2000 Biking New Zealand

Day 21, 28 December 2000, Thursday
Rotorua – Cambridge; 86.4km @ 13kph, Masonic Hotel Backpackers, $40

So...we didn’t make it to Hamilton after all and are spending the night in Cambridge (thoroughbred country) instead, about 23km east of our planned destination. Charl says I’m ‘slapgat’ otherwise we would be in Hamilton. Ja well no fine.

We arrived here at about 5.30pm and decided to stay and were glad to stop and to get off the over-busy SH1 and out of our saddles. Tomorrow we will cycle to Huntly via another route and there get a train to Auckland – thus avoiding the killing fields.

We are staying in an old hotel built in the late-1800s where we are the only guests. We persuaded the young man who showed us to our four-bed room to put any late arrivals elsewhere and to lease us bedding at $5 each – bringing the cost to $20 each. Not their normal practice – bedding is usually available only in the serviced twin which sells at $30 per head. We are at one end of a long wide dark passage with the bathrooms at the far end (shades of The Shining). There are plants growing through the wall and ceiling in the men’s bathroom. And a tongue-in-cheek fire notice in the kitchen that reads: “In event of emergency you will be assisted to vacate this room. If able to walk, put on dressing gown and slippers and proceed quickly to (the bar – you’ll need a drink – a stiff one). If unable to walk, stay in bed – staff will assist you…”!

Many shops are closed and empty in this part of town, and house prices in three agencies have been vastly reduced. This we discovered on our post-shower, pre-dinner stroll – taken essentially to find a phone booth from which to enquire about trains for tomorrow. We met an elderly northern visitor also peering into an agency window who said places like Cambridge and Hamilton are dying because New Zealand is moving from trading with Europe to trading with Indonesia, Japan and the east and “they are very different people”.

We dined a little later on delicious Chinese help-yourself-mix-’n-match-eat-all-you-like-for-$12 in a little place opposite the hotel. Getting through 2l of Coke at the same time. And were bemused by a takeaway eater who managed to stuff an unholy amount of food into a container designed to take considerably less. After dinner we had a drink in the hotel bar where two female guests spent the evening gambling on ‘fruit machines’.

We had switched off the alarm and gone back to sleep this morning. And only left the Funky Green Voyager, therefore, after 9am. Having breakfasted first on oj and muffins. We were expecting a daunting climb out of Rotorua after our discussion with the map man. But it proved to be quite gentle and doable – although we essentially climbed on and off for about 25km. Through pretty scenery. Green hills, soft trees, incongruous rocky outcrops – admonishing fingers with religious quotes thereon. Yellow daisies and white. Rivers and a lake with a pretty campsite and speed boats towing laughing kidz on special tubes. We broke for tea in shady Fitz Glade, saw this sign in Tapapa: “Tapapa School – use at your own risk” (!), and wished time and scheduling could have allowed us to stop in charming Tirau for the night. It was again quite a windy day and, where the shoulder fell away, quite nerve-wracking. We also passed one sad family redecorating a roadside cross. An incredibly poignant vignette. The man standing with his thumb and forefinger at his eyes; two women kneeling at work. An incredibly poignant vignette.