perplexed by an irregularity in the GPS route, much as I had been. We didn’t quite get to the river, but did pass this conspicuous formation that one usually sees from the other side driving past on the highway.

Once again we rode beside a horrid passing lane on the highway – thankfully only three kilometres of rushing traffic before turning off, climbing once more before stopping on the grass of Ohakuri Dam for a very long lunch watching the activity on the lake.

Admittedly, there is not much activity to be seen in this picture.

Maleme Road provided the only other stretch of gravel for the day, unfortunately. Or perhaps fortunately, as although it was a beauty it climbed a couple of hundred metres. Coming off the hill, we ended back down at the level of Lake Ohakuri, and about six kilometres from where we had been at the start of the day. Psychologically this was difficult – to have ridden 110 km just to end up basically where we’d started, with an awful lot of climbing in between time and not really any particularly unique scenery. I tried to keep this frustration quiet as I think Steve was struggling with so many hours in the saddle over consecutive days – at least he couldn’t see the GPS track and its seeming futility.

Things flattened out, relatively speaking, as we headed back to Rotorua to skirt its edges. We reached the first shop of the day in Springfield, resupplied and chatted to Colin again. With a decent cup of tea downed, we set off to finish the last twenty kilometres of the day around the back of Mt Ngongataha. The climb up to the saddle wasn’t as long or high as it looked and the change in scenery, from the farms and forests, around the back of the mountain made everything wonderful again and I was happy to be out riding bikes in the gathering gloom.

We found the campground easily enough, got a different view of Lake Rotorua and made camp. With recommendations for the best takeaway shop on the main street, we set off to collect rather large bowls of Chinese food. Eventually Erik rolled into camp having taken a twenty-four kilometre detour in the middle of the day for a cafe. I was a bit tired, so settled into my sleeping bag for what was to be a rather rainy night.

Lake Rotorua looking a little gloomy as a strong wind whips off the lake towards our tents.

Some people seemed eager to get on the trail, so campsite noise began early. Apparently the wind had really got up in the night, but I’d missed that – so my night maybe wasn’t as sleepless as I’d thought. Breaking camp it was down to the store to find breakfast – hot meat pies are fine for breakfast, right? Retracing our path a little along the highway we were soon climbing up in front of the cliff faces to the valley that Herepuru Road lies in.

Gaining that little bit of elevation quickly confirmed that it was another glorious day in the Bay. That’s White Island puffing away on the horizon – I really should visit one day.

While the more magnificient Tarawera Falls were near to our route, this would be the largest waterfall we saw on our trip.

Gaining four hundred metres in altitude was a little bit of a shock first thing in the morning, but it was a lovely climb up through quiet farmland and then onto another stretch of the gravel Manawahe Rd. A fast, loose and thrilling ride ensued on the gravel as we quickly returned to the plains, which were basically at sea level.

Looking toward Kawerau and Mt Edgecumbe partway down the descent back to the plains.

We made good time against a slight wind on the highway before turning south at Te Teko – our last place for getting water and buying supplies for sixty kilometres. Buying more pies, we rolled out under the watchful eye of a local Mob emissary – much speculation was had as to whether he was checking out the patch of the Coastal Crew (a group from Kapiti with their own printed riding gear) or just generally impressed by the large twenty-nine inch wheels.

For the next seventy kilometres we followed quiet backroads through an awful lot of forest, much of it unsealed. I was surprised to see a rail line through here – I’d no idea, apparently it brings logs from Murupara to the mills at Kawerau. It was not unpleasant climbing up to five hundred metres, even if all the pine trees were somewhat similar. We found a trail angel just past the halfway point of the day and gladly accepted oat cookies and were happy to stop and chat for a while. Eventually things flattened out and the hills became undulating; it was time for lunch in the sun on a big grassy patch, and another pie. Stopping briefly in the shade at Rerewhakaaitu School to refill bottles, I looked across the road and saw the hall that we stayed in twenty years ago on aforementioned cycle tours. Those were the days where you could walk or ride up & down Tarawera for the princely sum of two dollars. Always so much fun running down into the crater and then blasting down the 4WD road off the mountain.

Here’s a view of what I consider the back of Mt Tarawera, and what is definitely Steve’s back.

Having skirted around Lake Rerewhakaaitu and passing the roads used to access the northern part of the lake, I recalled numerous days and nights camping beside the lake and finally learning to deep-water start on a single waterski. Gosh, it’s been years since I’ve been waterskiing. There’s a nice bit of new singletrack around the edge of Rainbow Mountain that gets bikes & riders off the highway for a bit. We took that before stocking up for the next day’s breakfast & lunch at Benny Bee cafe – and feeding ourselves for the present as well, naturally.

From there all that was left of the day’s riding was to ride the notorious Waikite Hill – albeit in reverse, we went down the near-twenty percent gradient hill before arriving at the campground. Well, Steve had somehow managed to lose his debit card on the way down – so he got to climb the hill properly; pleasingly, he did manage to find the lost card. The best thing about the campground was that admission to the site also included the adjacent hot pools. Pre- and post-dinner soaks in the pools? Don’t mind if I do. A close second to the pools was the huge plate of beef nachos I devoured. I could get used to bikepacking for the day and finishing at four-thirty – most excellent, especially with hot pools, large dinners & beer.