ca. 45 km
Still drunk by the paradisiac impressions of the last day and barely on the bike, we are suddenly inside the next highlight: right after leaving Maraetai, a quiet road winds directly along the shoreline and through countless numbers of Pohutukawa trees. Sun out, road flat, this must be pedallers paradise for sure. If this only would last for longer. Unfortunately it changes rapidly.
But for the next 10 km it was not to beat, stopping again and again all the way for taking pictures - we couldn't roll slow enough through this section. Suddenly the road turns inland with direction Clevedon, just to turn back to the ocean in the town. After some slightly hilly kilometers we reached Kawakawa Bay - back to paradise.
We have noticed the day before, uphill sections can be very ugly in New Zealand. Direction Orere we could feel it for the first time now: a 3 km climb, doesn't look that bad and luckily winds along a dense and shady forest, but nearly brought me off the bike for walking. Sweating and gasping we reached the highest point, and suddenly started the downhill section. After this hill there's only a short distance along farmland, before we reached the junction to Orere Point: our campsite at the ocean.
