Day 20 Lake Tutira to Napier 44km Amazing how much easier a hill is with fresh legs. We got to the top, looked at each other, agreed it must be one of those mean double dip hills where you think you've got to the top only to go down a bit and then up again. But it wasn't. So we cruised into Napier at 9am with the whole day to enjoy and explore. We'd booked into a backpackers with a central location to enhance our experience. Napier is a beautiful town nestled in...

Day 21 Napier to Waipukurau 71km. Mark strolled round the national aquarium for close encounters with kiwis & sharks. Sunday, so another farmers market. This one was in Hastings, a chic town 20km south of Napier. It was an upmarket affair, things were twice the price of the one at Ohope last week. Still, we had some cherries that were close to perfection, got ourselves a gourmet supper and sat on the grass in the sun singing along (in my case) to "Brown Eyed...

Day 19 Wairoa to Lake Tutira 74km Minus 7km, but more of that later. I can't tell you my relief at 7.45 this morning when Mark said "I don't really fancy a pie, I don't think I'm going to have one". Anyway, we headed out of Wairoa with a little trepidation. It was already hot and we had a very hilly day ahead. We'd agreed that we wouldn't easily make it to Napier in one day and had been told about a DOC site at Lake Tutira. Camping in New Zealand is different...

Day 18 Gisborne to Wairoa 99km We left Gisborne after a lovely breakfast with Barry and Sandra, Sandra off to her bed and Barry to finish the barbie ready for his birthday party on Saturday. Barry very naughtily offered us a lift to the top of the big hill we had to climb today. We declined with clenched teeth and white knuckles, departed with a carrier bag of their lovely mandarins from the garden and set off on the wrong road. Realising our mistake before too ...

Day 17 Tokomaru Bay to Gisborne 92km Woke up to drizzle. Went back to bed. Finally braved it around 8ish and got rained on for 30 minutes before it cleared and we had a cool and cloudy run into Gisborne. We remembered the lovely beaches north of Gisborne from 20 years ago. They were much the same then. Cool. Cloudy. Amazingly beautiful and deserted. We spent a nice half hour in Gisborne museum. Bought some warm coats(I remember doing that last time we were here....