Author: neil

The only route south from Rotorua begins with a 10-mile, 800 ft. hill climb, all along busy SH5. Not a recipe for relaxed cycling. Except! The cycle-friendliness of Rotorua extends south, and a route has been designed that keeps you off the actual highway for 17 miles out of town! After an initial brief section…

Day 7 Now a week into our stay in Rotorua, we got our first fully rain-free day. So we did a bit larger of an expedition during the daylight hours, riding ten miles out (and up a big hill) to The Buried Village. In 1886, nearby Mount Tarawera erupted, (partially) burying the small village of…

Day 4 The morning was dry, and Rett wanted to go for a run, so I mapped it into a sightseeing-run. Our hosts had a cute hand-drawn map of a nearby walk in their guidebook, so we started and ended with that, but in the middle I extended us out to the Whakarewarewa Forest. A…

Rainy weather is on the way, so we booked a roof for a week. And if it doesn’t rain as much as the forecast is saying, then there is plenty of stuff for us to do in Rotorua anyway. The rain is supposed to arrive tonight, and that’s why we decided to camp last night…

My original plan to get from Tauranga to Rotorua was the direct route, SH36. But the stress we faced with the traffic on yesterday’s “SH” (SH2), plus the big up-and-down shoulderless gorge on SH36, made me open to alternatives. Luckily, our host Barbara had some! She even called up her riding-group friend Cam to help…