Up with the light after a reasonably good sleep, off down the coast shortly after seven we went. The first half hour down the coastal flats (apparently uplift resulting from an earthquake some hundred-plus years ago) was notable, besides the morning views, for the large stands of cabbage trees – with plenty standing solitarily too.

Half an hour in, we reached the first farm for the day – Glenburn. The extensive number of buildings (once a 16,000 acre station, now closer to 7,000 acres) were all immaculately presented; we were impressed. After an enjoyable chat with the owners, there was much delight in poking around the old (but still in use) woolshed and stables.

Drying dags, I’m told.

Fergus checking accuracy; spot on he reckons.

Hard to fathom just how many people have worked in here over many decades shearing who knows how many sheep!

A once familiar sight, I’ve not seen a Zip like this for a while; never have I seen an apparently internet-enabled one.

Definitely the native timber look in here.

Belt driven and still in service.

Into another farm, the fourth I think – I stopped bothering to count shortly after.

Not a lot of rider colour to work with, but I like to think the scenery is the main attraction anyway.

Fergus, Andrew’s son, just playing on a rock. A casual trackstand, his lightly loaded trail bike looked a lot more fun…most of the time. This time I wasn’t the youngest!

Suddenly, the beach turned to smooth, dense white rocks for a short time. We lingered as paua were collected.

The hills closing in on the coast, the riding became noticeably less flat.

Windswept – always like to see trees growing like that, even if it can make for challenging riding (not this time).

Fascinating layers in the uplift and a sweet spot for a little bach with its own little harbour and boat ramp.

Out of Glendhu Station, we headed upstream to find the large bridge over the Pahaoa River before entering the eponymous farm. Unfortunately a large landslide had taken out part of the coastal track, so inland we headed again. For the only time on this trip, up a big climb. Topping out at three hundred metres above the sea, it was mostly very steep. There was some respite near the top as we contoured around and the views opened up.

West, looking past Rerewhakaaitu, over Martinborough and there is still snow on the Rimutakas from the previous week’s weather.

Gerard, Fergus and I scouted for a lunch spot, found this spectacular place – and then decided it was too early for lunch.

Instead we had a lot of fun dropping all our altitude in a hurry to cross the Rerewhakaaitu River a number of times.

Another push to get up onto the track seen two photos above. With our lingering, the rest of the group wasn’t too far behind – spot two of them here.

The necessity of the reroute became obvious here.

Still scouting for a lunch spot.

Found one!

Couldn’t complain about those views as we all perched on the side of the track refuelling. With such an interesting morning and so much to look at it was little wonder we’d not even managed forty kilometres in five hours. Considering the riding had not been particular difficult, just with plenty of worthy distractions, I was mindful we had over sixty kilometres to go – most of it on unknown terrain (I’d ridden the White Rock to Ngawi section a few years back, it wasn’t particularly fast – but I was pretty worn out by the Aorangi Forest Park by then). But we’d done the only hills of note, so we should be ok. Even so, I made an effort to keep setting off and hopefully we’d keep moving.

Through Te Awaiti Station, the riding on flat gravel farm track and then road was easy going and sped things up a bit. Joining public roads, we saw many Tora Coastal Walkers spread out along the edge of the road – more walkers than vehicles, that’s for sure.

Over the Awhea River bridge, I thought I had better stop and let the gap close – stopping for a snack is always a good idea too. Gerard arrived first and thought we could go a little further before waiting – no argument from me, I was happy to have riding company. Hopping another locked gate with all sorts of warning signs, we entered one of the last farm sections. The thirty-two year old wreck of the Magnet seemed as good a place as any to wait.

After a good snack and more chat, there was still no sign of the others despite regular apparitions on the rocky horizon – the Magnet demanded closer inspection. Having negotiated boggy surrounds and approached the rusting hulk, I was most surprised to see a head poke out of the small gap between hull and rocks that it had been its final resting place for decades. The teeth bared were not small and I beat a hasty retreat.

Not moving.

Quite large, these ones did disperse.

Time for a new scene, a little further along there was a good outcrop to perch on and find a different perspective. Slowly we could pick out riders afar.

