The East Cape 28th - 31st March

We stayed in this awesome backpackers on the East Cape, run by a Maori family. Their house as you can see really is right by the sea .. and it's got a touch of the "Swiss Family Robinson" about it. You can just make out our car by the side of the boat trailer. Our room is the one that looks like the front door. We were closest to the sea. There was a big swell the first night and we were worried we'd find ourselves floating in the middle of the night.




The owner, Pehi, takes us deep sea fishing the next day in his boat which is launched into the Pacific Ocean from his drive. None of us on board have been fishing before. Within 1/2 hour Caity has caught six fish - two of them are whoppers. The rest of us are still struggling to get a nibble. Eventually most of us get rid of the rods and just throw a line about a metre into the water to catch these fish called blue mao mao. There are hundreds of them down there and within minutes everybody is yanking them on board. We catch far more than we can eat but the ocean is to Pehi what Morrisons is to us. What we don't cook that night either get's sent to his family or goes in his freezer.










There's a beautiful sunset that night. Everybody in the backpackers has got fresh fish to eat. Even the ones who didn't come fishing. Happy days.








Marahaeko to Opotiki 90 km.
I managed to get Caity to ride 72 km in one day ! How about that. And she didn't moan the whole way. Just a bit near the end .. that last 15 km or so. 72km is 45 miles by the way. It's quite some distance. First time I've been that far too and I have to say I was starting to hurt as well. The worst of it was a 5 km hill - winding it's way up the side of this cliff face. I lied to Caity every time we came to another S bend in the road - telling her we were near the top. She only started pushing her bike about 2/3rds of the way up. I cycled the rest and nearly put myself back in the cardiology ward. (A joke by the way. I was fine. I just felt very knackered.) Our Lonely Planet Cycle New Zealand book reckons the East Cape is the best coastal cycle ride in the world. I've not done any of the others it suggests so it's impossible to compare. However, like everywhere else, and it's getting boring saying so, it was quite spectacular. We're going to try and find some real dump next - take some photos and plaster them over the blog.