13th Jan - Motuoapa to Reporoa

Slept in and then had a chilled morning with Kerry. Great coffee. He kindly looked at my back wheel and replaced a spook that had broken. I still have the clicking noise and I am not sure what it is. Kerry was not sure either. Spent some time on the net trying to find out whether I could change my flight dates to India. I am supposed to flying out on the 18th and so only have a few days to get to Auckland. I can still make it with out a problem but it will mean that I will miss biking in some areas that I would like to visit. I could not call outside of UK business hours so decided to sort it out later. I am staying with Brain and Sue in Reporoa from Warm Showers tonight. In the morning I called Brian and he said that the family where spending the day by lake Rotomahana and suggested that I bike to Reporoa where he would pick me up and then drive me to the lake where I could join them for the afternoon.

It worked out perfectly as I could bike with Kerry the 45km up the road in the sunshine and then chill in the afternoon with Sue and Brian. The ride with Kerry along the edge of the lake was really lovely. I met Brian in Reporoa and popped into a couple of bike shops to try and buy a front pannier rack without any success but Brian said that I was likely to get on in Rotorau.

Brian drove me to Lake Rotomahana and I spent an awesome afternoon with the family. All of the children and grandchildren were visiting. They have a jet boat and biscuits and a banana to pull round. It was great fun. The kids seemed to have more trying to push each other off the banana than being pulled round behind the jet boat. I had a go on the biscuit. The guy on the other biscuit started trying to push me off and so it ended up being a big competition! I won 5-3 - hehe! Not that I am competitive or anything..... My arms hurt at the end I had been holding on so much. Spent about 30mins just laughing. It is so much fun to have variety when traveling.

Brian took me to the hot mud pools on the way back. This place is insane. It feels like it is just about to explode but they still live here. The mud was steaming and boiling up. It was very relaxing to watch and really impressive.

When we got back Brian also took me for a tour of the farm and showed me how the cows are milked.

When we got back to the house I took some pictures of the whole family as it is very rare that they are all together. We had a great meal all together. Brian is a real bike nut. It was great to see his shed full of bikes and tools. He spends most of his time in there. He is retired and seems to split his time between bike touring, drinking coffee and working on bikes in his shed. What a life :-)

I did not manage to get to sleep very early as I was trying to get through to a company to change my flights to India - or at least trying to find out if it would cost me anything. I am having a great time in the North Island and I would like to see if I can stay longer.