Over to Cape Palliser, and the last significant off road section of the day.

Getting out of White Rock Station involved fording the Opouawe River. Most crossed where it branched into four distinct flows – all rideable, albeit hub deep.

Andrew heading for the end of White Rock Road (which for me is forever associated with fifty kilometres straight into a strong northerly) and the last farm section – Ngapotiki Station.

The locked gate at the road end was not nearly as formidable as my memory was telling me, pleasingly. The other gate had definitely been cut down in height and there was a stile – much easier to get the bike over solo. Or were my recollections of struggling to get a heavy bike over it playing tricks on me again? Straight into a short, but steep and loose, climb onto a large shingle slip – there was a bit of pushing involved.

Strung out approaching the gate of doom – no longer needs that moniker in my mind. White Rock visible across the bay. Te Kaukau Point on the right.

Quite a change, this bit too loose to ride.

Off the shingle slip was great fun, strange to see other bike tracks after the rest of the route.

Remembering my previous time along this stretch, I was not looking forward to the rough, tiring 4WD track to the lighthouse. But waiting for some company and then ripping along it with Gerard and Fergus was a blast as a mild contour, but many undulations, gave plenty of opportunity to move the bike around with enthusiasm. Plus there were numerous large puddles (small ponds?) to variously avoid or splash through with glee.

There it is. More than a speck now.

Happy with that section as it mellowed out!

Why not give the legs a different work out?

Back to gravel road.

I had it in my head that there was still thirty or so kilometres to go and rounding the cape, was expecting to turn into the strong northerly (that until this point had manifested as alternating head and tail winds as we approached and left each valley reaching the coast). I was hopeful that the food caravan of vague memory five kilometres up the road in Ngawi would be open to fuel what I was sure would be a struggle.

Sure enough, straight into a block headwind was pure toil and I wondered how we’d ever get to Lake Ferry before dark. Delight to find not one, but two caravans open. A big feed of fish, chips, milkshake and ice cream gave a chance to get out of the wind for a bit. By that time, Andrew arrived and corrected my misjudgement – we only had a few kilometres more to struggle into the wind before arriving at Waimeha Camping Village.

What a great day of seeing plenty of special sights that I wouldn’t have thought I’d ever get access to. The riding and views were well varied and always interesting. There were some pretty tired-looking people at the dinner table as large and tasty meals were devoured over tales of the day.

The wind didn’t let up overnight and with the forecast for gusts up to 120 kilometres per hour and rain, the plan to ride around Pencarrow Head, boat across Wellington Harbour (likely not to sail in such conditions) and train back to Masterton was abandoned. I wasn’t too disappointed, despite it being spectacular – on a good day – as I’d ridden that section six or so years before. Just as well plans were revised, as the thirty kilometres to the start of Cape Palliser Road straight into the wind was slow and sapping. Always memorable having to pedal down steep hills.

At least turning north-east to Martinborough took the gale off the nose a bit, even so it took me three hours and twenty minutes to grind out the sixty kilometres. Most unusually for me, I didn’t stop once – conditions were so inhospitable that I saw no point in it. At least I have a previous trip to remind me what it looks like on a kinder day. Over a long lunch at a local cafe everyone gradually arrived, concluding an excellent trip exploring the southern reaches of the North Island’s east coast – much to see, and we were fortunate to do so. Thanks Andrew!

Andrew and I have long discussed his dream of linking two coastal cities with a bikepacking route that stays close to the east coast. I was excited to be invited along for a weekend’s ride to explore part of his route for the first time. All new country to me, there ended up being eight of us in the group. With accommodation and main meals (I’m counting breakfasts along with dinners, as they were large) sorted, the bike was lightly loaded for the short route.

After the first of those large breakfasts, we left the most-hospitable Herbertville Inn in good time on Saturday morning. The first few flat kilometres of road south along the coast I realised I had seen before while visiting the area with my parents a few years before.

Didn’t look like this then. Cape Turnagain – a useful landmark for seeing how far we’d gone later in the ride.

Into Akitio Station and a nice little warm-up climb to start to put that breakfast to good use.

We quickly began to see the extensive pine plantations Andrew had mentioned – one reason, I assume, the road through the farm was so substantial and in good condition.

