Kauri Coast, Kaipara and Auckland

Three more big days on the Tour Aotearoa and we've made it to Auckland!

Kauri Coast Cycleway

We set off early from Rāwene on Thursday morning, following the route of the Kauri Coast Cycleway all the way to Dargaville. It's mostly on-road cycling (with no separate bike lane) so a grade 3 (intermediate) trail.

There was a heavy sea fog that morning so we couldn't see much for the first 20 kilometres or so until we got to the seaside settlements of Opononi and Omapere. (And yes, for the parents among you, we were wearing high visibility clothing and had front and rear lights on. We have flashing rear lights on every day.)

From there we headed up to Waipoua Forest, home of the magnificent Tāne Mahuta. This giant kauri tree is New Zealand's largest and estimated to be about 2000 years old. He is known as the lord or protector of the forest and hosts over 100 other plant species in his upper limbs.

We had a massive (but steady) climb up to Tāne Mahuta - about seven kilometres. However, that led to a wonderful descent down the other side (until we reached the next hill and did it all over again). This section of road was surprisingly quiet, with only a few tourist vehicles around, so we were mostly free to claim the road on the downhills. Heaps of fun!

The rest of the trail was a mix of following the main road and a couple of back-road gravel sections (with more hills) before flattening out for the final 20-kilometre run into Dargaville. All up, it was 110km of cycling. Unfortunately, accommodation was fully booked for a big agricultural trade show (Northland Field Days) so we had a one-hour drive to Whangārei before we could hit the showers.

Kaipara Missing Link

Back to Dargaville the next morning, we had a shorter (69km) cycle along the route of the Kaipara Missing Link trail. Again, this trail involves cycling on-road and is a grade 3 trail.

The trail heads out along a peninsula to Pōuto Point through a mix of farmland and forestry. There wasn't a whole lot to see along the way (and we started the day with fog again) but it was good to visit a different part of the country. There was evidence of damage from Cyclone Gabrielle, with a number of slips along the road and many large trees blown over. Most of the road is sealed but there is a couple of gravel sections.

At Pōuto Point, we caught a mid-afternoon ferry across the Kaipara Harbour to Parakai, in preparation for our ride into Auckland. The ferry only runs when there are bookings and involves a complicated process of volunteers lifting all the bikes up to the top deck. The ferry took over three hours to make the crossing so, again, we were really ready for the shower (and dinner) by the time we got to our accommodation.

Auckland

Today's cycling was probably the most challenging so far - largely because it involved navigating our way into, and through, Auckland. We are all using the Ride with GPS app and have every day's ride loaded into it. So far, that has been straightforward because we have been following an obvious route. Not so today.

Chris has been doing the navigation for the two of us and has done a fantastic job in getting us where we need to be. At one point this morning, we had a little group of other riders in tow, happy to follow his lead. But he really had his job cut out for him today and we made the odd wrong turn and had to stop quite a few times to check we were in the right place.

I often ride out front but my role today was to follow along behind and make unhelpful comments like “Are you sure we are supposed to turn left here? That road goes to a carpark.” However, being free to look up and around (rather than at my phone) also meant I was able to quickly stop us heading into a busy transit lane near the airport and direct us to a much safer cycle path on the other side of the road.

As you would expect for Auckland, the traffic was phenomenally busy. The most stressful part of the ride was at the start of the day when we were cycling through semi-rural areas on the outskirts of the city with lots of fast-moving traffic and no dedicated cycle space. At one point, I had a heavy truck and trailer unit following me down a steep, narrow and winding road with nowhere to pull in. I was not happy.

However, we started to get on-road cycle lanes from Massey, and had a wonderful separate cycle path all the way into the city along the Northwestern Motorway. We had quite the tiki-tour through Auckland - the Kaipara Missing Link trail goes to the edge of the CBD (Upper Queen Street) and then the Tour Aotearoa continues south through Mt Eden, Epsom, Cornwall Park, One Tree Hill, Onehunga, Mangere and, yes, even past the airport.

We are staying in Flat Bush in the southwest of the city this evening. That should hopefully make for a less stressful exit tomorrow as we make our way to Thames.