January 1, 1992
To Gisborne
This was a New Years Day for the record books.
In the middle of the night it began to pour, and it persisted until dawn. With dampened spirits we again stared out at the rains and tried to come up with a reasonable plan for the day. Eventually, after trying but failing to get a cabin at Morere (the campground was closed), we decided to brave the dark grey skies. The first 40k, to Morere Hot Springs, went by quickly and surprisingly pleasantly. We did very little climbing, and the skies only lightly misted. The first 30k followed close by the coast and we rode on a terrific tailwind; and then the route gradually climbed to the hot pools of Morere.
Even on this rainy holiday, we found a fair crowd present already at 10:30. We chose one of the private pools, which was an indoor stainless steel tub open on one side to the native bush. It was wonderful to soak in the tub for a half hour, enjoying the woods, warming up, and turning limp. Afterwards we feasted at the tea shop and then, under a slight rain, started steeply uphill for the next leg of the day's ride.
The next 30k were agonizing - 15k of often steep uphill, and intense rains - it came at us in buckets, incessantly. At one point we stopped for a spell and cowered ineffectually under a roadside willow, thinking we could wait out the worst of it; but after huddling there pathetically for 5 or 10 minutes it seemed obvious there would be no relief coming soon from the strong winds and the rains pouring down in sheets. Resigned to our fate and having no options, we started off again and plowed on in misery for another hour or so until finally dropping down out of the high country to the coast and drier skies.
With conditions improved to an intermittent drizzle we continued on to Gisborne, stopping briefly at Manatuke to observe a marae and to enjoy another small cattle drive. Although the rains picked up once more as we neared Gisborne, we entered the city feeling relatively dried out and respectable looking.
Finding the motorcamp full, we booked ourselves into Green Gables B&B - a comfortable, friendly establishment marred only by the fact that it had no drier and no hot water for the showers. It did feature though an attractive apparent romance between the widowed proprietress and an elderly gent from the Okanagans in British Columbia who has been wintering at the B&B for the last 3 years.
After settling in and determining that we would be unable to do our laundry in Gisborne, we took a hiking tour of the south end of the city - passing the marae, climbing Kaiti Hill for a spectacular view of the bay, and dropping to the shorefront for a return walk along the wharves. This is a historic area, marking Captain Cook's first landing in New Zealand.
Today's ride: 65 miles (105 km)
Total: 936 miles (1,506 km)
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