The last of the clear skies for the weekend.

The forecast was for southeasterlies off the sea, which would at some stage bring some rain. It held off pretty well.

Most of the way up the largest climb of the weekend, just a touch on four hundred metres above the ocean.

Waiting for the others at the summit (I did have twenty-odd years on them, and was carrying much less too), I found this venerable old grader to sit and pose for too many photos.

Twas a lovely climb up through these pines.

Cooling down waiting for a while, I dropped off the top before finding some more trees to shelter behind and wait for us to regroup.

Further along, this ridge opened up for us before the drop back to sea level.

Heading out the front entrance of our first station.

A brief section into and then up out of Akitio took me back to about the only TTW training ride I managed before popping my shoulder. A good section of riding gravel with Gerard ensued as we headed up the Owahanga valley a bit, before crossing the river and heading downstream for Owahanga Station.

All the shelter around the visitor sign-in hut seemed to be asking to be used for a lunch break. We obliged.

Bit of a grovel on full stomachs.

Castlepoint and Castle Rock in the distance, but of more immediate interest to me was the lighter coloured hill in front.

Down to the coast we dove again before a nice section next to the ocean.

Another slight rise took me to what was a divergence in the GPS track and the farm road. When Andrew asked me to plot the route through the farms, I didn’t have a lot of detail to go on. Here I used the only track that connected on the topo map, but on the ground the road we were happily following stayed inland and descended. For some reason, no one else was keen to head up to check out the view from the hill I’d spied previously.

In such good conditions, I was confident I’d be ok off solo – I was hardly going to fall into the sea. The track quickly disappeared into tussocks, across fences and then into a big slump. The coastal views were certainly better than staying on the inland, low road.

Happily I shouldered my bike and negotiated my way across the big slip and then up the paddock until something resembling a farm track reappeared. More pushing and then some actual riding and I was nearing the top.

Looking out on all the clouds, I was unsure as to how we’d managed to stay dry all day.

From the summit I could easily see the track down, partway down it had been recently bulldozed – I flew down to the river and was surprised to go screaming past the others as they approached the bridge on the low road. Out of the farm, gravel around the coast took us past some curious little baches nestled in pines. Certainly well shaded. The slightest of hills and I was in Castlepoint by three, soon joined by the others as we settled into roomy accommodation.

Having only ridden seventy kilometres, albeit on some engaging new territory with 1600 m of climbing, over seven hours – I still had energy left. Energy that I was keen to spend running around somewhere I’d not been before. In a small area there was a beach to run down, a lighthouse and headland to check out and a big coastal rock to scramble up. That was a good little run, I even managed to pull up ok having run in my biking shoes.

Crayfishing boats resting for the night.

That was a fun scramble; at least the rock was super grippy.

Checking out tomorrow’s riding.

Cape Turnagain looking a bit further off now.

With cooler, stronger winds and more rain forecast, tired legs and a long drive home – Sunday’s plan reverted to the original: heading to Riversdale, not quite fifty kilometres away through Castlepoint Station and along backroads. The rain mostly held off, the wind didn’t slow us too much and we had plenty more time riding next to the Pacific. The hills were even smaller than the previous day. Only coming off the largest one did I have to don my raincoat.

Through Castlepoint Station.

Heading out from Otahome.

Oh, Castle Rock again.

Plenty of time to wait here out of the rain, not much to do apart from pick up litter.

It cleared a bit?

Still checking out the Whareama sights.

Into Riversdale by half-eleven, it had a been a nice leisurely morning along the coast. I spent much of it by myself, but with a short day and a lightly loaded bike I enjoyed pushing the legs around a bit harder than I usually do. Andrew, a far better organiser of such rides than I, had even arranged for hot showers at the Surf Club – spoilt! That was probably prudent, considering we’d have four hours or so in the van together.

With a bit of time to spare, getting an ice cream and heading to the beach seemed just the ticket – never mind the rain.

Loaded up for the trek back to Napier.

What a great weekend exploring new places with excellent company and plenty of fascinating sights and stories. Thanks for inviting me along Andrew, I eagerly await the completed route…