The ditch provided an excellent night’s sleep and it was still warm as we rolled down to the highway.

Crossing the Motu first up.

I must explore more of this river, it takes such a winding route from the headwaters I’ve ridden past a few times now.

A very pleasant morning of riding to the eastern end of the Bay of Plenty – plenty of cracking views, little traffic, little hills and big food stops at Te Kaha and Waihau Bay.

The road has been sealed for decades, which to me doesn’t stack up with the Forgotten World Highway – but I guess it was easier, so the riding surface was straightforward and not particularly interesting. But the day and the sights were more than engaging enough. Cutting across the top of the east of the North Island, we lost the sea views and gained a swirling, strong wind. Also, there were a few more hills – but nothing much compared to the central part of the island.

Climbing above Hicks Bay did bring the views back again.

Towards Te Araroa; the end of the traverse, East Cape, off to the left of shot.

The toughest wind of the entire trip was saved for the twenty kilometres of road that goes out to the cape. With the second half poorly maintained gravel, it was an hour and a half of toil. But an period of toil that we knew would reward us with a big tail wind on the way back.

Reaching the end of the ride, we had but 800 steps to climb to get to the lighthouse and complete our trip from Cape to Cape. Comfortably sneaking in under our goal of four days, what a great route it was and how amazing the weather had been. Hardly a drop of rain, warm but not hot temperatures, kind winds, plenty of food and good company sure did make it more of a holiday than 200 km/day of bikepacking during the hottest week of the summer (back home) would suggest.

The lighthouse does have a top and light to it, but unimportant detail.

Looking south from East Cape.

Blown back to Te Araroa in much less than an hour, the gravel wasn’t nearly as bad. The local cafe was still open, though they seemed less than pleased about it – never mind, eventually we were well fed. I bid Pete farewell as he headed back to Rotorua and I began a two day ride home.

With a full stomach, it was straight into the largest climbs of the day as the evening got very dark all of a sudden. The rain never came, and it was more great riding on a quiet road as the day drew to an end.

Wasn’t quite needing this by that stage.

Up and over the biggest hill of the day (a whopping two hundred metres, it really was an easy day of climbing) and down to Tikitiki (Tauranga; golly, that’s an old advert) I started looking for somewhere to bivy. Although not with too much enthusiasm as the more I could ride that evening, the sooner I’d get home. Most of an hour later, I was settling down for the night in a forest – pleased with the Bay of Plenty sights and what was a pretty easy and flat final day (headwind for last part excepted) of Pete’s excellent and well-varied North Island traverse.